Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario Social Meditations: Vietnam's new war: the era of ...

My sleep had been interrupted at daybreak by the sound of the jets on their way back to Clark Air Base in Pampanga province north of Luzon. The Americans kept their bases there for more than five decades. It was one of America’s enduring outposts in the Pacific established at the turn of the 20th century. In the mid-60s when America invaded Vietnam, their Philippine bases would provide strategic support for their soldiers and their aircraft. “The Mass is over, go in peace,” the priest blessed us at the end of the morning ritual just as the third formation of jets would pass overhead. I looked up as I had done many mornings in the last four years. The familiar V formation of six planes darted across the morning sky. The planes were gone before I had removed my veil, their sounds fading echoes against the morning traffic. We would file toward the refectory for breakfast. It was an unpopular, un-winnable, if not unknown position. Filipinos in the 1960s didn’t live out their lives hungry for sovereignty nor did they question the value of the US-Philippine alliance. The American bases, universal public education and the influx of “stateside” goods lulled us into pro-Americanism. My literature teacher provided me with the only link to critical thought and a very early desire to visit Vietnam. We reach the second floor of the museum. On the right side is a life size lacquer frame in bold tomato red, hanging strategically to catch the visitors’ attention one last time before the exit. Etched in gold is Ho Chi Minh’s letter to the Vietnamese people shortly before his death in 1969. Our two Vietnamese guides, Thui and Phuong, both fresh graduates from the Ho Chi Minh University of Science and Technology, read it quietly, with as much respect and gusto as eating a passion fruit. Slowly they digested his words of nearly four decades ago. A soft smile, almost undetectable, lined Phuong’s delicate face, as if she heard Ho Chi Minh speak to her father as he fought for his country non-stop for 20 years. The passion fruit’s multiple seeds were Ho Chi Minh’s words to this next generation of Vietnamese. They were masticated into a delectable paste and reached the labyrinthine guts of the consumer. Once finished, they were filled with the pleasure of having eaten of the fruit of historical knowledge. It was a moment of profound understanding. The true victory of Vietnam, I realized, was in its unforgettable history, thanks to a generation of parents who refused to let die the memories of resistance. A new generation of young Vietnamese like Thui and Phuong carry the memories of their parents as they navigate the modern world of completed university education and market consumerism. They are stubborn about a victorious past as they are hopeful of a celebratory future. Except for the Museum and the Palace, all traces of war in Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon, are gone. The famous US Embassy helipad from which the memorable image of the last US helicopter fled to safety was destroyed in the reconstruction of the building to obliterate its past. Four Vietnamese soldiers stood at the corner in their smart fatigue uniforms and white gloves, guarding the heavy gates of their former enemy. Shops fill every available space in the city. Four-story 100-meter wide buildings house a cellphone shop, a backpackers hotel, a silk tailoring shop, and an antique arts outfit. These narrow buildings line nearly all of Ho Chi Minh City’s streets, a congested view where commerce is brisk and fast-moving with the Vietnamese in a hurry to enjoy the benefits of economic growth. One by one, students took the mike. The first modulated his voice, testing the power of the microphone and his ability to sing within beat. A romanticized setting of some Asian city was projected on screen with well-dressed women walking around in stylish clothes. Lyrics appeared and a singer’s challenge followed the beat. At the end of the song, the singer was given a computerized score. The closer the singer was to a 100 points score, the greater his or her promise. A more courageous lady took to the stage and belted it out in Vietnamese. She garnered 92 points. Singular flower stems were plucked from the wreaths and handed to her by three men. There was hooting and clapping and shrieking. This was better than American Idol. Like Ho Chi Minh’s letter in the Museum, videoke singing did its part in keeping alive the spirit of victory and the country’s romance with the war. A new generation propagated the revolutionary sentiment through pop culture and electronic gadgetry in a repackaged, enduring revolution while the traditional weapons of war remained firmly encased in the downtown museum. The lake fronting the hostel in a weekend training camp for leadership and team-building was as placid as Missessauga Lake in New Hampshire, as though unseen for a thousand years. Surrounded by thickly re-foliaged mountains all around, the idyllic scenery was only marred by my imagination of war and bare-footed guerrillas who fought in this territory just forty years ago. (Teresita Cruz-del Rosario is Visiting Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She was formerly Assistant Minister during the transition government of President Corazon Aquino. She has a background in sociology and social anthropology and specializes in development and development assistance, migration, governance, and social movements. She can be reached at delrosatess@gmail.

Pluck Yew-the history behind flipping the bird(the middle finger)

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew!" Over the years some "folk etymologies" have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since "pluck yew" is rather difficult to say, like "pheasant mother plucker," which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative "f," and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the gesture is known as "giving the bird." The "one-finger salute," or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. In Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution, Desmond Morris and colleagues note that the digitus infamis or digitus impudicus (infamous or indecent finger) is mentioned several times in the literature of ancient Rome. Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. Two are from the epigrammatist Martial: "Laugh loudly, Sextillus, when someone calls you a queen and put your middle finger out." In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party "points a finger, an indecent one, at" some other people. The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor "expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . . . because when a spectator started to hiss, he called the attention of the whole audience to him with an obscene movement of his middle finger." Morris also claims that the mad emperor Caligula, as an insult, would extend his middle finger for supplicants to kiss. It's not known whether one displayed the digitus infamis in the same manner that we (well, you) flip the bird today.

Ammunition 357, Jokes for Your Internet Ammo

Fun-E-Mail

The Biggest Joke Book Ever

Deep France, Tales from the Loir

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Health Fair