FOREWORD
The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography .
(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)
Through the cooperation with „Singapore Airlines“, which was just beginning at that time and lasted for over 15 years thanks to Chrstina Hollenweger, I came to Vietnam at a time when the war-ravaged nation was still on the ground and the population was suffering from hunger and deprivation. But from then on, Vietnam evolved faster than a Polaroid photo. Ho-Chi-Mingh abdicated – Honda and Coca Cola became „in“. Spectacular landscapes, fascinating, ancient cults of the minorities along the border and in the north, and as a contrast the fast life of the Kinhs in a turbulent awakening phase – Vietnam is a country full of wonders, delights and contradictions on the way between ghostly past and hopeful future.
In the streets of Saigon, today’s Ho Chi Mingh City, the craziest dance on two wheels imaginable took place: Thousands of moped riders, often with the whole family, sometimes even four of them, roar through the streets and towards the intersections, honking and rattling, weaving themselves into a dense tangle, squeezing and squeezing their way through the twisted stream of directions, and shortly thereafter scattering again like a school of fish. Breakneck maneuvers are the only order and reliable constant in this traffic chaos. If you don’t dare to ride one of those rented mopeds yourself, you can have a cyclo driver take you through the streets.
At the time, the mobility craze signaled the unbridled spirit of optimism of the post-war era and reflected the „song voi,“ or fast life, that had gripped the inhabitants of „Motor Scooter City“ like a fever. For Vietnam’s youth, who only know the tough and bloody liberation struggle from school textbooks, „Coca Cola,“ hamburgers and „Honda“ are more important than Ho Chi Mingh’s revolution. Cheekily made-up girls in tight jeans, glowing red cocktail dresses or yolk-yellow hot pants, all strutting through the streets on high heels, embodied the Western-oriented trend and contrasted the image of traditionally dressed women in flower-white, semi-transparent „ao dais“ with fluttering hair, like fairies on their bicycles gliding across the glowing asphalt.
The „Doi Moi policy,“ Vietnam’s perestroika toward market socialism, furiously accelerated the metamorphosis from stale communism to unrestrained consumerism and ignited a tremendous entrepreneurial energy in the land of the rising dragon. At that time, the power elite aimed to join the circle of the „Asian tigers“ by the year 2000 and to boost tourism mightily. And they managed to do both. At that time, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi ticked completely differently and were as different as day and night. In the power metropolis of the Communist Party, located 1600 kilometers north of Saigon, life was much more leisurely and tranquil, the new freedom flourished more cautiously, and the climate was more pleasant. The influence of the French, who declared Hanoi the administrative capital of Tonkin in 1883 and later of all of Indochina, can still be clearly seen, not only in the French baguettes, which are a tradition in Vietnam, but also occasionally in the old colonial-style buildings, which reflected the savoir vivre of the French and their bohemian influence on culture, painting and infrastructure and had little to do with the hectic, free-spirited vitality of the South. But of course, here too the dollar has relegated the dong to a mere spectator role. Between the two metropolises lie the mystical worlds of the hill tribes, such as the Thai, the Khmer, Kohor and the semi-nomads, the Hmong. The 53 minorities together made up only 10 percent of the population, but at that time they inhabited almost seventy percent of Vietnam’s land surface.
Except for the Lang Bien region near Dalat, where at the foot of Nui Baz (Women’s Mountain). In the „forbidden zone“ of the mountainous hinterland along the Chinese border, where one of the last matriarchies is hidden, there were some restricted areas for foreigners. The main axes from the Mekong Delta via Saigon to Dalat in the southern Vietnamese plateau and via the seaside resort of Nha Trang up to the old imperial city of Hue were well developed thanks to the Americans, but the road after Cloud Pass to Hanoi was disastrous, as if it had been covered with a carpet of bombs, which is true. In addition, the pass roads into the highlands are often impassable in the rainy season.
Vietnam’s tourist highlights include: Da Lat, the „Valle d’amour“ of wedding couples, the vacation resort of the rich from Saigon at that time and before that for the French. A pretty, melancholic dreamy town, with dignified Provençal colonial style houses around the Sigh Lake, nestled in the hills with emerald green rice terraces, vegetable fields, vines, coffee and tea plantations. The temperature is moderate even in summer, the climate pleasantly cool, like in a Swiss mountain resort. Furthermore: Nha Trang, a lively seaside resort with a picturesque fishing harbor, idyllic coastal and river landscape, the Cham temples of Po Nagar (from the 7th Nis 12th century) as well as fine French street cafes, sultry nightclubs and excellent hotels as well as all facets of cultural and tourist attractions. Hue the imperial city on the Perfume River with its forbidden palaces, towering pagodas and magnificent boulevards is also one of Vietnam’s most beautiful destinations. Those who also travel to the north of Vietnam should definitely take a boat trip through Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin. „If you haven’t visited the Bay of the Descending Dragon, you haven’t seen Vietnam,“ flutters the picture-perfect lift agent Thuy (meaning clear water). Cruising on a junk through the bay, which is dotted with more than 3,000 rocky outcrops rising steeply from the sea, feels like a bit of a pirate’s adventure.
Although prostitution had been banned by law since the days of Madame Nhu, President Diem’s sister-in-law, who was as slit-eyed as she was mischievous, that didn’t change the fact at the time that more than half a million women and underage girls populated the bars and brothels of South Vietnam, and you saw plenty of these con gai everywhere. With the economic boom and the influx of foreigners rich in foreign currency, prostitution had surged again. The lively interest and beguiling laughter of a Phu Nu Viet Nam could therefore also have been of a purely business nature. For many, it was probably a matter of bare survival to alleviate poverty and hunger. Even girls of tender age were not afraid to offer their sisters for sale. How this fit in with the Confucian world view was not clear to me. On the other hand, already in the Dong-Son culture (700 to 257 B.C.) a matriarchal dominated society was established, which was known for its permissive customs and was a constant thorn in the side of the Confucian patriarchal Chinese as well as the cause of many wars. The assumption that the self-confident and emancipated women of Vietnam not only took out the same right as the men, but also the use of love services almost belonged to the good tone, was neither confirmed nor denied.
Confucius spoke wisely: „Dealing with women and subjects is extremely difficult. So far, so good. To reduce the difficulties, the Chinese philosopher devised three patriarchal rules that have long endured. As a girl, the woman had to submit to her father, as a wife to her husband, and as a widow to her eldest son. The man, however, had all liberties, he was allowed to repudiate his wife and sell his daughters. Such patriarchal ideas, however, were not well received in Vietnamese society. Even though Confucianism arrived in Vietnam about a hundred years before Christianity and displaced ancestor worship, it was unable to eliminate the matriachal structures and traditions that had been established since the Dong-Son culture. Want an example of the heroic female fighters?
Shortly after Christ’s birth, the Trung sisters led the Lac army and – on their fighting elephants – confronted the enemies. Despite heroine-like resistance, they were finally defeated. But instead of surrendering to the enemy thirsting for revenge, they preferred to sink in the floods of the Red River rather than surrender to the superior opponent. Thus, the Hai-Ba Trung sisters are revered as heroines to this day. This also made them desirable to me and so I decided to enter one of these matriarchies, which were located in a district closed to foreigners. With the help of a Swiss living in Saigon, who knew a Vietnamese journalist, who in turn had contacts with media workers in one of these areas, I finally got into the matriarchy hidden in the trunk of the local radio team, and at the end of the day I got out again the same way.
In between there were exciting hours at the foot of the Nui Baz. Here and there the pointed straw hats of the farmers‘ wives protruded above the planting, moving rhythmically forward, and women loaded with huge bales of hay trudged past us with their legs wide over the steaming earth. Unmissable signs warned us unmistakably (if you knew Vietnamese) that we were in a „forbidden zone“ here in Lang Bien. When we arrived in the village, we were hardly noticed. Usually the whole village would flock together and you would be surrounded by a crowd of children begging for candy. Not so here, interestingly enough. We approached an old man sitting in the cool shade of a tamarind tree near some playing children and asked him for the village elder(s), whereupon he rose and led us to a hut lit only by glowing pieces of wood, whereupon first four women with Mongolian faces entered the dark room, placed a clay vessel in front of our feet and invited us to drink. Heavy, sweet wine ran through our throats, which was more like an alcoholic thick juice. Then the conversation about their customs gets going. Their village community includes about 35 families and over 300 souls.
We get straight to the point and want to know more about the matriarchal structures. With great matter-of-factness they tell us that here the women choose a man and ask his family for the hand of the chosen one; that after marriage the man takes the name of the woman and moves into her house; that on the death of the woman the inheritance passes to the eldest daughter and that the widower is often married by the eldest sister of the deceased. If he does not want this, he must plant a tree on his wife’s grave and wait 13 months before he is allowed to remarry.
That everything in a matriarchy is not necessarily much more idyllic than in male-dominated societies is shown by a brutal competition for brides, which was only put to an end by French missionaries. If two women with burning hearts desired one and the same man, a brutal power struggle ensued under the supervision of the village elders. The women had to stick their heads deep into the water of the village stream and the one who stayed down longer was the winner, because the loser had also forfeited her life. So it was a decision and a fight to the death. And so it also happened that one of the women, seeing herself in a losing position in the face of a more long-winded competitor, tied her hair under water to a tree root in order not to emerge earlier than the competitor and thus achieved an albeit fatal victory. For the loser was also sent to her death.
Thus the bridegroom had to go on a bride search again. Among the Bang-Tin, Lin-Hot and Chinh-Lah, as most of the families are called, the women are in charge, but they also do the main work in the household, in the fields and in raising the children. In comparison, the men lead an almost feudal life; their work is limited to building houses and extending water pipes. In addition, they have plenty of time to play and gossip. However, important decisions in the family and in business, in the management of money and in family welfare are the undisputed domains of women. If the strong Lat women of Lang Bien did not recognize the social order of Uncle Ho (whose name means the enlightened one), they agreed with his words to the strong women of Vietnam: „Anh huug, bat khuat, trung han, dam dang“ – The Vietnamese heroine fights relentlessly, patriotically-stand firm until self-sacrifice.
