Click here to see a map of my walk.
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It’s 7:00 am and the hot sun is up already along with the woman whose voice is heard over the loud speakers mounted on nearly every block in Hanoi. Her crackling voice tells those who are interested (as well as those who are not) about the latest news, health care suggestions, weather and anything else that the government feels is important for the people to know. Now that most people have a radio or television, this outdated method of communication is one of the last pieces of the Communist puzzle that once made-up this amazing little country of eighty million people. Of course one of the other significant pieces of that puzzle is the fact that the Communist Party still governs Vietnam.

After a quick breakfast of coffee and a baguette toasted in a frying pan (thank God the French left something good behind!), I begin my daily walk to the Fine Arts University on Yet Kieu Street. It’s a beautiful five-kilometer walk largely through the tree-lined streets of what has become known as the French Quarter of Hanoi. The area was built largely during the French occupation of Vietnam and many of the old French colonial style villas have been impeccably restored and now house diplomats and their families from all over the World.
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Just a few hundred feet from our home, along a busy street, facing Truc Bach Lake, I first pass a moldy concrete monument to Senator John McCain. You may remember that he was the U.S. fighter pilot shot down over Hanoi and spent several years in a POW camp there known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton and to Vietnamese as the Hoa Lo Prison, a city prison built by the French to house Vietnamese prisoners. Every time I pass this monument I am baffled. Now Senator John McCain was rescued by local Vietnamese villagers from Truc Bach Lake after he was shot down while dropping bombs in an attempt to destroy one of Hanoi’s important bridges over the Red River. The U.S. attempted many times to destroy this important supply line often missing their target and killing innocent men, women and children who just happened to live near by. Don't forget this was long before we started using "smart" bombs. In spite of the fact that Senator McCain was one of the members of Congress who lead the way to the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and the normalization of relations, I still find it amazing that the Vietnamese have built this monument to him. Would the U.S. ever build such a monument to anyone who dropped bombs on us for any reason? 
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After crossing several streets and the absolute flood of cars, motorbikes, bicycles, cyclos, and various other two and four wheeled carts moving everything from live pigs to construction material, the next landmark I pass is the French-built Catholic Church Cua Bach. Last week my curiosity piqued and I went into the hulking old cement fortress. Inside, among the flaking paint and bare light bulbs, were several older Vietnamese women chanting. Their voices echoed through the heavy air of the inside of the musty church. I sat for a few minutes and couldn’t help but think about all these women had been through during their lifetimes. How many had lost sons, husbands, daughters, and other friends and family members to the wars that had come to Vietnam during their lifetimes? But now it was only the sound of their soft voices that seemed timeless and strangely comforting.
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Every few hundred feet along the wall which encloses this housing stands a guard. These young men in their starched uniforms and AK 47 rifles look both innocent and intimidating. The first few days I walked past them we both avoided making eye contact. But slowly we have overcome our roles as soldier and foreigner and now we smile and nod to each other. I wonder if by the end of my year if we will actually have a conversation. I really wish I could speak their language.

Last night on my walk home one of the soldiers motioned me over to ask the time. I showed him my watch and he thanked me in perfect english.
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My next encounter was a very impressive large granite memorial sculpture whose center has been carefully carved out and lined with gold leaf. This is Vietnam’s memorial to her millions of lost soldiers from the French and American Wars. I am reminded that while we morn the loss of over 58,000 American soldiers in Vietnam, they morn the loss of over three million men, women and children from the American War alone and still look for over 300,000 of their missing for over thirty years now. As I stare at this monument lost deeply in thought I suddenly hear the sound of loud voices behind me. I turn around only to discover a group of soldiers engaged in a hot game of bad mitten. We smile at each other and I continue on my journey wondering who will win the game.

As I pass by the monument I can begin to see the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum located about 100 yards behind it. This soviet-designed edifice seems so out of keeping with Ho’s own wishes that he be cremated and his ashes buried in parks in the northern, central and southern regions of Vietnam where they were to be maintained by old people. After his death in 1969, the communist government decided to ignore Uncle Ho’s (as the Vietnamese call him) wishes and place his body here for the Vietnamese people to pay their respects. From the steady line of visitors, both Vietnamese and foreign, after nearly thirty years, I can’s help but wonder if they were right. As much as I would like to see his last wish granted I have to admit that I have been to the mausoleum several times myself and always find it a uniquely moving experience. I could go on at length here about Ho Chi Minh and my relationship with him, from toasting his death while stationed in Pleiku, South Vietnam, to writing a book in celebration of his life, but I won’t. I am only half way to by destination and there are still several interesting places along the way.
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Just a few feet down the road is General Vo Nguyen Giap’s home. He lives in a run-down old French villa that is nearly hidden from the street by the overgrown trees and bushes.   In case you have forgotten, General Giap was Ho Chi Minh’s General who is largely credited with designing the wars against the French and Americans. The General is now 93 years old and his health is fading but he still manages to see guests several times a week. I had the pleasure to meet the General several years ago in 1992, when he came to my exhibition “As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War” at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi. He and his wife spent more than an hour looking carefully at each painting and asking numerous questions. He seemed to take great pride in the fact that both American and Vietnamese artists had been so generous and anxious to bring our two countries together. I think he really shared their same feelings. I was very surprised at his kind and gentle manner, not what I expected from a man who is considered by many to be one of the greatest military leaders of all time. 

(Two years ago I had the honor to meet the General again only this time at his home and during the Tet holidays. I was there to present him with a copy of the artist’s book I had made in honor of Ho Chi Minh titled “An Artist’s Portrait of HO CHI MINH”. The nearly ten years which had passed since our first meeting showed in his walk and eyes and I knew that this would likely be the last time I would see him in person. Because of the preciousness of his time and the number of dignitaries paying their respects to the General during the holidays, we had a fifteen-minute meeting scheduled just to present him with the book. After rather formal but personal greetings, I respectfully handed him the book where upon and he insisted on looking at every page. Together with his wife and son the General carefully and gently turned each of the 128 loose pages of the book. He seemed very moved by what he saw. He placed the book on his table and we said good-bye. I walked down his driveway with my friends to see what was now a long line of cars with people anxiously waiting to pay their holiday respects the General. We got in our little car and slowly and quietly drove away.)

 That driveway was now empty and only my memories and a few photographs remain.     
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I now turn the corner onto Street to be greeted by no other than a fifteen-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin or as the Vietnamese have etched on the base of the statue, VI LE NIN. I have to wonder if this is the last statue of Lenin still standing? In contrast to the General’s home, the park surrounding the statue is impeccably maintained. This just seems wrong to me. I have to admit that I have not read Lenin’s writings extensively but think that what is most important to the Vietnamese was the fact that the Soviet Union, using a Marxist-Leninist philosophy, helped the Vietnamese to free their country from French colonialism and American imperialism. I expect that is why Lenin occupies such an important place in Hanoi.
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I am now just a few blocks from the Fine Arts College but there are still a couple of important landmarks ahead. The next one is twin office and residential towers built on the same site where the Hoa Lo Prison (known as the Hanoi Hilton to Americans) once stood. Where American POWs once suffered torture and the extreme heat of the Hanoi summer and bone chilling cold of Hanoi’s damp winter, wealthy business men now play tennis on the fifth floor tennis courts while sipping their fresh ice cold lime drinks. These tennis courts overlook a small portion of the Hoa Lo Prison which has been preserved to show tourists where the Americans were held. I am reminded that the first U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Pete Peterson, has returned to the U.S. with his Vietnamese wife after four years as Ambassador, slightly less then the time he spent at the Hoa Lo Prison. Wars seem so unnecessary when we look back. When will we have that same perspective from present day?
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The next and last landmark I pass, which is nearly across the street from the Fine Arts College is the Soviet Cultural Center. This hulking building was designed and built by the former Soviet Union as a gift to the Vietnamese people. It stands today as a symbol of friendship between the Vietnamese and Russian people. Across the street and next to the Fine Arts University is the French Cultural Center. I ask myself what has the United States done to help the Vietnamese people? To show our friendship? Where is the U.S. cultural center? When will we ever understand that war is not the solution but rather the problem that plagues all of us?
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Oh well, I am now at school where I join several students and faculty for tea at the local tea shop at the entrance gate. The subject is art and my walk now fades back into my memory until tomorrow’s walk.

I hope you have enjoyed the walk and if you find yourself in Hanoi over the next year or so that you will knock on the door at 36 Lac Chinh and ask me to take the walk again only with you this time.

C. David Thomas
Fulbright Scholar, Hanoi, Vietnam 2002-03
Director, Indochina Arts Partnership, Newton, MA, USA

 

David Thomas was born in Pride’s Corner, Maine, in 1946 and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pleiku, South Vietnam, 1969-70. He recently left a twenty-five teaching career at Emmanuel College in Boston to pursue his art career and work between the United States and Vietnam. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant to Vietnam for 2002-03 where he is teaching at the Hanoi Fine Arts College. He is married to Jean Thomas and has two grown children Aaron and Mandy.