The world's best Bia

OK, I don't know how to write this. It was evening. John and I had a wonderful meal in Can Tho and are talking about the Bia of that name we had enjoyed in a local dive. It was the best bia I have ever had and cost less than half of a small bottle of water.

As we thought about sleep in our room, the sounds of river side Can Tho (pronounced "Kan Tah") drifted into our large, open 4th floor window and a giant silver statue of Ho Chi Minh stared in from across the road in the park. It was in that park earlier in the evening that John and I had been leaning against the rail looking at the boats go by, and a middle aged man carrying a small child came up to me and said, "Excuse me, sir, but it would be very nice to talk with you." His English was very cultured, utilizing words such as "fortnight" and "embellish". "I believe, sir, that you have been here before," he said. There again are the code words for American Soldier. "Were you an American Soldier in the War?" I said yes, and he and I walked a short way from the crowd. He explained that he had been a South VietNamese Officer who had worked as a translator for American Officers, and that it was a most unusual treat for him to speak to one again. he hangs around the park hoping to find someone with whom to talk. Sometimes Australians, he says, but seldom Americans. They don't come this far south.

He proceeded to tell me his story. In 1975, he said, his money, car, and house were confiscated and given to cadre brought in from the north. He could not flee, he said, because of his family. He was detained and sent to a series of re-education camps, which were really slave labor camps with indoctrination sessions. After some years, he was sent "to the fields" for 2 more years of unpaid labor. Then he was allowed to go to his ancestral home in Can Tho, where he found his family store and his house in the possession of a North VietNamese officer. He was told that if he worked hard, he would be allowed to peddle things on the street after a few years. He is now a bicycle messenger and delivers small packages around town. Every fortnight, he has a bit of meat, he says. The people are very poor. The Communist teach the lie that they create a paradise, but they create one only for themselves and break the backs of the poor, he explained. In all of VietNam, he said, there are only 2 million party members out of 80 million. It is a strict class system with the party members getting rich, the former northern people getting by, and the former southern people enslaved. If one is a party member, he says, one gets free schooling for the children through the university level. One receives free medical care. The rest of us have to pay for it. Physicians who actually went to medical school are reserved for party members. They are creating a new mandarin class, he said, and there is no home for the rest of us. To us and to the world, everything is lies.

I asked him if he had heard what had happened in Russia over the last 10 years. He said no. I told him that Russia had crumbled economically and politically and that the US has sent billions to try to keep them afloat. He told me that it would do no good for it will go only to line the pockets of corrupt officials, as it does in VietNam. He was right on target about Russia. An article I have read recently showed that money flows into private Swiss accounts in the same amounts and at the same time as assistance is sent to Russia. Evidently, corruption is still a way of life, as it was when I was here. In the book, The Bright Shining Lie, is told the story of Col. John Paul Vann. One story records his finding a school with holes in the roof during the rainy season. The VietNamese children were being drenched inside, so he took metal roofing from his supplies and had the roof replaced. The military governor came to him and demanded to be paid for the roof, saying that Vann had stolen the supplies. Vann replied that the material had been paid for and transported by th people of the United States. The General said that everything in his province was his and demanded payment. Vann slapped the man, who composed himself and walked back to his American supplied jeep. Soon thereafter, the General called in an air strike on the new roof, children and all.

Finally, he asked me to be very careful about officials and not to walk away from the park area with out our escort. You will be stopped and have to pay bribes, he said, and tell your son to be careful of what he says to or gives that or any student. (John was engaged in an animated conversation with a young VietNamese man.) The University here trains teachers, and teachers are party members and part of the elite, he said. Only they are allowed to study English here.

Uncle Ho stares into our 3rd floor window in Can Tho