On Vietnam: Reflection and Rejuvenation

What is Vietnam? The word still means "war" for those who, like many Americans, see it through the prism of military defeat. For others, like some of my generally well informed friends in academe back in America, it is a third world police state, thanks to it's one-party system and alleged suppression of the opposition. For millions of others though, like the 80 plus million Vietnamese and many of of those in its diaspora, it is family, friends, culture, nation and a society undergoing radical change.

What is Vietnam for me? Why do I care?

I grew up in Ohio in the 1960s and 70s, but also always with an "image" of Vietnam. That image was constructed by nightly news reports on what the Vietnamese now call the "American War." I saw "Vietnam" with amazing regularity on the family TV at dinner time, from the other side of the ocean. But it was Vietnam by numbers: the number of North Vietnamese Army regulars killed, the number of Viet Cong killed, the number of South Vietnamese soldiers killed, and lastly, the number of Americans who had died. I remember Walter Cronkite making this announcement solemnly, but almost as if it were a daily sports score.

I learned that the Vietnamese had also fought against other "good guys," the French (or so we were told). The French had lost Vietnam in a battle called Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and since that time, the story went, America had stepped in and was there to stop the spread of communism. America had to help countries like the Soviet Union throw off the "yoke of communism" and we had to help Vietnam from embracing it (or so we were told).



Communism. That was the key word. That was why we American kids in the 1960s had to hide in the basement of our school during nuclear bomb drills. Since the start of the so-called "Cold War," after the end of real fighting in World War II, it had become America's duty-- or so we young Americans learned in school, from TV, from our families -- to fight the "Evil Red Empire" led by China and the Soviet Union. Vietnam was just one more "domino" on the board in that struggle, it was a place for America to contain communism's global expansion (or so we were told).

I learned to see that situation differently though, starting sometime between 1965 and 1966. I was in third grade (primary three). The girl in my class who I fancied the most -- I can't remember her name -- was sweet, cute, and smart. But what I remember most about her now, 40 years into the future, is how our lady teacher entered class one morning and announced that this classmate's daddy, a pilot, had been shot down over North Vietnam. Now he was dead. But, of course, he was also a hero (or so we were told).



I guess some boys would have found cause in that story to dream of being a pilot themselves, or of being a president who could one day say "bring 'em on" and help to kill "all them bad guys." But not me. I was at a loss. My friend's daddy was DEAD. Gone forever. Killed in Vietnam. And yet he was a hero.

So? I asked myself. What was the point in having a daddy who was a hero if he was dead, never to be seen again? ( Yes, war really is hell, heroically fought or not.)

Well, the rest is history. I grew up to hate war, question my country's leaders' motives and develop an opinion about who the real bad guys in Vietnam were. I came to see Vietnam as not just a war but as a place where real people lived, and where, between the time that America got involved in the conflict there and then left in 1975, some 50,000 American daddies, sons, and brothers got killed, and over 3,000,000 Vietnamese died. (How did General Curtis Le May put it? We should bomb them back into the Stone Age.)

All because of that "ugly" word, communism. Or thanks to the American leadership's misinterpretation of it!

Last night, I was in Vietnam. In fact, at about this same time, I was riding in a bus back to Saigon from Can Tho, the main city in the Mekong Delta. (Together with colleagues from my university program, I had just spent a wonderful afternoon meeting and conversing with 30 fellow teachers from Can Tho University in a colloquium on issues in English language teaching.) We visitors left enthused by the welcome we had received, then we watched the sun set from the ferry dock beside the Mekong, then we'd been on the road a couple hours when we finally stopped at a large outdoor roadside restaurant for a break.

A group of us wandered back to the toilet we'd used on the four-hour morning ride down to Can Tho only to discover that it was closed. So in dire need, I walked into an unused back section of the eatery, which was just next to a dark canal. There I stood, alone, in the dark, on concrete steps overlooking the canal, staring at the jungled river bank opposite the restaurant. Then and there it hit me. Mekong Delta? Wouldn't this very place, this spot have been a potential venue for a scene from Apocalypse Now, just 40 years earlier? Might not this canal have been in the war zone? And now look at it. Look at Vietnam today.



Sure, there were pictures, or paintings, or photographs of long gone Uncle Ho in almost every classroom of the five universities we visited this past week, from Hanoi to Saigon to Can Tho. But there is also a vibrancy in Vietnam that defies anyone with thoughts of the "yoke of communism" today, that even defies the country's recent description as one of the new "tigers" of Asia. You can see it in the tour buses and taxis lined up outside Ho Chi Minh City's sparkling new airport, in the entrepreneurial skills of the tour guides, bellboys, waitresses, shop clerks and roadside hawkers; you can see it in the countless shops selling limitless consumer goods; you can see it in the luxury hotels with fully stocked buffets, health salons and roof top bars over million dollar views; you can see it in all the new building projects, including massive bridges, widening highways and shiny new housing estates; you can hear it in the buzz of the 4.5 million motorcycles of Ho Chi Minh City and in the showroom of one of that same city's many auto dealerships, Luxury Motors; you can also sense it every time you see an amazingly professional research presentation made by young academics who articulate in flawless English first rate practical methods based on sound theory --- and you can be humbled by how well they have succeeded, after doing their graduate degrees locally or abroad with fellowships from their own government or from others (some from the repentant Ford & Fulbright Foundations). You can also stand equally impressed by the country's latest educational policy goal: 10,000 PhDs!





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Communism? Well, there may be a central command for the country's development, I guess, and the ministries and party cadres probably do play an important part in shaping policy direction. But state control of every aspect of Vietnamese life? I don't think so. That wouldn't make economic sense. And Vietnam, now a member of ASEAN, the WTO, and other formidable organizations, seems to want more than anything to be taken seriously as a major economic player in Asia today. Its social and philosophical "doctrines" notwithstanding.

Over an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch, I asked a vice dean from one of the prestigious universities that we visited if he had to be a member of the Communist Party to secure his position. With a smile he gave me an emphatic "no," and then he explained in excellent Aussie-inflected English that he had never been a party member and maybe never would be. As for the "American War," he confided that what was past was past, and that the Vietnamese are a very forgiving people. He added to that saying,"We Vietnamese are looking to the future."

What an understatement -- and like many of Vietnam's current success stories, he was full of charm, intelligence and enthusiasm, all of which are more prevalent in Vietnam today than even the pictures of Ho Chi Minh I'd come to admire.

My first circle of communication

My great grandparents -- Ira & Rachel Cooperider -- my mother, Martha Elder Blackstone -- my father, Wayne Blackstone -- and my grandmother, Carrie Elizabeth Cooperider Blackstone (My grandfather Jerry Blackstone took the photo.)


My grandfather Jerry and my father Wayne


My mother, father, my younger brother Brent and I

The View from the Moon

" When you see the Earth from the moon, you realize how fragile it is and just how limited the resources are. We're all astronauts on this spaceship Earth -- about six or seven billion of us -- and we have to live and work together."

--Captain James Lovell (NASA astronaut)

The Meaning of Life

When I was a young child, I was told many things. I heard that my name was Brad Blackstone, that in my hometown my family was a good family, well respected and important. I also heard that I was an American, that the "American way" was very special, and that Americans on the world stage were well respected and important. I also attended church, learned that I was a Christian, and heard that Christians were good people, well respected and important among the religious people on the earth.

As I grew older into my teenage years, I wondered about what I had learned, and I tried to discern between the facts and opinions. I looked at the world around me, observed people and images on TV, in movies, amongst my schoolmates, teachers, relatives and my neighbors. I listened closely to the leaders of my country and to other leaders in the world. I read news, analysis, history and literature, and I began to wonder how I could measure the truth of what I had learned in the light of what I had observed. I passed my teenage years during the height of America's conflict with Vietnam (a real war) and the Soviet Union (the so-called Cold War), I witnessed the loss of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedy brothers, and I grew restless during the youth movement of the 1960s. I became inspired by the march for "civil rights" and by the advance of both the environmental and anti-war movements.

It was at that juncture, sometime during my mid to late teens, that I became interested in seeing the world for myself. I wanted to test my developing hypotheses, political, social, economic and cultural, with my own senses.I was no longer content to just follow my elders. I wanted to seize the day.

Since that time, I have covered lots of territory. Since leaving the comfort of my small hometown in Ohio, I have studied in a big American metropolis (Columbus, Ohio) and in the capital of the Soviet Union (Moscow). I have lived and worked in America, Portugal, Malaysia, Japan, and now Singapore. I have met many new friends, loved and been loved, raised my own family and suffered the loss of loved ones. Many people have taught me many things, both good and bad, wondrous and ugly. I have, in a sense, learned the ways of the world. So what then gives this life meaning for me?

Among other important people, you do. Our paths now run side by side. For this moment in time, we are sharing air.

Every positive encounter that we have, every bright person we meet, every new dream that we hear, each breathes life into our lungs and light into our souls. We can be as enthralled by a fruitful, personal exchange as we are by the sunrise and sunset of each day. Of course, we must lament the tragedies of this life, the inequity, the degradation, the crushed hopes. But with enlightened purpose, you and I can act in balance, counteract the negative, and bring more good to the world.

In this context, I "teach" so as to "learn," but also so as to help others explore the horizons that I have seen, to facilitate their observations, to assist someone like you in unraveling his or her own truths. In that way, as our common understanding evolves, as our "being" is enriched, our humanity --- our spirit --- can go beyond skin.

That's all. And maybe that's enough.

What to believe?

"All the world is my country and all mankind are my brethren, and to
do good is my religion." ~ Thomas Paine

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Drivin' Down the Berm

miles of road strewn with shoes
not daring to be worn
night upon night sirens flood
for the children never born
and the light upon the moon
a reflection, that's all
of the embers as they burn
in the furnace of your mind
encirclin' these thoughts
you go drivin' down the berm

rear view mirrors double vision
it's all the same to me
day by day landmarks fall
every way that you can see
and the dance of the sun
a reflection, that's all
of the embers as they burn
on the pavement of your heart
swirlin' now like ash
you go drivin' down the berm

(chorus)
head upon the highway
distant rollin' thunder
old songs how they simmer
heels to be awanderin'
like an old tambourine
day breaks on a dime
everyone's up and gone
suitcases packed with time
and here I stand alone
_____

some words will set you free
hope's a rig breath an engine
but page after page after page
each fades in locomotion
and the light upon the moon
a reflection, that's all
of the ride that we once shared
on the edge of a dream
encircling these thoughts
you go drivin' down the berm

==repeat chorus==

Angel of Darkness (in the circus of light)

woe cried the muse,
my tears started at the sound,
woe cried the muse,
grief perched upon my brow
and thought embraced her

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

woe cried the muse,
when summer spread her plumes,
woe cried the muse,
she turned her notes around me,
joy fanned its wings
and golden pleasures beamed
about my head

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

til mute attention struck my ear,
it spoke as if to bid farewell,
the winds their sad complainings bore
and love, in infant bud,
vanished

is this the heart of hearts
all disappeared?

woe cried the muse,
then struck her deepest string,
woe cried the muse,
with sympathy up my nerves,
trembling,
every face of doubt burst out
to sing
round the darkening sky

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

woe cried the muse,
then a rude thunder closed my eyes,
woe cried the muse,
laid the lilied beauties at my green,
the dance was broke,
a flower plucked, but not far blown

what does this mean, I cried
what does this mean, I cried

til mute attention struck my ear,
it spoke as if to bid farewell,
the winds their sad complainings bore
and love in infant bud, vanished

is this the heart of hearts
all disappeared?

ever from my sight
an angel of darkness
in the circus of light

The Kitten's Coat

Dusk was passing, and while admiring the colors,
those variations of green in the banana leaves
through the philodendron and amidst the jasmine's
blossoms, an old man became so engrossed
that he missed the moment sharp
when Darkness arrived.

Darkness -- the kitten's coat was endless sheen,
its pitch eclipsing rainbow hues with a brilliance
everlasting -- and through her love for this old man
she'd sponged and glossed her every hair, up
from front paws to phantom tail just for
that evening's meeting, and when her friend
leaned to his cane, she stole along the garden
wall as if to know one sound might break
on either leaf ot twig or snail
the strongest concentration.

And so the kitten crept and climbed, from ground
to rock to empty pot, onto a shelf of money plants
and through a maze of vines and string
until she reached like stairs past stars
the stone wall's top, her world's rough edge,
and with a leap of faith she then found shoulder
she'd been aiming for, she found the nape
and licked it dear, as old man slumped, as cane
fell clear, and through the night she held him there

That coat in all its brilliance ....