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C H A P T E R O N E Return to Vietnam Redemption, Reconciliation, and Salvation While wandering through an exhibit on the “U.S. Special War in the South” at the Museum of the Vietnamese Revolution in Hanoi in the fall of 1999, an inquisitive, middle-aged museum employee named Hà approached me. “Are you a journalist?” she queried, eyeing my notebook and camera. When I explained my reasons for visiting the museum, she invited me to sit down and talk with her. Hà became even more excited upon learning that I was a U.S. citizen and abruptly hurried off, telling me she had something to show me. Moments later, she returned with a thick notebook filled with handwritten English words, phrases, and questions pertaining to Vietnam’s history of war and revolution that she had collected during conversations with international visitors. In the back of the book were several names and addresses of U.S. acquaintances she had befriended at the museum, some of whom had also come to Vietnam for research purposes. In an paradoxical twist of ethnographic agency, Hà, with her notebook containing “native” phrases and contacts , was just as interested in talking to me, her “Other,” about history, as I was in talking to her. Hà and I sat together on a bench in the hallway for over an hour that day, discussing in Vietnamese with a smattering of English (words for the notebook) preand postwar relations between Vietnam and the United States, a topic that continued to animate many of our conversations over the next eight years. Like most urban Vietnamese with whom I spoke, Hà possessed an impressive knowledge of U.S. history and policy and displayed a warm enthusiasm toward U.S. citizens. On account of her employment, she was familiar with differing perspectives that tour- 26 RECONCILIATORY PROJECTS ists brought to the museum, and her notebook helped her to prepare responses when confronted with what she felt was misinformation (for example, about Vietnam ’s intentions in Cambodia) or a general lack of information. She knew, for instance , that many U.S. visitors lacked knowledge of Hồ Chí Minh’s brief residency in New York City, of U.S. economic and military support of the French War, and of Norman Morrison’s self-immolation outside the Pentagon in 1965 in protest of the war—information she felt was essential to understanding the history of and current status of relations between the two countries.1 I continued to visit Hà on a regular basis during my fieldwork. At one point in a conversation in early 2000, I asked her to describe, in her opinion, the general sentiment in Hanoi toward the postwar return of increasing numbers of U.S. citizens twenty-five years after the reunification of the country. Hà smiled upon hearing the question—she had been asked this many times before—and replied:2 In 1997 we had a special exhibit marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of War Invalids and Martyrs Day [July 27]. There was an American woman who came to the exhibit. I saw her standing there crying. When I talked with her, she told me her memories of going out into the streets to protest the war. Youseeweknowmanypeopleinyourcountrydidnotsupportthewarandtried to help Vietnam . . . U.S. soldiers have now started to come back to Vietnam. A group of them went to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City and upon seeing the displays, they wept and went down on their knees to repent (hối hận). I also met a Swedish journalist at the exhibit. He asked me if we Vietnamese hate Americans. I told him, “No, we do not. We understand that the U.S. government was responsible for the war, and not the people.” That is why, when you ask me today how people feel about Americans coming back to Vietnam, I tell you we have no problem with them. Between the people there is no hate. No mother wants her son to be a hero. No mother wants to send her son to war. Hà’sstatementprovidesseveralinsightsintotheroleofthetraumatizedbodyof the U.S. veteran in postwar memory and reconciliation processes. First, her words underscore a classic socialist construct of “war between governments” and “solidarity between people” (see Lenin 1952), a standpoint that in linking Vietnamese and U.S. suffering (particularly between mothers), also recollects the U.S. soldier as enemy and fellow victim of U.S. imperial ambitions. However, at the same time, Hà’s...

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