May 7, 2003
Dedicated to Oliver
This post is dedicated to the funniest man alive, oliver sum-ping, who reminded me of this story while he was sending me a "chinese propaganda video."
This past summer I was in Vietnam, which was my first visit to a "closed" communist country. Of course, what happens when you put a hardheaded asshole like me in a country where speaking out could potentially land you in jail?
Well nothing. But there was a close call.
I visited the old VC bases outside of Saigon (in Cu Chi) ... I was forced to watch a 20 minute "video" about Cu Chi by myself in a room with a Vietnamese soldier. There was no one else there (it wasn't because they meant this to happen, there was just no one else there that day). The guard (who was a woman, so it wasn't as scary as it could of been) just watched me the whole time while I watched the video.
Now, the video (I thought, at least) would be some sort of "educational" story about the history of Cu Chi. However, minutes after the video started it became evident ot me that this video was made right after the Vietnam War; the quality was bad and the .. ideological was incredibly humorous.
The whole video basically touched on a few facts:
1.) The innocent villagers around Cu Chi loved to farm and lived in harmony with nature until ...
2.) The bloodthirsty Americans came with their warmongering ways and destroyed everything.
(Disclaimer: I personally feel the Vietnam War was wrong and I do not deny that we were very aggressive and I have no doubt the villagers *did* love farming before the Vietnam War ... there .. phew.. protection from reprisals!).
In any case, the humor was in the fact that this exactly like those stories you heard of governments REALLY twisting facts around. The video progressed to the heroic stories of the peasants destroying the armed forces singlehandedly with their resourcefulness and such.
I don't know. I was about to laugh just because of how ridiculous the movie was (NOT BECAUSE IT WASN'T TRUE, BUT BECAUSE OF THE MANNER IT WAS PRESENTED) ... I guess you had to have been there.
I had to bite my lip lest I pissed off the guard with the gun ... heh.
Oh well. Ok, so it wasn't as great of a post as I had wanted it to. I guess I'm saving all my BRAIN POWER for my analytical chem final. Bahnesssssss!
This past summer I was in Vietnam, which was my first visit to a "closed" communist country. Of course, what happens when you put a hardheaded asshole like me in a country where speaking out could potentially land you in jail?
Well nothing. But there was a close call.
I visited the old VC bases outside of Saigon (in Cu Chi) ... I was forced to watch a 20 minute "video" about Cu Chi by myself in a room with a Vietnamese soldier. There was no one else there (it wasn't because they meant this to happen, there was just no one else there that day). The guard (who was a woman, so it wasn't as scary as it could of been) just watched me the whole time while I watched the video.
Now, the video (I thought, at least) would be some sort of "educational" story about the history of Cu Chi. However, minutes after the video started it became evident ot me that this video was made right after the Vietnam War; the quality was bad and the .. ideological was incredibly humorous.
The whole video basically touched on a few facts:
1.) The innocent villagers around Cu Chi loved to farm and lived in harmony with nature until ...
2.) The bloodthirsty Americans came with their warmongering ways and destroyed everything.
(Disclaimer: I personally feel the Vietnam War was wrong and I do not deny that we were very aggressive and I have no doubt the villagers *did* love farming before the Vietnam War ... there .. phew.. protection from reprisals!).
In any case, the humor was in the fact that this exactly like those stories you heard of governments REALLY twisting facts around. The video progressed to the heroic stories of the peasants destroying the armed forces singlehandedly with their resourcefulness and such.
I don't know. I was about to laugh just because of how ridiculous the movie was (NOT BECAUSE IT WASN'T TRUE, BUT BECAUSE OF THE MANNER IT WAS PRESENTED) ... I guess you had to have been there.
I had to bite my lip lest I pissed off the guard with the gun ... heh.
Oh well. Ok, so it wasn't as great of a post as I had wanted it to. I guess I'm saving all my BRAIN POWER for my analytical chem final. Bahnesssssss!
Posted by roy on May 7, 2003 at 07:26 PM | 3 Comments
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yuhoo7
sj
anyways, u definitely have to come out and play some more ball with us next year! u, yush and i will be known as the legion of doom, wait that doesnt sound intimidation (we'll come up with a better name) and we'll have an upperclassmen vs. whatever-is-left game next year too. hahahah, im gonna get flamed for that comment.
PubertY2K