proud to be a vietnamese + what a sight of 550,000 GI' s in vietnam / poems by the phong

TENGGARA 1969
Dept of English- Univ. of Malaya
kuala Lumput/  Malaysia


                   Thephong 

                                                    Translated  from the Vietnamese
                                                                              by Dam Xuân Cân 

                                                        TRAN CAO LINH

                                            

                            PROUD TO BE A VIETNAMESE

Saigon, September 1968 

We are Vietnamese.  Be proud
The unbreakable flow of bullets and rockets bruises you, staggers you
                                                                                  singing the praises
You are a beast of burden.  Can you not love your country then ?

Do not envy anyone
even if you have to live at subsistence level
Americans are a special lot.  They are stinking with money, their arsenal
                                                                                        is fantastic.
Do you believe
                      that the pay of all of us, including yours
                                                                  comes from their treasures?
Just as one single dollar is worth, more than two hundred Vietnamese
                                                                                                     piasters
So a single word from the advisor-cum-master carries more weight than
                                                                                 a hell lot of our ideas

In the battefields we shed blood
so that our just cause will prevail some day
I say this
although I am pretty sick of hollow words like peace,  independence,
                                                                                          and freedom 
I also know the two Vietnams are hirelings of world powers
We cannot control our own fate or that of our country

This is because
we are poor and hungry
we are weak and powerless
Even if we are obtained race
we ought to be proud
Be apologetic to the Allied advisers
even when they are to blame
Forget the frustrations sufferings of over twenty years of war
Forget  own youth full of scars
I know this
and I ask you never to utter a cry
never, never

Don't be shaken by the reporter who wrote in sorrow
"In Cam Ranh the Allied MP 's stripped Vietnamese girls
to search for smuggled goods
We accept their right of search but can you explain to me
Why they tore down bras and slip, and why they outraged our national
                                                                                                          flag"

Close your eyes
forget it
pretend not to see anything
You know danm well you are got in a position to do anything about it

Of course you may blush the weakness of your countrymen
These days we are worse than beats, you you believe it?
(A beast does not stand idle while its mate of partner is bullied.) 
We all knew this in kindergarten texbooks of good conduct.

Right ! Right! We are no longer ourselves in our country
I still ask you to be proud to be a Vietnamese
our country will know its days
Our people are used of endless suffering.  Come and ruleover us,
                                                                                            O peace!
Of your friends
count the dead
and count the living
Do not forget those who died unburied, do not let them die for nothing
Do not believe an American militiaman
fights because of her goddam salary
None of us can ever bring ourselves to be mercenaries . ...

Be assured!  This land of ours
improved today
will be plentful in fun eral ores
"The stratofortresses are doing  justthat for us, apart from other things
                                                                   which I hate to tell you about
When they xome
the mighty erath shakes violently,  ceaselessly
As if under the spell of the macabre music you hear in churches on Sundays

I ask you, our sworn enemies, to be proud
that after twenty years of terrible war
You still stand on your feet
while the stratofortresses rain millions of tons of bombs and rockets
You deserve to be called true heroes of endurance

I never question this
I only ask you to open your eyes wide enough
To see your country
being reduced to a happy hunting ground
Should we resign oueselves to this
                                                        until doomsday?

Is it not strange
that today, today
there are more GI's in Vietnam than in America?
Is it not fair
to ask
whether the end of the ordeal is near ?

No matter how you feel
do not go all funny
do not show resentment to Allied soldiers
This bunch of whites, browns, blacks and reds
come here in our rescue!
They brought with them
                                      flour
                                      corned beef
                                      and plastic wrapped goods

They are right of you remember out ancestral enemies
the goddam Chinese
Are ready at all times to march in to force domination upon us
It won' t not take long because they are right at our doorstep

Do not be galled by the slight of boards reading "No Admittance to Locals"

My friend
bury your face in your hands
then cast a long glance at the sea
And the mountains and forests  and meadows and streams.  This country
                                                                                                         is ours.
O when will out country to be a baby in the arms of the American nurse
When will regain its place as the second rice exporter in the world ...

I have been in every corners og my country
Wherever I was could not help the pand in my heart
It us paintful to know
we are no longer able to feed ourselves
                                         Every bullet
                                         every toilet roll
                                         every piece of corrugated iron
                                         every piaster of your salary

Do not come from our land

Do not go all funny, man
mountainous sorrow will make you a philosopher
Before long
we will have no taste felt for romantic literature
Instead we will write treatises human despair

I know you
do not want to hear any more talk about it
I only want to tell you
Do not let the foreigners whore your wives
Do not approve of mixed marriages
however justified the motive
Educate your children
on the hardships and misfortunes of today
(To live in suffering is to deserve to live)

When you go out in the streets
when you are on operations in the countryside
Try hard to protect our women and girls
Do not see like cursed strangers
(Nobody can offered to be a foreigner in his own country)

Cool down man
when you are taken as undesirable background in photographs
When you see Yanks coming out of the PX all smiles
Cool down man

When you have not enough to live on
it goes without saying
You should refrain from buying gifts for your girl friend of your own race.




                                         WHAT A SIGHT 550,000 GI'S IN VIETNAM

Saigon, 22nd October 1968

Well ! Wel l!
Our friends
                      The Americans 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 estate
Petrified
stupefield
we Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming
Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh City
Quy Nhon, Chu Lai, Tân Son Nhât, Biên Hoa
Anywhere they set foot
                                        they are followed by our women and girls
                                        the fun makers par excellence
As for us
you must produce passes
when you come down to any of these places
Don 't you see signboards
                     reading " Local keep out"
I know how do 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 sombre thoughts
which only cloud your knowledge of the real situation of our country

Do you know
                     hat Vietnam is?
Vietnam the battlefield
Of irrelevant Western style democracy and phony socialist force
We
have been paying
                        for this
                        all our lives
                        but to no 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 from overpopulation
For the survivors
each grain of rice we eat
is imported  from vast fields in California
Germany and Korea are divided countries too
                         but  they are doing all right
While we are to suffer in the most cruel and 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 thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku, Kontum
to dusty Nha Trang, Danang
Our girls brazenly ply their trade with sex- starved GI's
                          Coloreds!
                          Whites!
                          Reds!
                          Blacks!
                          Democracy protectors! 
                          Freedom fighters!
                          I have seen them all!
Right! Right!  They are always right with women!
Lovers of a quick buck
                         our girls are not too bad
                         after all!
A Negro GI always showers dollars notes on the girl she sleeps with
He pays double everywhere
                         starting from the borthel
( he does not out of frustration with his white colleagues)
Man to man
I do not object to them
What troubles me
is the fact there are indecent women.

Do you see
my friend
'special advertisements inserted in English language dailies?
With one hundred dollars
                           one third of the monthly salary of a GI
                           you can buy two girls from good Vietnamese families
The color of your skin
does not really matter.

Oh my God!
I knew of a family with two girls
For reasons that I dare not elaborate
The elder sister set out to make loves with one GI another
She soon became unfit
and bed-ridden
Her younger sister cried loud
sinking into the deepening darkness
On the following morning
                          a GI turned up
                          saying he wanted his money back
He was  simply not satisfied
                          he had not got 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 to the 3 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 as dead as an any other dead person
de did not need to know anymore.

We have got
Cam Ranh City, Cam Ranh Air Base
Even in Tân Son Nhât
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 October 1068
The radio announced
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 even this morning
                    a stream of sad-faced women and girls
Cramming the road to Tân Son Nhât 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 scared 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 name

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 get better money
                                and that would be that -- she thought
The kinky Anerican officer who employed her thought a bit differently
He said;
                               " I will help you,
                                 your husband is an army officer
                                 he was my best friend 
Not long after that
                                 he felt madly in love with her

One rainy evening
he offered to drive her home
it rained
The car skidded on the road
when he suddenly pressed the brake pedal
The car did not overturn
                                but she was trapped squarely on his lap
Holding her tight
                                in his two hairy arm
                                he kissed her savagely
raped her in the back seat
He gave all the MPC 's  he got
a hell lot of money I tell you

That night
the son went 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 wrapped 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 shoulders
half smiling
she looked at her bad filled with MPC 's
All this from the work of a single night
                                now she had become a millionairess
She summoned the household
handing out to them all Vietnamese notes left
The 500 piaster note with the hero Tran Hung Dao On
The 200 piaster note with the hero Quang Trung On
The 100 piaster note with  Lê van Duyêt On
She said:
"I give you all these cheap things
                           I do not want them anymore
                           They are very,  very cheap ... "

Today
the 22nd October
she came to work
                            read about it all in the newspaper
Two days previously
the  American authorities announced the change of color of the MPC 's
She wanted to cry
her dream of wealth
remained a dream
Also the Yankee officer departed to the States at five in the morning
Suddenly
                          she remembered her husband
Suddenly
                         she remembered her son
She was taken to the hospital
after swallowing 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 are s good as the highway in the States
I felt gratified to the RMK
and the US Army financed road reconstruction program
Today I went out
                            and I had I strange feeling --
                            it was not election time
But I saw
                            NIXON -AGNEW posters everywhere
                            I was confined beyond words
I want to ak them what they think
                            the soldier wife died in the hospital
                            exhausted from making love with the GI 's
                            the officer whose wife became delirious after losing 'hard
                                                                                                  'earned' money
I have a further question
                           to sk good Americans like Bernard Fall
Who wrote The Two Vietnams discussing problems in both the North and 
                                                                                                    the South
And died
                            on Vietnamese soil
                            On a field strip with the US Marines in Quang tri
I want to ask good Americans
                            like the US missionary
Who tried to learn about us
                             people of strength
                             But are you honest enough
To admit the stupid mistakes your fellow countrymen in the names of
                                                                                                friendship?
I for one cannot entertain
                             the purpose of our girls becoming prostitutes and boys pimps

This land of ours counts on you
Men who are not Communists
Men who have convictions
Men who are not servants
Men who have dignity
Men who do not allow wives to work for Americans
Men who have hopes
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 ...)

the phong

                                           TENGGARA

-----
*  Military Payment Certificates MPC) are issued to service men as currency for military operated and services provided to Vietnam.  They are used in lieu of "the green dollar".

(TENGGARA  October 1968 - p.  82 - 92.)