A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
I figured out where the other tourists are in Saigon -- they're visiting the War Remnants Museum, formerly known as the War Crimes Museum before the name was changed to protect the squeamish. It was the first museum I've been to that was packed with people -- Americans, Brits, Aussies, Chinese, Japanese and a couple Spaniards (very interesting to hear the guide's Vietnamese-accented Spanish).

It really speaks to the ghoulish and voyeuristic nature of humans that this museum is so popular -- it is chock full of horrifying photos of the war, including sections devoted to photojournalists who were killed in action, torture and imprisonment (truly awful -- I had to skip part of this exhibit), assorted war crimes (including a big spread on the My Lai massacre using mostly photos from U.S. sources), the physical, environmental and reproductive effects of Agent Orange, phosphorous bombs and other chemicals used on military and civilian targets. A big display of severely deformed children, the second generation of chemical warfare, was particularly heartrending and included a March of Dimes poster girl with stunted limbs and crutches, daughter of a war vet who had been assigned the task of dropping thousands of tons of A.O. from planes.

The museum is quite one-sided -- for example, the torture/imprisonment exhibit focuses exclusively on the atrocities committed by the Southern Vietnamese "puppets" on captured Northern Vietnamese "patriots". Not a word is mentioned about the treatment of American and South Vietnamese soldiers by the Viet cong. History is written by the victors, as they say. But despite the strong bias, the museum is a powerful photographic testament to the horrors of warfare, how it degrades one's humanity, and the devastation it causes to the civilian population and the environment.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 7:36 PM