Hanoi Hilton, Military Museum, 10/3/08

I went to the Guest House with our Hanoi coordinator, Long, so we beat the bus. Actually, I think the bus driver had a hard time finding the street. It was again a 33 passenger bus, so lots of the luggage didn't fit underneath.

However, everyone survived, claimed their luggage, and settled into their rooms. We had planned a walking tour for the afternoon, but it rained so we postponed it until the next day. We did go to the water puppet show in the evening.

The orchestra is shown at the left. The young lady in the foreground is playing a one string instrument with a handle that you pull back and forth to change the pitch of the string. It is amazing the sounds that come from it.

Water puppetry is a unique Vietnamese art form. The puppeteers are in the water behind the screen. They have long poles and cables to control and animate the puppets. Some of the puppets spew water, as is happening in the picture shown, some spew fire, and others engage in intricate simulated games and combat.

After the puppet show, we met the Vietnamese language partners (buddies) and went out to dinner with them at a restaurant near Hoan Kiem Lake, the traditional center of Hanoi. It's name means "Lake of the Restored Sword." A goldon tortoise is supposed to have surfaced here and taken a golden sword from an emperor who had used it to vanquish the Chinese. Giant turtles actually have been found in the lake. The story was one of the skits in the water puppet show.

The pictures above and to the right show some of our students with the language partners. The language partners are mostly English majors, so they want to practice their English. Hopefull our students will also get to practice their Vietnamese. The young lady in the yellow shirt is Ngoc, our Hanoi assistant.
Before Phat, our Saigon assistant, flew home, we took him on a guys night out. I'm taking the picture, and Andrew had to pass, as he had Uncle Ho's revenge that evening. We tried to convince Phat that it was his bachelor's party, although he has no plans to get married.

The students started language classes on Wednesday, met their internship supervisors on Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, and took a field trip to two museums on Friday.

Our first stop was Maison Centrale, or as it is referred to in the U.S., the "Hanoi Hilton." It was originally a French prison built during the colonial period, and 90% of the displays are about the atrocities Vietnamese political prisoners suffered under the French.
The displays start right inside the front foyer, and continue through some of the old cell blocks and courtyards. About two-thirds of the prison was torn down in 1993 to make way for the Hanoi Towers complex, which can be seen behind the wall in some of the pictures. The remainder of the prison was set aside as a museum at that time.

These two murals depict the mistreatment of Vietnamese "patriots" by the French, but whoever made them didn't have a good idea of French facial features, as all the characters have a distinct Asian look.

The section of sewer shown below was used by 16 "political prisoners" to escape from the death sentence yard in December of 1951, during the French Indochina War.

The guillotine was used by the French to execute prisoners at Hoa Lo, and was continued to be used by the Diem regime up until 1960.

This monument was erected to honor "patriotic and revolutionary combatants" who were enterred at Hoa Lo. The mural continues for several panels to the left. Part of the Hanoi Towers can be seen in the background.



There were only two rooms, right at the end of the designated path through the museum, with information about the American pilots held here between 1964 and 1973.


Prominent among the displays are John McCain's flight gear, and a picture of him visiting the prison in April of 2000. The picture is repeated in two different locations of the museum. The label on the glass case had been updated to reflect that McCain is now a candidate for the presidency, which shows how closely the Vietnamese follow, and the importance they place on the American political scene.

The language partners will ask our students questions about the election that show they clearly have been following the campaigns of both candidates.

The plaque shown below was at the entrance to the American display.

The pictures and descriptions here are 180 degrees away from how we have seen the Americans depicted in other museums. The whole emphasis is on the "country club" type atmosphere available to the pilots; including playing basketball in the courtyard, reading letters and getting packages from home, receiving medical treatment, and growing vegetables in the courtyard to supplement their diet. We all know it wasn't exactly that way. One of the reasons John McCain still doesn't have complete use of his arm is because it was never properly set while he was a POW.

Our second stop of the morning was the Military Museum, which is housed in buildings adjacent to one of the old watchtowers for the Hanoi Citadel. Very little of the Citadel remains, but there are a few gates and sections of the wall in the Old Quarter.

The museum contains a mix of artifacts and displays depicting the military of Vietnam all the way back to the Imperial period. Below Josh is wondering why the bust of General Giap has distinctly western features. It's probably because it was done by a Russian artist.

One of the most intersting things in the museum is a sculpture made from parts of airplanes shot down in both the French and American conflicts. The plaque to Josh's left says that the Communist forces shot down 435 aircraft during the French Indochina War (1945-54), a number that I can believe. Some of those planes were actually American planes that we had lent to the French. But then it goes on to say that during the American conflict (1961-75) a whopping 37,249 planes were shot down or destroyed(33,068 in the south, and 4,181 in the north. I don't know the exact number, but I would bet that we don't have that many planes and helicopters in our air force, navy, and army combined.

One of the last displays was a tank that is claimed to be one of the actual tanks that crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in 1975. It has the right numbers on it, and contrary to most of the displays we have seen, hasn't been repainted and touched up, so it must be authentic.