Too Soon
This post has been slow in coming because I've come to the conclusion that while war can sometimes be funny (we actually did get to see Good Morning, Vietnam in the morning while in Vietnam), I can safely say that it's not usually funny. As South Park has taught us, it usually takes 22.3 years for something tragic to be funny. The humor in something tragic also increases exponentially as the tragedy gets further and further away. As Monty Python proved, the Black Plague is now fair game.
So even though almost 33 years has passed since the fall of Saigon (known as the Day of Losing the nation by the Republic of Vietnam supporters), I still can't quiet joke about it nearly as much as I'd like to. And why? Why can't there be a Agent Orange Julius stand in Ho Chi Minh City? It's because even though it's been over three decades since any American soldier stepped foot on Vietnamese soil, there hasn't been a day between then and now when the legacy of war wasn't visible all over the country. Nothing's ended. Time passes, but the funny countdown keeps on being reset.
Or at least it seems that way. I think the reason I can't make fun of Vietnam is the reason I can't usually make fun of the handicapped or the poor. It's much more acceptable to make fun of people with high status than people with low status. How can I as an American make fun of a country that my government destroyed, even if we lost the war? In fact, it's pretty tough to make fun of anything as a white, male, American. The only way I can write this blog is because in Malaysia I'm now poor, a minority, and generally ill-equipped to deal with this world. As a result, I can make fun of anything, as long as I keep on making fun of myself in equal measure. Which I will. (Today, while trying to tell people that I was full [kenyang], I first told them that I was yellow [kuning] and a cat [kucing].)
But the reason that Vietnam is so strange from a humor standpoint is that so many parts of the country that we saw were completely irreverent. Ho Chi Minh City (at least the part that we were in) was awash with drunken tourists from every nationality. We were told to climb up on the old tanks and take pictures (one of the guys that did was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt). How can you be reverent of a battleground when they sell you tchotchkes made out of rifle rounds and you can buy a pirated DVD compilation called: "Brad Pitt - Sexy Man" for less than 3 dollars? This country defies reverence. Or maybe it just capitalizes on it. I couldn't make heads or tails of how I was supposed to feel. On one hand I felt like everyone had shown up to a funeral selling the remains of the dead. But on the other hand, it wasn't even my funeral, so I couldn't really tell them not to. Besides, doesn't that make me the weird one?
We left Ho Chi Minh City for 3 hours of Singapore, which turned out to be as expensive as 2 days of Vietnam. But if you want to buy anything, enjoy reasonably good English, and eat really well done Western food, put it on your list. For like a day. Any more than that and you'll have to start selling your kidneys to get by.
An interesting note on how Malaysia is seen by other countries: while in the process of bringing us to the wrong bus station and overcharging us, our cab driver informed us (I think) that laws are place to encourage the Indian and Chinese populations while discouraging the growth of the Malays. There seemed to be some concern that Singapore could turn into a Muslim state, whereas it now sees itself as a bastion of commerce and secularism in the midst of Malaysia and Indonesia. Worth noting about Singapore are its low incidence of crime and high incidence of caning, which may or may not be related. Also worth noting is that being a woman, over 50 years old, or sentenced to death all render you exempt from caning. So if you're an older woman about to die, go nuts.
On the subject of corporal punishment in Malaysia, it does exist here as well. A bunch of students just came into the teacher's lounge to get punished, so my friend was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do to punish them. After debating whether or not to punch them, he decided to let them go. I did see another teacher give a rap on the palm of each hand to bad students with a thin cane. Sadly, they appeared to be 49 year-old men who were sick, but not terminal. But they were billionaires, so we can laugh at anything that happens to them. It's never too soon to make fun of rich people's pain.
So even though almost 33 years has passed since the fall of Saigon (known as the Day of Losing the nation by the Republic of Vietnam supporters), I still can't quiet joke about it nearly as much as I'd like to. And why? Why can't there be a Agent Orange Julius stand in Ho Chi Minh City? It's because even though it's been over three decades since any American soldier stepped foot on Vietnamese soil, there hasn't been a day between then and now when the legacy of war wasn't visible all over the country. Nothing's ended. Time passes, but the funny countdown keeps on being reset.
Or at least it seems that way. I think the reason I can't make fun of Vietnam is the reason I can't usually make fun of the handicapped or the poor. It's much more acceptable to make fun of people with high status than people with low status. How can I as an American make fun of a country that my government destroyed, even if we lost the war? In fact, it's pretty tough to make fun of anything as a white, male, American. The only way I can write this blog is because in Malaysia I'm now poor, a minority, and generally ill-equipped to deal with this world. As a result, I can make fun of anything, as long as I keep on making fun of myself in equal measure. Which I will. (Today, while trying to tell people that I was full [kenyang], I first told them that I was yellow [kuning] and a cat [kucing].)
But the reason that Vietnam is so strange from a humor standpoint is that so many parts of the country that we saw were completely irreverent. Ho Chi Minh City (at least the part that we were in) was awash with drunken tourists from every nationality. We were told to climb up on the old tanks and take pictures (one of the guys that did was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt). How can you be reverent of a battleground when they sell you tchotchkes made out of rifle rounds and you can buy a pirated DVD compilation called: "Brad Pitt - Sexy Man" for less than 3 dollars? This country defies reverence. Or maybe it just capitalizes on it. I couldn't make heads or tails of how I was supposed to feel. On one hand I felt like everyone had shown up to a funeral selling the remains of the dead. But on the other hand, it wasn't even my funeral, so I couldn't really tell them not to. Besides, doesn't that make me the weird one?
We left Ho Chi Minh City for 3 hours of Singapore, which turned out to be as expensive as 2 days of Vietnam. But if you want to buy anything, enjoy reasonably good English, and eat really well done Western food, put it on your list. For like a day. Any more than that and you'll have to start selling your kidneys to get by.
An interesting note on how Malaysia is seen by other countries: while in the process of bringing us to the wrong bus station and overcharging us, our cab driver informed us (I think) that laws are place to encourage the Indian and Chinese populations while discouraging the growth of the Malays. There seemed to be some concern that Singapore could turn into a Muslim state, whereas it now sees itself as a bastion of commerce and secularism in the midst of Malaysia and Indonesia. Worth noting about Singapore are its low incidence of crime and high incidence of caning, which may or may not be related. Also worth noting is that being a woman, over 50 years old, or sentenced to death all render you exempt from caning. So if you're an older woman about to die, go nuts.
On the subject of corporal punishment in Malaysia, it does exist here as well. A bunch of students just came into the teacher's lounge to get punished, so my friend was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do to punish them. After debating whether or not to punch them, he decided to let them go. I did see another teacher give a rap on the palm of each hand to bad students with a thin cane. Sadly, they appeared to be 49 year-old men who were sick, but not terminal. But they were billionaires, so we can laugh at anything that happens to them. It's never too soon to make fun of rich people's pain.
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