I just returned from a 15 day trip into Vietnam with an extraordinary group of fellow travelers from Vietnam, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and the UK who I will never forget, and together we experienced the real Vietnam away from the bustle of the contrived tourist images and any western enclaves whatsoever.
We experienced overnight trains, a houseboat in Halong Bay, a motorcycle trip through a winding countryside that finished with a vegan lunch at a Buddhist monastery. We traveled along the Mekong River and we went into War Memorial museums that talked about the horrific war that scarred this people permanently. It also scarred the Americans and their allies who followed the dictates of an erroneous government policy that got them involved in the first place, much like the policy that also consigned troops to the ill-fated Iraq experience.
I will download images to my website of www.jenniferchapinphotographer.com soon, as I have returned only within the past 24 hours and am caught between both worlds. This trip affected me unlike any other.
Here is a profound moment: We were taken to a village in the midst of palm trees and silence, and we were fed a delicious lunch (in fact, I have never eaten so well in my life). It was the same village where there were atrocities committed by a man that was the president of the university I attended in New York City in 2001 and 2002. In fact, it was on September 10th 2001 that we had an evening lecture about the face of war and how all the rules were changed in Vietnam, and how the horrific images that came back from war photographers eventually led to worldwide condemnation of the US as war criminals. The towers fell the next morning.
In May of 2002 there was a UN-sponsored conference held at my university and this man gave the keynote address where he was met with boos and hisses and strong denunciations labeling him as a war criminal.
In this quiet village, now prosperous and thriving, a young Vietnamese man and I had a chat about the war. After lunch we swung on hammocks in the shade and he told me quietly that as a result of this war his people try to have as many children as they can because they never know when they will lose them again. Women and children became the targeted victims of a war where both sides were the perpetrators, and where both suffered enormously.
So many moments, so many images, so many memories! I will leave one more and then let the images speak for themselves: our guide, Tangh, who we all fell in love with, took us to Halong Bay and we stayed overnight in a houseboat. This is a UNESCO site and truly ethereal in its beauty. At the end of the day, after supper, Tangh decided that we were going to sing and so he opened up a karaoke system and there was great hilarity over the next couple of hours as we all made an attempt, largely to the songs of Abba, along with other romantic songs so much loved by the Vietnamese.
Then Tangh sang us a song that was sung by many Vietnamese during the war. Trangh was a little boy of 10 in that war and his village, close to the demarcation line between north and south, was heavily bombed and many villagers were killed. As he began to sing, it seemed to me as though we all drifted out of his periphery completely, leaving him intent upon the words of a song that was projected in great purity, sadness, and poignancy.
We experienced overnight trains, a houseboat in Halong Bay, a motorcycle trip through a winding countryside that finished with a vegan lunch at a Buddhist monastery. We traveled along the Mekong River and we went into War Memorial museums that talked about the horrific war that scarred this people permanently. It also scarred the Americans and their allies who followed the dictates of an erroneous government policy that got them involved in the first place, much like the policy that also consigned troops to the ill-fated Iraq experience.
I will download images to my website of www.jenniferchapinphotographer.com soon, as I have returned only within the past 24 hours and am caught between both worlds. This trip affected me unlike any other.
Here is a profound moment: We were taken to a village in the midst of palm trees and silence, and we were fed a delicious lunch (in fact, I have never eaten so well in my life). It was the same village where there were atrocities committed by a man that was the president of the university I attended in New York City in 2001 and 2002. In fact, it was on September 10th 2001 that we had an evening lecture about the face of war and how all the rules were changed in Vietnam, and how the horrific images that came back from war photographers eventually led to worldwide condemnation of the US as war criminals. The towers fell the next morning.
In May of 2002 there was a UN-sponsored conference held at my university and this man gave the keynote address where he was met with boos and hisses and strong denunciations labeling him as a war criminal.
In this quiet village, now prosperous and thriving, a young Vietnamese man and I had a chat about the war. After lunch we swung on hammocks in the shade and he told me quietly that as a result of this war his people try to have as many children as they can because they never know when they will lose them again. Women and children became the targeted victims of a war where both sides were the perpetrators, and where both suffered enormously.
So many moments, so many images, so many memories! I will leave one more and then let the images speak for themselves: our guide, Tangh, who we all fell in love with, took us to Halong Bay and we stayed overnight in a houseboat. This is a UNESCO site and truly ethereal in its beauty. At the end of the day, after supper, Tangh decided that we were going to sing and so he opened up a karaoke system and there was great hilarity over the next couple of hours as we all made an attempt, largely to the songs of Abba, along with other romantic songs so much loved by the Vietnamese.
Then Tangh sang us a song that was sung by many Vietnamese during the war. Trangh was a little boy of 10 in that war and his village, close to the demarcation line between north and south, was heavily bombed and many villagers were killed. As he began to sing, it seemed to me as though we all drifted out of his periphery completely, leaving him intent upon the words of a song that was projected in great purity, sadness, and poignancy.