Last year I read a book a friend, Dan, gave me titled, Hanoi, Adieu - A bittersweet memoir of French Indochina by Mandaley Perkins. The book covers a lot of history in the protagonist's life as an expatriate in Vietnam during a very interesting period. I am not sure how much is actual biography (written from interviews with his step-daughter) and how much the author added from research, but it made me fall in love with Hanoi, if but for a little while. It didn't take but a couple of times out on the motorbike to shock me back into the reality that I don't much care for this city. What I liked about the book, however, was the vivid descriptions that were written about Hanoi during the late '30s, 40s and 50s. The locations and scenes that the author described were detailed enough that I knew where they took place, even if the street names were different, or not even provided.
I just finished A Voyage to Cochin China, that I downloaded free as a PDF file from Google Books. I found this fascinating because it was written by a USN Navy Lieutenant who sailed from Salem to Saigon and Danang on the USNS Franklin in 1819 to establish U.S. trade with Cochin China (present day coast line essentially stretching from Hue to HCMC). This cautionary tale appears to be the lieutenant's diary on his adventure. Though the English is a little old and some of the terms were not readily familiar, the story line was outstanding. He described in good detail the corruption that took place after the civil war in the late 1700s in Vietnam, as well as the flora, fauna, and land form of the country. I have been to all of the places he described and could, in my mind's eye, picture the scene as it was at the time. There is no doubt we as people have lost the ability to write, to some degree, with the advent of photographs and other digital media. I made myself keep reading through the slower parts just in the hope that I could adopt the easy style of description that he used that was brief and yet allowed me to "see" what he was describing.
He included several anecdotes that were amusing. My favorite was his story of the royal tiger that was presented by the Viceroy as a gift to the crew. The crew fed the tiger a dog each day as nourishment, but one particularly fierce dog thrown in the cage became the friend of the tiger. Another favorite was the routine throwing of stones by invisible hands. This reminded me of Diep telling me the kids would throw rocks at the Cuban sailors after 1975. She said it was a game to them, and they would run like hell after they threw the rocks. If those Cuban sailors caught the offending kid, they would thrash the hell out of him. Overall, though Vietnam has changed in many ways, I saw many of the Vietnamese characteristics as described by the lieutenant.
His description of the Saigon Citadel got me looking for photos and maps on the web. Though the citadel has long since been destroyed it appears it stood in the general vicinity of the Ba Son Shipyard on the river side and abutted or extended into the Saigon Zoo. The French destroyed it in the late 1800s.
I also took a motorbike ride to Ba Vi National Park with a co-worker last Monday during the government shutdown furlough. The weather was ideal for the ride, and the mountain was cool, if not almost too cool. The park lies about 60 kilometers southwest of Hanoi proper and is within easy reach for a day trip on motorbike. Ba Vi, like Tam Dao, was a favorite resort area of the French in the early 1900s. There are still vestiges of some of the resort's cabins and the chapel, now gutted, on Ba Vi. Beautiful place to just visit. Not a whole lot of activity going on, but the ride itself was the adventure. National Highway 32 has recently been widened and allows for an easy jaunt to the park.
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| Remnants of a 100 Year Old Chapel on Ba Vi National Park Grounds |
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