Vietnam: Museums and Amputees

Ben Tahn Market.
Saigon, Vietnam.

The man who split his time equally between standing behind the desk at the Giang Linh Hotel changing my U.S. dollars to Vietnamese dong, and sitting on a sofa watching TV and smoking told me that the War Remnants Museum was 1. Not very far, and 2. Cheap.  It basically met the minimum requirements for the sort of activity I was looking for.

I had spent a couple of days wandering around Saigon trying half-assed not to get lost.  I got lost routinely, but that is the point sometimes.  I would set out before noon or whenever I woke up, and return to my hotel for a couple of hours after eating lunch in one of the identical alcove restaurants to avoid the heat.  I would then head out again and find a market or some other place to walk around, take photographs, or just eat.  I was looking for some sort or tourist activity and the War Remnants Museum seemed to be the answer.

I walked as far as the Ben Than market, which has existed in one form or another since the early 1500’s, before succumbing to the heat and hopping into an official looking cab that did not screw me.  Fifteen minutes of snarled traffic and dilapidated buildings covered in grime and foliage later I was walking onto the War Remnants Museum compound.

Ben Tahn Market, outside.
Saigon, Vietnam.

The museum has one tall cinderblock structure that looks something like a parking garage (admittedly a pretty nice parking garage) that is surrounded by various vehicles and devices of the American war machine.  It seems to be the most heavily guarded parking garage in history.

Everything on display in the perimeter seems to be from the American military.  Amongst the landing craft, fighter jets, tanks, and attack helicopters are piles of unexploded ordinance.  Families take turns posing for photos next to giant machine-gun turrets. 

Off to the side is the recreation of a South Vietnamese political prison.  It is a hard thing to take in.  There is a guillotine that has seen heavy use.  The cages, regardless of being recreations, induce a feeling of intense claustrophobia when mixed with thick, hot air.  Every here and there are tools of torture on display next to photos of their results. 

Through the sights.  War Remnants
Museum.  Saigon, Vietnam.

The museum itself is largely dedicated to the reality of war in the eyes of the Vietnamese who suffered through it.  Walls are dedicated to the My Lai Massacre and in remembrance of the innocents of unknown villages who died at the hands of the “murderous, savage American aggressors.” 

It is a hard place to take in as an American.  While it is now called the War Remnants Museum it has had a few other names that were less subtle, for instance: The War Crimes Museum, The Museum of American War Crimes, and The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government.  The name has been changed to its current as part of Vietnam’s “normalization of relations with the United States.” 

Other exhibits include an extensive look at the results of Agent Orange, napalm, and unexploded ordinance.  Haunting black-and-whites depict children born with extreme mental and physical defects.  They are almost all wide-eyed and smiling, seemingly unaware at the horrible predicament they were born into; victims of a war long over. 

Another exhibit displays the photographs of the many photographers who died in Vietnam from dozens of countries. 

Outside, before I leave to get screwed over for the final time by a taxi driver, a man calls to me.  I see him first out of the corner of my eye.  As I turn I am taken back, shocked for a moment and then embarrassed that the man might have seen my surprise.  The man is a double amputee.

The Guillotine.  War Remnants Museum.
Saigon, Vietnam.

He tells me in quiet, fast, broken English that he had the misfortune of stepping on a leftover landmine.  His arms are cut to thin nubs of purple and bulbous scar-tissue just below his elbows. 

I notice them for the first time as he pulls out a book that he is trying to sell me.  The book is about the legacy of unexploded ordinance and mines that remain in Vietnam.  I look to his face and am again shocked, sickened, and then embarrassed.  His face is scarred to hell.  Purple lines and tears run from his chin through his lips to the rimmed hat that he is wearing.  His right eye is cloudy, faded, distorted, and dead.

I feel that I should buy his book but it is expensive.  He is persistent and becomes irritated when I tell him as polite as possible that I won’t be buying anything from him.  He takes the book from me and puts it back into an old saddle bag with his forearms.  He asks me where I am from and I tell him I am from Canada.