In the past two weeks, I've visited two sites where mass violence has taken place. First, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the related Genocide Museum (Khmer Rouge violence). Second, the Cuchi Tunnels (where much violence happened during the Vietnam War) here near Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. The two had very different effects on me, specifically on account of how they were presented. In particular, I came back today from the Cuchi Tunnels extremely frustrated by what seemed to me as exploitation and misrepresentation of history, in a way that does an extreme disservice to the people involved.
The Killing Fields had an underlying narrative, a purpose to showing the sites of mass graves, of the terrible violence that occurred. It acknowledged the pain and suffering of those who died in the genocide, as well as those who survived to live torn lives. Repeating the slogan you'll hear if you go to any Holocaust museum, concentration camp, or other similar sites of mass violence, this site declared "Never Again." Never again should anything like this occur. And educating the world-wide public, through tourism, is one way to prevent future genocide and mass violence.
On the other hand, my experience of the guided Cuchi Tunnels tour was one which not only had no underlying narrative - no greater purpose to being in this place that echoed such recent, terrible memories - but seemed to glorify and even promote the type of violence that had occurred here nearly 40 years ago. Rather than providing an educational experience that could encourage us to learn about a topic many of us know little about (we really learn squat in the US about the Vietnam War), the tour encouraged us to laugh at men having their legs blown off by bombs fitted into empty Coke cans, they sold necklaces with empty bullet cartridges used in local battles, and even offered us the chance to shoot AK-47s, high caliber machine guns, and basically any gun of your choosing that was used in the conflict - at a price.
At this site, about 1/3 of the way through a tour of tunnels where countless soldiers on either side were burned alive, buried alive, impaled by bamboo sticks, shot full of bullets, or killed in various other ways, we were offered the chance - by excited Vietnamese workers - to fire the same guns which killed these people. And yes, quite a few tourists were excited to give it a go. I felt sick, incredibly disgusted, and pissed off. I still don't understand how you could be learning about the horrors of war, seeing the realities of the painful deaths people experienced, and then pick up a gun and shoot it for fun on the same ground.
But that's what was morbidly fascinating about this location, about the way these tours are conducted. The realities of what occurred are completely separated from your experience as a tourist. You don't learn any of the history here, or get any personal stories about individuals who suffered or died. You just see the "cool," terrifying traps the soldiers used to ambush the enemy; take a crawl through the underground tunnels where you know terrible events took place, but you aren't told what; or pose in front of a broken down US tank, whose occupants' bodies probably still lie somewhere nearby.
So, somewhat out of spite, but also out of a fascination of how people could be so unthinkingly inhuman, I started taking pictures of other tourists' smiling poses in front of real torture machines, weapons that have ended many lives, and sites which indicate the difficult experiences of the people who once were here.
Here, we crowd around a small hole, an entrance to the vast underground network of tunnels which the Vietnamese guerrillas used as homes, shelter from US bombs, and ambush points. The atmosphere was jovial as nearly half of these people got in to have a smiling (or faux "scared") expression for a photo which will surely then be shared on Facebook as "look at the fun time I had in Vietnam!" Jokes were made about an overweight guy who wouldn't be able to fit.
Here, most of the group took their turn getting individual and group pictures in front of a broken down US tank, smiles all around. Nothing was said about why it was here, who once occupied it, etc.
And here, close to a dozen people were in line to go shoot some guns. Smiling and laughing at the opportunity to do something so unique.
Yet here, amid the sounds of nearby gunfire, a young child cries loudly and persistently. In my opinion, he was one of the few sane people present.
This may be one big rant, but I'm having some trouble with bigger issues here. It may be wrong of me to come here and just straight up say, "What you Vietnamese are doing here, in your own country, with your own history, is plain wrong." Incredibly condescending, not to mention potentially colonialist when viewed from particular lenses. What surprised me is how OK the Vietnamese here were with all this. Obviously, since they run the place. My own guide was a soldier who fought and was shot twice - he showed us the wounds to prove it. Yet here he was, guiding us around without any contextualization for what we were seeing. And he's been doing this for 23 years.
Things get complicated because of stories like his. After the war, Vietnam was not in a good place socially or economically. It was hard to find work, and therefore hard to feed yourself and your family. My guide became a barber for 10 years, before this site opened up and he became a guide. He said he earns more $ in a day here than in a month as a barber. And that's a trend - they do it for the $. Can you blame them? If there is a demand for something, they'll supply it. Especially when it's from Westerners who have a ton of $ to throw around, and they do. Even if it means selling bullets and allowing us to shoot the very guns used to kill their friends and family. While many American Vietnam vets experience PTSD and try to separate themselves from these types of memories, here is this guy purposefully immersing himself in it. I genuinely wonder how much of it is for him - for his own personal goals - and how much is driven by money.
Ultimately, I don't know what this says about the Vietnamese involved. It's impossible for me to judge without coming from their perspective, which I just don't know. But I think it says something about us, about tourist culture. Some of it is absolutely sick. It's sick because we often go to these places in complete ignorance of the context. Either we just don't care enough to learn, or we know and don't care.
I've seen this all over Asia, with tourists paying to get in cages with medically sedated and abused elephants and tigers, paying to feed live ducks and other animals to crocodiles at a shoddy "zoo," to those in Cambodia paying quite a bit of money to blow up a live cow with an RPG. No shit, that actually happens - I know a guy who did it, and said immediately afterwards it was a huge mistake. Apparently they completely disintegrate. I'm not even going to touch sex tourism, which is so ubiquitous here it's become normal. People just don't care enough to not be purposefully ignorant of the consequences of their actions. It's incredibly disheartening.
I wonder if all this is why this dude is on his fifth beer before noon?
The Killing Fields had an underlying narrative, a purpose to showing the sites of mass graves, of the terrible violence that occurred. It acknowledged the pain and suffering of those who died in the genocide, as well as those who survived to live torn lives. Repeating the slogan you'll hear if you go to any Holocaust museum, concentration camp, or other similar sites of mass violence, this site declared "Never Again." Never again should anything like this occur. And educating the world-wide public, through tourism, is one way to prevent future genocide and mass violence.
On the other hand, my experience of the guided Cuchi Tunnels tour was one which not only had no underlying narrative - no greater purpose to being in this place that echoed such recent, terrible memories - but seemed to glorify and even promote the type of violence that had occurred here nearly 40 years ago. Rather than providing an educational experience that could encourage us to learn about a topic many of us know little about (we really learn squat in the US about the Vietnam War), the tour encouraged us to laugh at men having their legs blown off by bombs fitted into empty Coke cans, they sold necklaces with empty bullet cartridges used in local battles, and even offered us the chance to shoot AK-47s, high caliber machine guns, and basically any gun of your choosing that was used in the conflict - at a price.
At this site, about 1/3 of the way through a tour of tunnels where countless soldiers on either side were burned alive, buried alive, impaled by bamboo sticks, shot full of bullets, or killed in various other ways, we were offered the chance - by excited Vietnamese workers - to fire the same guns which killed these people. And yes, quite a few tourists were excited to give it a go. I felt sick, incredibly disgusted, and pissed off. I still don't understand how you could be learning about the horrors of war, seeing the realities of the painful deaths people experienced, and then pick up a gun and shoot it for fun on the same ground.
But that's what was morbidly fascinating about this location, about the way these tours are conducted. The realities of what occurred are completely separated from your experience as a tourist. You don't learn any of the history here, or get any personal stories about individuals who suffered or died. You just see the "cool," terrifying traps the soldiers used to ambush the enemy; take a crawl through the underground tunnels where you know terrible events took place, but you aren't told what; or pose in front of a broken down US tank, whose occupants' bodies probably still lie somewhere nearby.
So, somewhat out of spite, but also out of a fascination of how people could be so unthinkingly inhuman, I started taking pictures of other tourists' smiling poses in front of real torture machines, weapons that have ended many lives, and sites which indicate the difficult experiences of the people who once were here.
Here, we crowd around a small hole, an entrance to the vast underground network of tunnels which the Vietnamese guerrillas used as homes, shelter from US bombs, and ambush points. The atmosphere was jovial as nearly half of these people got in to have a smiling (or faux "scared") expression for a photo which will surely then be shared on Facebook as "look at the fun time I had in Vietnam!" Jokes were made about an overweight guy who wouldn't be able to fit.
Here, most of the group took their turn getting individual and group pictures in front of a broken down US tank, smiles all around. Nothing was said about why it was here, who once occupied it, etc.
And here, close to a dozen people were in line to go shoot some guns. Smiling and laughing at the opportunity to do something so unique.
Yet here, amid the sounds of nearby gunfire, a young child cries loudly and persistently. In my opinion, he was one of the few sane people present.
This may be one big rant, but I'm having some trouble with bigger issues here. It may be wrong of me to come here and just straight up say, "What you Vietnamese are doing here, in your own country, with your own history, is plain wrong." Incredibly condescending, not to mention potentially colonialist when viewed from particular lenses. What surprised me is how OK the Vietnamese here were with all this. Obviously, since they run the place. My own guide was a soldier who fought and was shot twice - he showed us the wounds to prove it. Yet here he was, guiding us around without any contextualization for what we were seeing. And he's been doing this for 23 years.
Things get complicated because of stories like his. After the war, Vietnam was not in a good place socially or economically. It was hard to find work, and therefore hard to feed yourself and your family. My guide became a barber for 10 years, before this site opened up and he became a guide. He said he earns more $ in a day here than in a month as a barber. And that's a trend - they do it for the $. Can you blame them? If there is a demand for something, they'll supply it. Especially when it's from Westerners who have a ton of $ to throw around, and they do. Even if it means selling bullets and allowing us to shoot the very guns used to kill their friends and family. While many American Vietnam vets experience PTSD and try to separate themselves from these types of memories, here is this guy purposefully immersing himself in it. I genuinely wonder how much of it is for him - for his own personal goals - and how much is driven by money.
Ultimately, I don't know what this says about the Vietnamese involved. It's impossible for me to judge without coming from their perspective, which I just don't know. But I think it says something about us, about tourist culture. Some of it is absolutely sick. It's sick because we often go to these places in complete ignorance of the context. Either we just don't care enough to learn, or we know and don't care.
I've seen this all over Asia, with tourists paying to get in cages with medically sedated and abused elephants and tigers, paying to feed live ducks and other animals to crocodiles at a shoddy "zoo," to those in Cambodia paying quite a bit of money to blow up a live cow with an RPG. No shit, that actually happens - I know a guy who did it, and said immediately afterwards it was a huge mistake. Apparently they completely disintegrate. I'm not even going to touch sex tourism, which is so ubiquitous here it's become normal. People just don't care enough to not be purposefully ignorant of the consequences of their actions. It's incredibly disheartening.
I wonder if all this is why this dude is on his fifth beer before noon?
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