The Beauty of Humanity Movement (101 page)

“I am very glad to hear there is ph
in America, even if it has to be Saigon ph
,” says Old Man H
ng. “For all its riches, America would be a very poor place without it.”

T
s father is once again being a gentleman, laying his windbreaker down on the ground for Maggie. Oh, thank you. Are you sure? That’s so kind of you. What about you?—too much fuss and too many thank- yous, just like a typical American.

Steam rises from their bowls, dissipating in the air.

“So how’s work?” Maggie asks T
. “No more encounters with offensive art and artists, I hope.”

“No more art or artists,” he says. “Just Americans and their obsession with the war.”

“It runs very deep in the American psyche,” says Maggie.

If the Vietnamese were so obsessed, if they didn’t get over the war and allowed themselves to be haunted or just lay down like dogs, where would they be today? In the South they’d be speaking Khmer; in the North they’d be speaking Mandarin. The Vietnamese would be yet another ethnic minority being kicked about like a football by the big boots in Beijing.

“Sometimes I feel it is all about them, not really about Vietnam at all,” T
finds himself saying rather boldly. “Even among those who say they are here to learn about the country,
me
still seems to be their favourite word.”

“But it
is
all about them, isn’t it? It’s the business of tourism.”

Has T
been naive in thinking his job has something to do with introducing people to Vietnam? But then, come to think of it, how can they possibly see anything beyond stereotypes when the tourism industry gives them war tours and movie tours and romance of Indochina tours, and a hotel like the Metropole drives them about town in a ’53 Citroën, perhaps taking them to a gallery where they can purchase a souvenir in the form of a three-thousand-dollar painting of a lady in an
áo dài
riding a bicycle alongside a lazy river?

T
feels quite unsettled. “Don’t you think they want to see the real Vietnam?” he asks.

“But what’s the real Vietnam, T
? This is a country that erases its own history. Anything that goes against the Party. Your grandfather. My father. Millions of people. And if people aren’t being censored? They’re busy hiding anyway. Desperately trying to save face.”

T
s father looks uncomfortable and puts down his bowl. A few people on either side of them do the same. T
regrets taking liberties. She is angry and she shouldn’t be speaking about any of this in public,
which proves her point, he supposes, but still doesn’t make her behaviour any less embarrassing.

More buildings seem to have gone up along the highway since T
last made the trip out to the airport. Kilometres of construction. Apartment blocks rising from rice paddies. Buildings emerging from swamps, a lonely university campus, shopping malls, new factories.