Ho Chi Minh Was Once Saigon

“Is France a land of fat, smoking alcoholics?”

This is a headline in the newspaper I am reading in the hotel restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. I can only wonder if the Vietnamese still have a bit a residual resentment lingering from the French Indochina occupation. Or, maybe, like most of us, they just don’t like the French.

We are finally here. After turmoil, we arrived in our rooms about 3 am. We were to be here a day ago, but we were stuck in three-hour traffic on the way to the airport in Seoul and missed our plane. We arrived at the same time the plane was leaving. An unhappy trip, to say the least. Even though I took a day off of work to extend our trip, I went into school defeated. I told the story 14,000 times. However, while I was preaching a depressed story to the children to conjure sympathy (they didn’t really care about missed planes or Vietnam trips), Kristie was orchestrating a do-over. At 3:15, we were on another bus to Incheon Airport. We made it with lots of time to spare. Early enough for me to ponder ways to bottle the excess time spent waiting for planes and transfer it to an account for use when traffic is slow or lines are long. I welcome your suggestions.

The hotel never picked us up, so we took a ride in a taxi. There were dozens of taxis in front, but, for some unknown reason, the guy we hired parked across a dark and dodgy lot. I told him the name of the hotel, and he smiled and tried to make conversation, as he politely swindled us out of our twenty dollars for a $1.00 ride.

There are many scooters in this city.

Today is Thanksgiving, and it is supposed to be 88 degrees. We are not part of a tour, so as soon as Kristie gets down here from showering, we’ll figure out what we’d like to do. There’s a few museums dedicated to the war. I’m interesting in those. It’s one of those places that I knew about but never thought I’d visit. I remember my 11th grade U.S. History teacher telling us about her visit here, and how beautiful it was. That was a long time ago, but I often thought about that. Last year, I taught the Vietnam War for the first time, and learned more than I ever knew about the war before. Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were the only textbooks I read on the matter. Oh yeah, Rambo as well.

For you jazz folks, Herbie Hancock will be in the city tomorrow for a music festival. Finally, after many years of anticipation, I can hear a live version of “Rocket.” I wonder if the robot mannequins travel with him.

I like how people go back and forth referring to this city as Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City. I’m unsure which to call it. Now I know how those Turks in Constantinople felt when it became Istanbul.