Bloggity Blog Blog (1)

Prior to viewing the PBS documentary American Experience: Vuetnam War, "America's Manarin 1954-1963," I had limited knowledge of the Vietnam War from taking AP US History my Junior and Senior years. As the course title suggests, we studied largely from an American perspective, and never delved into the Vietnamese side of the war. For one thing, the whole religious side of the war is a foreign concept to me. For instance, I had no idea Diem was Catholic, nor did I realize the extent of the impact of the conflict between Diem and the Catholics and the Buddhists.

In "A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain", Robert Butler weaves two narratives in order to show the Vietnamese struggle across generations. The story is of an old Vietnamese man named Dao, who is on his death bed in New Orleans. In the old Vietnamese tradition, Dao is being visited by loved ones and old friends in his final days. Here is where we witness the formulation of the two sequences.
The first involves several visitations in the night by his old friend Nguyen Ai Quoc, better known as Ho Chi Minh. Ho comes to him the first night, hands covered in sweet smelling confectioner's sugar. Over the next three night's, Dao and Ho reminisce of times past, including their time working at the Carlton Hotel in London, and the first time the two saw snow together. The next night they tell of their stint in France, where the two began to drift apart and live wildly opposite lives: Dao choosing a path of peace and harmony as a Buddhist monk, Ho choosing the life of radical political activist. Later, Ho reveals that he is not at peace, despite the North Vietnamese victory. Ho states that there exist no countries in the afterlife. As we have come to discover, there truly was no victory in the long run, as is evidenced by the current Vietnamese strife (which will be discussed in the second sequence).
The second sequence involves visitations throughout the day by members of Dao's extended family: Lam, his youngest daughter; Thang, his son-in-law, wife of Lam, and former South Vietnamese colonel; and L'oi, Dao's grandson and former lieutenant under his father Thang. Dao laments that these visitors are insincere, as they have lost touch with the importance of their visitation, as well as their sense of Vietnamese culture over their years staying in America. In response, Dao expresses disinterest by feigning sleep, where he can eavesdrop on their conversations. He learns of the recent political killing of Mr. Le, who wrote a newspaper for their community. He was killed by Vietnamese nationalists in response for publishing a piece calling for the acceptance of the Communist Vietnamese state, and for the beginning of serious discussions and negotiations. Furthermore, he suspects that Thang and L'oi may know the assassin, only to discover that Thang and L'oi may indeed be the assassins. The resentments of a past generation have spread into the current.
Ho's past and struggles are relived to today, shown in the political killing of Mr. Le. Dao was the only one to find stability through choosing a path of harmony, as opposed to the politically charged lives of Ho Chi Minh, Thang, and L'oi. Dao is more at peace with his past and memories, and is ready to move onto the afterlife, while Ho must reconcile his past in order to achieve a relative harmony in the afterlife.