Fishing boat offshore from Quy Nhon. Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, accommodates many tourists. February in Quy Nhon of Central Highlands can be chilly.
Perfect Ice, by Nicholas Mizet, may be purchased at B&N, Amazon, including Kindle.
Audiobooks at Chirp and Spotify.
Contact nicholas.mizet@gmail.com for questions or comments.
Audiobooks at Chirp and Spotify.
Contact nicholas.mizet@gmail.com for questions or comments.
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Read reviews at Amazon.
For illumination of Vietnam then and now, read or listen to PERFECT ICE, by Nicholas Mizet, a gripping novel about a recon platoon in 1969 as the drafted main character flashes back to growing up in the Midwest. This relatively short novel answers just about every question a reader may ask about "The Nam" and what it is like over there now. It's based on the author's experiences in 1969 and traveling the length and breadth of this far-flung country in 2016. You'll find it on B&N, Amazon, including Kindle, and audio on Chirp. Buy now! Try Spotify. barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, chirpbooks.com |
Here is the key to understanding Vietnam: Stoicism is its heart and soul.
This writer stared at the stoic ability of the Vietnamese people to endure any discomfort, great or small, in a singularity of purpose, whether it is studying for a test, or winning a war for independence. I couldn't imagine an American library at Harvard Law or a Midwestern public library having such quietness in a room as if the air conditioning had broken down. It just wouldn't happen anywhere in the United States with its tendency towards instant gratification. Too hot? Turn down the thermostat. Thirsty? Get a drink of water. Validate your existence? Talk to your neighbor. It was tremendously impressive how much education is valued in VN, yet many a university graduate is impoverished by US standards. Foreign investors and some Vietnamese in high places define an affluence removed from the general population making an average of about 150 USD per month. .
This is the reading room in the Quy Nhon Public Library. There was not a sound! The ceiling fans turned languidly, producing a slight stirring of air in the ninety degree heat. The concentration of many minds was palpable. It was like a concert of silence. Nothing from the outside world disturbed the electric tension of deeply concentrated work. Quy Nhon, sometimes incorrectly spelled as Qui Nhon, is a coastal city of 250,000 three hundred miles north of Ho Chi Minh City [HCMC], formerly Saigon).
This is the reading room in the Quy Nhon Public Library. There was not a sound! The ceiling fans turned languidly, producing a slight stirring of air in the ninety degree heat. The concentration of many minds was palpable. It was like a concert of silence. Nothing from the outside world disturbed the electric tension of deeply concentrated work. Quy Nhon, sometimes incorrectly spelled as Qui Nhon, is a coastal city of 250,000 three hundred miles north of Ho Chi Minh City [HCMC], formerly Saigon).
Saigon Post Office. Most government buildings are French architecture left from the colonial period of 1882 to 1954.
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The French Opera House built circa 1900 is in the heart of Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. Now called the Municipal Theatre, it's adjacent to the Continental Hotel on Lam Son Square.
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The novel, Perfect Ice, by Nicholas Mizet is different from a lot of stories about Vietnam because it goes to the present-day Vietnam from war-torn 1969. The author has traveled the length and breadth of this far-flung country to bring you an exciting revisit to his infantry days and a love story that endures. Above is the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Below are scenes from today as Vietnam moves inexorably into modernity, although many parts are still impoverished. The golf course was designed by Greg Norman. That's the South China Sea behind the author playing golf. Major corporations find Vietnam to be welcoming despite its erstwhile embrace of communism.
Playing golf next to South China Sea on a course designed by Greg Norman in Da Nang.
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Completed in 1883 by French colonials, the Notre Dame Cathedral is beginning to show its age up close. It still has 9:30 Mass on Sunday mornings, attended mostly by tourists. Nearby is the Presidential Palace, now called the Reunification Palace that houses memorabilia from the American period.
Excerpt from Perfect Ice
They sat and ate a can of beans and franks and one of peaches.A shrill cry made them jump. "Where the hell is that bird?" Erik said. A lizard screamed again, claiming a sandbag right in front of them. "That's a fucking lizard?" David said. "Yeah, who would have thought? You learn something every day if you're not careful," Erik said, trying to sound calm, but the sudden shriek of the gecko sounded like a warning. "I have this weird feeling that we're being sized up." His qualms were allayed somewhat by the relaxed conversations in the NDP and a radio playing Crosby, Stills, and Nash. David was very still, eyes wide. He and Erik stared silently, breathing slowly, straining to hear anything. David whispered, "Shhh. did you hear that?" "What?" "The clink of metal against metal. Think we should tell whoever's got the radio to turn it the fuck off?" "Wait till this song's over." When it finished the lieutenant said to kill the radio. Erik couldn't get over the incongruity of top-forty music on the radio no matter where they were. He thought about easy chairs, electric lights, air conditioning, real beds with clean sheets, and refrigerators that most Americans in Vietnam were enjoying right then. "Maybe I should have re-upped." "Yeah, maybe," David said. The war in Vietnam bedeviled the U.S. for a decade. Draftees played a big part. What was it like to be drafted? A tenacious enemy challenged the American policy in Southeast Asia. What happened when the Americans left? Read Perfect Ice by Nicholas Mizet and find out. It is based on recollections of the war and several trips throughout Vietnam for research and historical accuracy.
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Lam Son Square, named for the fourth and successful uprising against Chinese control in 1418, is the center of the "Pearl of the Orient." The Rex Hotel is in the long view, and a corner of the Opera House is on the right. The Rex was appropriated from French owner by the government at end of American War in 1975.
Perfect Ice, by Nicholas Mizet, is a great read about the real Vietnam and how it was to be drafted into a crucible of challenges. Youth and war are temporary, but love endures...if you're lucky .
Vietviews.com
Vietviews.com
The Tan So Nhat Hotel is less than a mile from the airport of the same name. The secluded grounds were neat as a pin. To the left, beyond a parallel hedgerow, is one of the busiest streets with its accompanying unkempt urban atmosphere.
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Typical city streets are raucous and not as neat as gated businesses. This is Bui Vien St. in HCMC, known as the backpacker district.
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Not as neat as gated businesses or government compounds, one finds mile after mile of small businesses the farther one travels from urban centers.
From the southern tip in the Mekong Delta to the border with China, Vietnam is about 1000 miles long. That's 13 degrees of latitude from the 9th N. Parallel to the 22nd N. Parallel.
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1960's Sec. of Defense Robert S. McNamara suggested in 1995, after diplomatic relations were restored, that Viet Nam's leaders during the American War get together with him and other U.S. officials at a conference to be called "Missed Opportunities?" With reluctance the Vietnamese agreed to host it in Hanoi during June of 1997. * McNamara related how Pham Van Dong chided him saying he did not read Vietnam's history before getting involved there. It was a single-minded effort to stay independent of China, thus revealing the folly of the so-called domino theory. Here is a very brief survey of that history in 27 points: 1. Viets are non-Chinese of Mongolian descent. History is as long as China's. 2. China conquered Vietnam in 111 BC. 3. VN rebelled in 39 AD. Lasted 3 yrs. Didn't have support of peasants. 4. 539, VN revolted again led by Ly Bon. China was losing in guerrilla warfare. 5. Ly Bon met the Chinese in a set-piece battle and lost. 6. VN learned 'tis better to wear down enemy in hit and run tactics. 7. 938. Battle of Bach Dang. VN defeated China. Kicked them out of VN. 8. 1257. Kublai Khan invaded VN. Clever tactics by VN defeated this emperor. 9. VN was the only country that did not succumb to a Kublai Khan invasion. 10. Ming Dynasty of China tries to make Vietnam a dominion in 1400. 11. Lam Son uprising led by Le Loi defeats China in 1428. VN is rid of Chinese. 12. Portuguese land in Da Nang in 1516. Set up trade. Catholic infl. follows. 13.VN divided in turmoil btw. Trinh and Nguyen lords in 17th & 18th centuries. 14. Tay Son rebels def. Trinh lords of northern VN. Chinese try to fill a void. 15. Nguyen Hue def Chinese at Dong Da in 1789. Nguyen Anh estab. power. 16. Nguyen Anh becomes emperor Gia Long of unified VN in 1802. Cap. in Hue. 17. French att. Da Nang in resp. to Emp. Tri's suppressn of Cath.missnrs 1847. 18 France overwhelms VN with superior ships and weapons. Starts col. in 1872. 19. Until 1954, VN was a colony under cruel, racist, and exploitive French. 20. Ho Chi Minh joined communism since it was anti-colonial. Orgnzd in 1920s. 21. When Japan left VN at end of WWII, Ho sent a letter to US President Truman. 22. Ho wanted US help in VN independence. Rebuffed by US officials. 23. Ho let French back in VN after WWII so Chinese occupiers would leave. 24. Ho tried to negotiate independence, but not taken seriously by the French. 25. Ho formed Viet Minh, a nat'l force to def. the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. 26. Geneva peace accords of 1954 called for elections in 1956 throughout VN. 27. US did not allow elections. American War followed. U.S. withdrew in 1975 with losses of 58,000 Americans. VN lost 3.6 million people but achieved reunification and independence, a goal met over a thousand years. * (For a report on "Missed Opportunities?" see David K. Shipler article in New York Times Magazine, Nov. 1997). |