A peep into Vietnam's Doi Moi Era
A memoir of life in Saigon during the late eighties
The fall of the Berlin wall, as the 5 decades old cold war came to an end, changed things all over the world. Whether it was Europe, Africa or Asia, no country had remained unaffected by the cold war, so naturally, its demise too, brought about tremendous changes. Vietnam was, very unfortunately so for its people, one such country, at the frontiers of the cold war and a theatre of some of the worst conflicts that played out during the era. So when Gorbachev announced his Glasnost and Perestroika, Vietnam, torn apart by years of conflict, saw light at the end of the tunnel and announced its own- Doi Moi, the rhyming, somewhat musical sounding version of the liberal face of communism. The year was 1986.
In December of 1986, my father accepted a United Nations assignment based at Saigon (Now Ho Chi Minh city) and that is how in May, 1987, I found myself, along with my brother, both teenagers, landing at Saigon's Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport. Today, an airport bursting at seams, Saigon was then, so poorly connected, it is unimaginable that the only reasonable way in was a once a week Air France flight on a 747-Combi that left Paris to arrive at Saigon after multiple hops, via Karachi, Delhi and Bangkok enroute. France had sought to maintain colonial connections despite the conflict.
As the plane touched down and taxied towards the terminal, it crossed rows of American war plane skeletons, as if lined up to showcase trophies of a war won against world's formidable power.
No sooner had we come out of the Airport and boarded the taxi, than my father started to narrate the queerness of a communist state- someone, a total stranger, had come up to him while he was waiting to receive us, and extended his congratulations for finally being reunited with his family. My father was taken by surprise and before he could ask, the stranger smiled and walked away. At social get-togethers ,We were to come across many such strange episodes later- A colleague of my father, while shopping at Dong Khoi, a posh Saigon thoroughfare, was addressed by his name and given advice on how to buy the best pearls- yet again, by a total stranger. There was never any doubt in the mind of a foreigner living in the Saigon of the late eighties, that he was being watched. Papers from my father's office desk would disappear, copied for government scrutiny and would then magically reappear. Chauffeurs, maids, guards, anyone who came in contact with the foreigners, were queried on a pre-designated time and day to obtain information on the whereabouts and movements of aliens on a strict, weekly basis. Going out of the city's 25 kilometers periphery required permission from the government. The government was pedantic almost hysterical about foreigners and nor were they in this game alone. Once, another friend of my father, who worked in the rural hinterlands of the Mekong delta, was approached by an unknown man in a party. The man knew that my father's friend had a daughter studying in the US and her exact whereabouts. He made a not so subtle suggestion that any clues to the missing American service men, especially from the rural Mekong delta area, where my father's friend farm was, would be handsomely rewarded. The Cyclo's lined up infront of our hotel- Cuu Long (Now Majestic), a 1925 built, French colonial era property at the end of Dong Khoi street, a hub for foreigners staying in the city and our home for the first 6 months of our stay, were always on the cue- with each cyclo assigned to a specific foreigner to keep tab on what places in the city were visited.
To a teenager's mind, even though, its backdrop hardly understood, this was 007-spy stuff, with imagination running wild- the whole of Saigon city was a large movie set, with the script of a Bond flick running live and we as characters in it. It couldn't have helped we visited Saigon during school holidays and that the supply of cold war depicting Bond movies (with Roger Moore taking train journeys between Eastern European Countries like Hungary to Vienna, Austria's capital and a major hotspot of cold war era's diplomacy), was unlimited, as was the Rambo series.
To my surprise then, once we finally moved into our own apartment, a former Jailhouse, perhaps earlier used for torturous interrogations & therefore considered well protected with high walls and barbed wires, was full of people from Eastern European countries- there was a couple from Hungary, a bachelor from East Germany and another couple from Poland. The neighboring apartment building had Russian families by the dozen. Vietnam's geo-politics at the time, its history of war with the colonial powers of the Second World War, drove it to be foes with the US & the Western allies, while being friends with countries of the Eastern Bloc- Hungary, Poland, East Germany & Russia. And India. Some reasons for India's involvement could have been historic- such as the presence of Buddhism in Indo-China and a large Tamil Diaspora during the British times, but India, led by Indira Gandhi and completely entangled into the cold era politics, sought to befriend a nation that was a sworn enemy of China. To showcase this, IRCON-the Indian Railway Construction Company had built parts of the Saigon to Hanoi railway line with Indian locomotives and rolling stock providing the weekly train service between the 2 cities that took 4 days to traverse the 1800 kilometers, if the engine didn't break down. There was also an animal husbandry project based in the fertile Mekong delta to rear milk yielding buffaloes that could help diversify Vietnam's agri-based economy. The Vietnamese loved us- we were a curiosity wherever we ventured, with loud cries of "Ando, Ando" (for Indian) following us. Once, an acquaintance pointed us to another Indian connection- the house of the infamous crook-Charles Shobraj (He had an Indian father while his mother was from Saigon). Shobraj is still alive, serving a jail sentence in Kathmandu. There were other influences- right next to the Ben Than market, then a place to buy everything counterfeit, now a popular place for the tourists, was an old Dravidian style temple, complete with an old Tamil Pujari, who spoke very little Tamil and didn't know when the temple was built. Now married to a Vietnamese woman, he had arrived as a little boy with his father on a ship during the Second World War.
Saigonese loved Americans too- but given the political compulsions, and the dictates from their Northern Hanoi based brethren, had to do so more discretely. To this day, there isn't much love lost between the power drunk Northerners and the commerce oriented Saigonese. Many secretly aspired to escape to the US someday. With over a million people of Vietnamese origin, living mainly in the West Coast cities of the US, many adopted during the war, while they were still infants, it was impossible to not have a relationship. As the effects of Doi Moi took hold, money from the non-resident Vietnamese started to flow in as investment. The Dong though continued to weaken, as the government dealt with high inflation. My mother would have to stuff currency notes in a gunny bag to go buy a week's grocery.
Friday evenings were a spectacle in the streets of Saigon- The adult went to the old R & R haunt of the American servicemen- The Rex Hotel with its famous dance bar. The kids could view the athletic spectacle of a cock fight in the high court square or enjoy a spectacular Vietnamese game of Da-Cao played like volleyball except with a shuttle kicked by lithesome, bare top, Vietnamese men. Women were no less beautiful in their long, black, straight hair, falling on their flowing elegant Ao-dai's, a long dress much like Salwaar-kurta's. The street had it all, but the sight that one beholds in the memory forever is the Notre Dame church at the end of the street- it was magical to be there during New Year eves.
The young Vietnamese, banned from going outside the city limits, leave alone going out of the country, were too restless to stay indoors. So, they got on their 100 cc Hondas, with their significant others on the back and did a 100 rounds of the city's main streets- so if you were sitting in one of Dong Khoi's several French style open cafés, having your extra bitter Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk at the bottom (my favorite, though, was ice cream served in a real coconut shell), you were sure to spot the same couple go past exactly every 5 minutes. It was hilarious but also sad. Vietnamese government, at the time, required its citizens to obtain a license to simply get married. There were other peculiarities of communist Vietnam- The door to commerce was still somewhat shut- so some things were always in short supply- cigarettes for example. Gifts of cigarette cartons were common place to garner a favor but if you really wanted something done, and make them do so happily, it had to be a full carton of 555 cigarettes- yes, the only word to understand this phenomenon was that the Vietnamese seemed to have a fetish for it. Dunhill was fine too, but if you presented 555, boy, then, it was either of the too- you were in an exceptionally generous mood or it was really the moon that you would ask for. Usually the latter.
There were other distractions for the foreigners- visits to Tanah Binh club for swimming, weekend trips to Un-Tao beach, where it wasn't uncommon to be presented with an entire turtle, complete with its shell, placed on top of a large tray, with all its' garnishes and served with a festive flourish, as lunch. My mother, a staunch vegetarian and unable to withstand the stench of the seafood(or aroma) depending on your preferences, was usually nauseated during lavish office parties where seafood was in abundance and at least once, I remember, almost fainted, with orange juice and some fresh air put to good use to revive her. A tourist trip to the Cu-Chi mines, 300 kilometers long tunnels by some accounts and bored manually by the Vietnamese to fight the Guerilla war against the Americans, or the long but beautiful 8 hour country drive to the French hill station of Dalat and a stay in one of its charming but haunted resorts. Apparently, a French army general would check in very often, only to disappear the next morning, and even his signatures on the register would disappear, as narrated to us by the hotel staff. It was a smart way to keep in business in an era with few tourists arriving.
We left in 1989, but as the new decade of the 90's arrived, Vietnam was to graduate from the Doi Moi Era and embrace full liberalization post the fall of the Berlin wall. Saigon, am told is now indistinguishable from any another bustling South East Asian Metropolis. The unparalleled view of the majestic bend in the Saigon River, the colorful street decorations and fireworks to celebrate Tet- Vietnamese New Year, the aroma of the Vietnamese coffee…. all of these are perhaps still very much there but I never could go back, so luckily these two and a half decades old images of the Doi-Moi Era are frozen in time as frames of a black and white movie playing in my mind.
