what a sight ! 550,000 GI ' s in vietnam 4
poem by the phong
TRANSLATED BY ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN
Saigon October, 22, 1968
Well, well
Our friends
the Anmericans have arrived in our country
They have manpower
They have money
They have munitions
( the ingredients of the magic formula )
And there are 550,000 of them
Wild places
turn into real estates
Petrified
stupefied
we Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming
Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh City
Quy Nhon, Chu Lai, Ta^n Sơn Nhất, Biên Hòa ...
Anywhere they set food in
they are followed by our women and girls
the fun makers par excellence
As for you
you must produce passes
when you come down to any of these places
Don't you see signboards
reading ' Locals keep out '
I know you feel
but don't let patriotism wall you in
( And I need not tell you true love defies petty jealousy )
In order not to be mad
keep telling yourself
We must choose between the lesser of the two evils
namely the Chinese and the Americans
We all cherish
the freedom of profession
the freedom of life
and the freedom to die of starvation
I urge you to banish all somber thoughts
which only cloud your knowledge of the real situation of our country.
Do you know
what Vietnam is ?
Vietnam is the battefield
Of irrelevant Western styled democracy and phony socialist forces
We
have been paying
for this
all our lives
but not to avail ...
Without respite
day and night
our country exposes itself
to rockets and bombs
Hundred of raids are being carried out daily
how many have died ?
We don' t know
the dead never asked to be counted
or even to be remembered
We can only be sure of one thing :
we will never suffer overpopulation.
For the survivors
each grain of rice we eat
is imported from the vast field in Cailfornia
Germany and Korea are divided countries too
but they are doing all right
While we are to suffer in the most obscene way
What an irony !
I' ve been walking all roads of the beloved land
including foothpaths .
One afternoon when I stopped, terribly hungry
What have I to tell you ?
Where can I ask
for a clean breathing space ?
in thousand of bars from muddy Pleiku, Kontum,
to dusty Nha Trang Đà nẵng
Our girls brazenly ply their trade to sex- starved GI' s .
Colored !
Whites !
Reds!
Black !
Democarcy protectors !
Freedom fighters !
I have seen them all !
Right ! Right ! They are always right with women!
Lovers of a quite buck
our girls are not too bad
after all !
A Negro GI always showers dollar notes on the girls he sleeps with
He pays double everywhere
starting from the brothel
( He does so out of frustation with his colleagues )
man to man
I do not object to them
what bothers me
is the fact there are so many indecent women .
Do you see my friend
' special ' advertisements inserted in English langauge dailies ?
With one hundred dollars
one third of the montly salary of a GI
you can buy two girls from good Vietnamese families
The color of your skin
does not really matter.
O my God !
I know of a family with two girl
For some reason that I dare not elaborate
the elder sister set out to make love with one GI after another
She soon become unfit
and bed-ridden
Her younger sister cried loud
sinking into the deeping darkness
On the following morning
a GI turned up
saying he wanted the money back
He was simply not satisfied
he had not get the right value for his money.
How the hell could I believe it ?
The frail younger sister hurried to follow him
To a dingy hotel room
in stormy weather
Her parents lost news of her in a month
until one sad evening
The same GI appeared to ask them
to come the 3rd Field Hospital
to claim her corpse
She was lying there
covered by a sheet
her face pallid
She was the wife of a Vietnamese soldier
They were with each other only two days
Out of two years of married life
( You must find this hard to understand )
His battalion fought
at Khe Sanh
Lang Vei
and A Shau
He was the only survivor of a whole platoon
he was allowed to come home this time
Nobody dared to tell him the cause of her death
he would not believe it anyway
But for him
she was dead as any other dead person
he did not need to know anymore.
We have got
Cam Ranh City, Cam Ranh Air Base
Even in Tân Sơn Nhất
the main strip has got a foreign name
We are living in our own land
and we feel estranged
as if we are yellow Negroes
Today
the 22nd of October, 1968
The radio annouced
the change of color of the MPC's * took effect since yesterday
I agree completely
I have unreserved praise
for this just measure
But what did I see ?
Since seven this morning
a stream of sad-faced women and girls
Cramming the road to Tân Sơn Nhất Airport
to present a petition
Their property
their savings
their payments for services
had come to nothing ...
In an office there was a Vietnamese woman
whose officer husband was away
She had a very cute son
he could mumble a few words
he wept and screamed
being very sacred of his mother's American visitors
Unlike her
he was not a bit impressed by dollars
Shaking his head
shouting louder,
broken in tears,
he called his father's nam
Alas!
his father had long been denied leave
Now he was leading his troops against the enemy in the highlands
The woman worked for the Americans
to getmoney
and that would be that - she thought -
The kinky American officer who employed her thought a bit differently
He said:
" I will help you
your husband is an army officer
he is my best friend ! "
Not long after that
he feel madly in love with her.
One raining evening
he proposed to drive her home
it rained ,
it rained ,
The car ran smoothly on the road
when he suddenly pressed the brake pedal.
The car didn' t overturn
but she was trapped squarely on his lap
holding her tight
in his two hairy arms
he kissed her savagely
raped her in the back seat
He gave her all the MPC's
he got
a hell lot of money I tell you.
That night
her child go to bed early
unaware the officer had taken the place of his father
in the bed of his parents
The next morning
he got up
amazed to see so many MPC's
He did not like them
he tore them to pieces
calling his mother
startled
she rushed to him
handed him a parcel of candies
telling him it was from his father in the war zone.
Jubilant
he held it tight
mumbling his father's name
Dead tired
after a hellish night of love
she did not bother to go to work
Streching her shouders
half smiling
she looked at her bed filled with MPC 's
All this from the work of a single night,
now she became a millionairess
She summoned the household
handing out to them all Vietnamese notes left to her
( The 500 piaster note with the hero Trần Hưng Đạo on
The 200 piaster note with the hero Quang Trung on
The 100 piaster note with Marechal Lê Văn Duyệt on )
She said:
" I give you all these cheap thing
I do not want them anymore
They are very, very cheap ..."
Today
the 22nd of October
she came to work
read about it all in the newspaper
Two days ago
the American authorities announced the change of color of the MPC's
She wanted to cry
her dream of wealth
remained a dream.
She was taken to the hospital
after swalloving an overdose of sleeping pills
and she refused to be brought home
for fear of seeing the worthless pile of dollars
She broke down again
those around her thought her delirious
when they heard her speaking English to herself :
' Go home
Go home
the Yankee
I disliked ...'
Today
I went out
the roads now are as good as the highways in the States
I felt gratified to the RMK
and the US Army financed reconstruction program .
Today I went out
and I had a strange feeling
there was no election time
But I see
NIXON-AGNEW posters evrywhere
I was confused beyond words,
I want to ask ' them' what they think
I want to ask
the soldier whose wife died in the hospital
exhausted from making love with the GI 's
the officer whose wife became delirious after lose ' hard earned ' money
I have a further question
to ask a good American like Bernard Fall
He who wrote ' The Two Vietnam ' dicussing problems in both the North
and the South
and died
on Vietnam soil
On a field trip
with the US Marine in Quảng Trị Province
I want to ask good Americans
like the US Missionary
Who tried to learn about us
and to good things in the name of Christ
You are people of wisdom
people of strength
but are you honest enough
To admit the stupid mistakes your fellow countrymen committed
the name of friendship
I for one cannot entertain
the prospect of your girl becoming prostitute and boys pimps .
This land of ours counts on you
Men who are not Communists
Men who have convictions
Men who are not mercenaries
Men who have dignity
Men who do not allow wives to work for Americans
Men who bring salvation
I know you will feel humiliated
I know you will hate me
I tell you
you must learn American
If you want to know
what the hell is going on ...
SAIGON OCTOBER 22, 1968
poem by the phong
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* Military Payment Cettificates ( MPC' s ) are issued to servicemen as currency for miliatry -operated facilities and services provided in Vietnam. they are used in lieu of ' the green dollar'.
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SOUTH VIETNAM
THE BABY IN THE ARMS OF THE AMERICAN NURSE
poems by THEPHONG
translated from the Vietnamese
by ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN
Reprinted 1970
A Dai Nam Van Hien Book
First published in VIETNAM
by DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS, 1968.
Published in Vietnamese :
NAM VIỆTNAM ĐỨA TRẺ THƠ
CỦA VÚ EM HUÊ KỲ
( bilingual )
Saigon 1968.
Mimeographet at
SAIGON, December, 1970.
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