listening to him declare independence. You see, two months earlier, American soldiers parachuted into Vietnam and trained Ho Chi Minh’s soldiers so they could better fight against the Japanese. American soldiers right here.”
Another piece of trivia I never learned at Butler High.
“You know something else. No one likes to talk about this, but it’s true. You know in Ho Chi Minh’s will, he wanted to be cremated. He didn’t want to have a mausoleum. He didn’t want to be preserved. No, he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted his ashes divided into three and spread out in each part of Vietnam – north, central, south.”
I couldn’t help but think that maybe I should have done that to dad. Divided the ashes in three and dumped them in each region of Vietnam just to cover all the bases. But no. I had to accidently spill them over a thousand miles away from his intended resting place.
My mother and Lyndora had nearly faded from my consciousness. I lived history. I understood American history more in two hours with a Vietnamese taxi driver than I did spending year after year sitting through social studies classes at Butler High.
By 1 PM, we had visited the B52 site, Ba Dinh Square, Uncle Ho’s House on Stilts, the famed One Pillar Pagoda and the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Tan then treated me to Bun Cha – a famous Hanoi dish of charcoal grilled strips of pork in a spicy vinegar sauce with rice noodles. The twelve hour time zone difference really hit me after lunch, so I napped in the back seat of Tan’s taxi while he slept in the front seat enjoying his normal mid-day siesta.
I dreamt I was back at the banana tree and I had the ashes in the Rubbermaid container. From behind one of the banana tree branches stood a Vietnamese girl wearing a conical hat and a long flowing white ao dai – their traditional long dress with pants underneath. I cocked my head to the side to see her face. She moved slightly, and I could tell she smiled at me. I wanted to get closer, but I held the ashes. I needed to do something with the ashes. She smiled again and waved for me to come. Her face was pale – almost ghostly white. Her skin had no blemishes. Her beauty drew me, and I wanted to be with her, but the ashes wouldn’t let me leave. So I quickly opened the red lid of the container and dumped them on the ground right next to me. As I took two steps toward the girl, I quickly looked back, and I had this sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. Those were not my dad’s ashes. No. They were not my dad’s ashes. ‘Mom’, I said looking at the pile of ashes on the ground. Then I remembered the girl and turned back towards her, but she was gone.
Tan jiggled my belly back and forth.
“Martin. Wake up. Time to go to prison.”
I rubbed my eyes and shook off the bizarre feeling the dream left me in.
“Here. See here? This is Hoa Lo prison.”
Tall mustard yellow cement walls stood about fifteen feet tall right out my taxi window. The tops of the wall were sprinkled with colored broken glass and several strings of barbed wire. In the background, a large modern skyscraper dwarfed the prison.
“During the war with the Americans, the American soldiers called this the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. But this prison not important to us because of that. This prison held many, many patriots who fought in the war of Independence from the French. Come. We see.”
We walked through the arched doorway and came to the ticket seller who expected me to dish over the equivalent of three U.S. dollars to get in. However, Tan did some quick talking, supposedly about how I had no money. She eventually smiled, then laughed. The joke was obviously on me again.
“Come on. It’s okay,” Tan finally said and we entered into the dimly lit, grim prison chambers. Tan told me all about the heroic efforts of the Vietnamese political prisoners who escaped and constantly lived under threat of death. Death in this prison was by guillotine, which was still on
Another piece of trivia I never learned at Butler High.
“You know something else. No one likes to talk about this, but it’s true. You know in Ho Chi Minh’s will, he wanted to be cremated. He didn’t want to have a mausoleum. He didn’t want to be preserved. No, he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted his ashes divided into three and spread out in each part of Vietnam – north, central, south.”
I couldn’t help but think that maybe I should have done that to dad. Divided the ashes in three and dumped them in each region of Vietnam just to cover all the bases. But no. I had to accidently spill them over a thousand miles away from his intended resting place.
My mother and Lyndora had nearly faded from my consciousness. I lived history. I understood American history more in two hours with a Vietnamese taxi driver than I did spending year after year sitting through social studies classes at Butler High.
By 1 PM, we had visited the B52 site, Ba Dinh Square, Uncle Ho’s House on Stilts, the famed One Pillar Pagoda and the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Tan then treated me to Bun Cha – a famous Hanoi dish of charcoal grilled strips of pork in a spicy vinegar sauce with rice noodles. The twelve hour time zone difference really hit me after lunch, so I napped in the back seat of Tan’s taxi while he slept in the front seat enjoying his normal mid-day siesta.
I dreamt I was back at the banana tree and I had the ashes in the Rubbermaid container. From behind one of the banana tree branches stood a Vietnamese girl wearing a conical hat and a long flowing white ao dai – their traditional long dress with pants underneath. I cocked my head to the side to see her face. She moved slightly, and I could tell she smiled at me. I wanted to get closer, but I held the ashes. I needed to do something with the ashes. She smiled again and waved for me to come. Her face was pale – almost ghostly white. Her skin had no blemishes. Her beauty drew me, and I wanted to be with her, but the ashes wouldn’t let me leave. So I quickly opened the red lid of the container and dumped them on the ground right next to me. As I took two steps toward the girl, I quickly looked back, and I had this sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. Those were not my dad’s ashes. No. They were not my dad’s ashes. ‘Mom’, I said looking at the pile of ashes on the ground. Then I remembered the girl and turned back towards her, but she was gone.
Tan jiggled my belly back and forth.
“Martin. Wake up. Time to go to prison.”
I rubbed my eyes and shook off the bizarre feeling the dream left me in.
“Here. See here? This is Hoa Lo prison.”
Tall mustard yellow cement walls stood about fifteen feet tall right out my taxi window. The tops of the wall were sprinkled with colored broken glass and several strings of barbed wire. In the background, a large modern skyscraper dwarfed the prison.
“During the war with the Americans, the American soldiers called this the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. But this prison not important to us because of that. This prison held many, many patriots who fought in the war of Independence from the French. Come. We see.”
We walked through the arched doorway and came to the ticket seller who expected me to dish over the equivalent of three U.S. dollars to get in. However, Tan did some quick talking, supposedly about how I had no money. She eventually smiled, then laughed. The joke was obviously on me again.
“Come on. It’s okay,” Tan finally said and we entered into the dimly lit, grim prison chambers. Tan told me all about the heroic efforts of the Vietnamese political prisoners who escaped and constantly lived under threat of death. Death in this prison was by guillotine, which was still on
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