Hilton Chen
Good Morning Vietnam
Looking out of a pavilion at the imperial tomb of Minh Mang, the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, who ruled Vietnam from 1820 - 1840. Hue was the former imperial capital of Vietnam from the 17th century until about 1945 when it was relocated to Hanoi.
Vietnam's history is marked by repeated invasions of the country by a succession of foreign entities, first by the Chinese, who ruled the country for almost a millennium but were never able to assimilate the Vietnamese and endured frequent rebellions. One would think that other invaders would've learned from the failures of the Chinese, but then came the Mongols, then the French, the Japanese, and finally, depending on your perspective, the Americans.
While Americans quibble over who actually won the war in Vietnam, there is no doubt in the minds of the Vietnamese that they won and they succeeded in kicking out the Americans. I remember one of my guides driving past a lake in Hanoi and pointing out that it was the lake where John McCain's plane landed when they shot it down. There is now a memorial commemorating the event at Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.
Good Morning Vietnam
Looking out of a pavilion at the imperial tomb of Minh Mang, the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, who ruled Vietnam from 1820 - 1840. Hue was the former imperial capital of Vietnam from the 17th century until about 1945 when it was relocated to Hanoi.
Vietnam's history is marked by repeated invasions of the country by a succession of foreign entities, first by the Chinese, who ruled the country for almost a millennium but were never able to assimilate the Vietnamese and endured frequent rebellions. One would think that other invaders would've learned from the failures of the Chinese, but then came the Mongols, then the French, the Japanese, and finally, depending on your perspective, the Americans.
While Americans quibble over who actually won the war in Vietnam, there is no doubt in the minds of the Vietnamese that they won and they succeeded in kicking out the Americans. I remember one of my guides driving past a lake in Hanoi and pointing out that it was the lake where John McCain's plane landed when they shot it down. There is now a memorial commemorating the event at Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.