A Volunteer in Viet Nam
“Since words don’t cost money let us say nice things to one another.” - Vietnamese saying
“America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” - J.Q Adams 1821
Words shape and reflect the way we think about things. As a man thinketh, so he does. During my four years in Viet Nam with International Voluntary Services I came to know people through their language while introducing them to my own.
I arrived in September 1966 at Tan Son Nhat airport with a group of about 20 volunteers. After a short orientation at the IVS central office in Saigon we traveled to the Central Highlands resort city of Dalat for 6 weeks of Vietnamese language training. Known for its cool weather, pine forests, French art deco architecture, and salubrious climate, Dalat was a wonderful place to study. As soon as we were introduced to words and sentences we could go out and use them right away.
Because our first teachers were northern Vietnamese we first learned their dialect. Northern is staccato and rapid, Central is twangy and sing-song, Southern is smooth and flowing. There are more differences among Vietnamese dialects than among Massachusetts, Mississippi and Montana accents in the US - differences in vocabulary words and expressions as well as in rhythms and intonations.
Upon returning to the capital I was assigned to teach English at the Saigon Normal School. With a salary of $80 a month and a clothing allowance of $150 a year, I had to find an affordable living arrangement. The director of IVS, Don Luce, found me an ideal situation with South Vietnamese nuns, Lovers of the Cross, in the Thanh Linh (Holy Spirit) Convent. In exchange for room and board I taught English four evenings a week. From there I could conveniently walk to the Normal School every day. It allowed me to deepen my spirituality as well as enjoy the nuns’ friendship.
I loved teaching at the Saigon Normal School. My students delighted in American pop music. Their favorite song was “Love Potion Number 9.” They also loved Salem menthol cigarettes. There were challenges. The school was overcrowded, noisy, and lacking books. Many of my students’ lives were unsettled with young men being drafted and with funerals for relatives killed in the war.
I did not realize initially how serious the war was. The US had recently made decisions to escalate the number of American troops. But what disturbed me right from the beginning was the contrast between the luminous beauty of the scenery and the pervasive American tanks, planes, helicopters and barbed wire. That painful contrast would haunt me for years.
At times teaching English became a sideline to more pressing work I undertook at a refugee center and orphanage. This sanctuary was called Phu My, managed by the Sisters of Saint Paul de Chartres. I drove sick children to the hospital and took them for appointments and surgeries when needed. I brought amputees to a center for artificial limbs. I picked up donated goods and clothing from the airport and wrote thank-you notes to the donors afterwards. Eventually a few of my students at the Normal School volunteered to work there with me. This was part of their training as teachers, to be able to take leadership roles in their communities.
Many of us in IVS, after a year in Vietnam, unfortunately concluded the American involvement there was wrong. In the summer of 1967 we drafted a letter to President Johnson which said, “As volunteers with International Voluntary Services working in agriculture, education and community development, we live with Vietnamese and have learned Vietnamese. We have watched and shared their suffering since 1958. What we have seen and heard of the effects of war compels us to make this statement. The problems the people face are too little understood and their voices too long muffled. We are finding it increasingly difficult to pursue our main objective: helping the people of Vietnam. Our small successes are being negated by the violence and destruction around us. To stay in Vietnam and remain silent is to fail to respond to the first need of the Vietnamese people – peace.”
The letter goes on to list many wrongs and injustices. It was signed by 49 IVS volunteers and on September 19, 1967 sent to the NY Times, the US ambassador in Saigon, Ellsworth Bunker and President Lyndon Johnson. I am very proud to say I participated in writing, signing, and sending this letter.
For the Tet (New Year) holiday in 1968 I traveled to Dalat to visit two of my IVS friends. We found ourselves trapped in our house when the North Vietnamese along with their southern allies, the Viet Cong, attacked the city. We were moved to the villa of Frank Weisner who was the senior USAID advisor in that province. He was in radio contact with US military authorities and everyone thought we would be safer with him in his large villa than in the IVS house. We spent two weeks there, often in fear that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would rocket our house as they had done to other westerner’s houses in Dalat, but they left us alone. We could sometimes see them in their tanks on the street in front of the villa. We rationed all of the food at the house, and did not go out for two weeks. We read books, talked, and tried to distract ourselves from our fears. Finally my friends and I were evacuated to Nha Trang by helicopter. There I was asked to be an interpreter at the US military hospital in Nha Trang. My role was to speak with wounded North Vietnamese soldiers and tell them they would be operated on before being taken to prison. Even those who were taking their last breaths, smiled and told me I spoke beautiful Vietnamese and thanked me for learning it. I will NEVER, as long as I live, forget their absence of anger and their willingness to be nice to me.
The Vietnamese language has hundreds of polite forms, terms of deference, and phrases and words to show respect. It has an intricate system of kinship terms. All relatives – distant and close, maternal and paternal – are clearly identified. The first person singular is seldom used. Instead of using ‘I’ or ‘me’, the Vietnamese use a term which conveys the relationship to the person being spoken to. For example, if you are speaking to your mother, you refer to yourself as em which means ‘your child’. If you are speaking to your younger sister, you refer to yourself as ‘older sister’ (chi) or ‘older brother’ (anh).
The people have an inner joy and a deep desire to please other people. They seem to live to make other people happy. They are social and playful and friendly. You feel accepted by them as they greet you, extend hospitality, and befriend you in a very spontaneous way. The cordiality shown me was enthusiastic wherever I went. Children would call out on the street “Ba my, ba my, co Salem khong?” [Translate this.] Everywhere I went people invited me to meals, gave me gifts, took an interest in me, and asked many questions about me and my family. When I told them my name was Hope (Hy Vong) they regaled in joy and laughter. My colleagues at the Normal School nicknamed me “Yellow Deer” (con nai vang). I was given gifts, invited to hundreds of dinners and festivals.
Poetry is an integral part of Vietnamese culture. The people grow up thinking that everyone should write poems. To some westerners, these poems may seem overly sentimental. But emotional expression from the heart is very characteristic of most Vietnamese people.
The Vietnamese are tenaciously proud of their history. For centuries they have had a strong sense of themselves as one people with their own culture, language and national identity. They routinely discuss and refer to the lives of their historical heroes, their struggles against Chinese domination and French colonialism. The continuity and cohesiveness of this historical awareness contributes to their solidarity. Their geography is described to be a woman balancing a bamboo yoke across her shoulders on either end of which is suspended a basket for carrying rice. The baskets represent the two deltas of the north and south and the pole represents central Vietnam.
What the Vietnamese said “When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled” was true.
