Entrepreneurial Farmer

Ambrosio R. Villorente

Vietnamese Love of Country
Wins The War

After a brief rest and breakfast, I asked the An Tam Hotel information desk for information about Ho Chi Minh City. With that question, Ms. Cu Taw, the information officer instantly reached out for some brochure, gave it to me and explained each tour.
After a brief study, I selected three tours, one for each day. For all the three tours, I paid US$80.00 and nothing more. A tourist bus picked me at my hotel and conducted me to my hotel at the end of each tour.

The Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) tour is one half day from 1:00 o’clock to 6:00 o’clock in the afternoon. It cost US$23 per person which included a mini van, English speaking guide, mineral water, and wet tissue.

The tour brought me with Dr. Jayme and other visitors to architectural landmarks in Ho Chi Minh City like the Notre Dame Cathedral. Saigon Post Office. Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum, and Thien Haw Pagoda in Cho Lon – China Town.

Before the coming of the French in 1854, some 1000 Chinese arrived in Vietnam who tried to propagate Budhism, hence the Chinese Pagoda and China Town.

In 1854, the French came and occupied Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia which until the end of World War II were called Indo China.

The French, being Roman Catholics also tried to propagate Christianity in Vietnam. They built churches such as the Notre Dame Cathedral and other churches.

Vietnam being the colony of France, the French constructed a three storey building which housed the set of government. This is a building designed by the first Vietnamese architect who graduated architecture course in France. The building was completed in 1859 and used by the French colonial govern-ment. Since 1975, after the Americans left Vietnam, the building is renamed Reunification Palace and converted into a museum.

The palace consists of 95 rooms but with time allotted for the visit, I only saw 25 rooms.

Based on the records, and guest books, the Reunification Palace has an average of 3,000 daily visitors, 50 percent of whom are foreigners.

The War Remnants Museum was opened to visitors on Sept. 24, 1975. The museum specializes in research, collecting, preserving, and exhibiting the remnants proofs of Vietnam War crimes and their consequences. This is visited annually by 500,000 Vietnamese and foreigners.

Outside the museum grounds are war machines and equipment used against the Vietnamese by the American warriors. Inside are pictures depicting the hardships the Vietnamese experienced during the American occupation and pictures portraying the effects of war especially the use of chemicals.

Indeed, viewing the exhibits, the difficulties the Vietnamese experienced with the US military might in 1955 to 1975, any person is puzzled and will hardly believe why the United States left Vietnam in 1975 after killing people of both gender, of any age and raping women regardless of their looks. They levelled off Vietnamese forest, destroyed their houses and families.

I believe in the Vietnamese tenacity, patience, endurance, love of country, persistence and in their other virtues. They could not have driven the French and the Americans.

How did the Vietnamese got their peace? their freedom? their independence? Vietnam was a French colony in 1875 – 1954. The United States took over from 1955 – 1957. Their love of country won the wars.

I will answer the above questions in my column in the next issue. Let us visit Cu Chi Tunnels which total 250 kilometers long. /MP