{"id":202,"date":"2010-05-20T02:06:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T09:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=202"},"modified":"2018-10-14T22:05:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T05:05:12","slug":"loudspeakers-in-different-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2010\/05\/loudspeakers-in-different-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"diaCRITICIZE: Loudspeakers in different\u00a0languages"},"content":{"rendered":"
diaCRITICIZE is the periodic editors’ note or guest editorial. Here, Nguyen Qui Duc reflects on some legacies of war.<\/em><\/p>\n The war\u2019s over. I am so glad. I can go back to sleep. I haven\u2019t been able to for most of April.<\/p>\n All of last month, the war raged on. Yes: that war. You know what I\u2019m talking about. That little annoying thing that made no sense to so many people. The one that changed America, and Viet Nam. It won\u2019t friggin\u2019 go away. That stubborn thing ended in April, 35 years ago, but it\u2019s still here.<\/p>\n Public loudspeakers have been a feature of life here in Ha Noi for decades. Government news and directives. Productivity and corruption. The week’s social campaign. Party meetings. Neighborhood alerts to new trash and parking policies. Martial music.<\/p>\n When I moved here three years ago, the public loudspeakers stopped being so loud. The people were complaining. No one really listened to them. They disrupted the buying and selling. The loudspeakers interfered with many of us trying to read other news on the internet. They contradicted what people experienced in their real lives.<\/p>\n I\u2019m told some people sneaked up to their roofs at night like thieves and reached out to cut the wires. Others paid workers to point the thing skyward and waited for the rain.<\/p>\n For a while, it seemed the loudspeakers listened to the people for a change. They just simply shut up, or faded away.<\/p>\n Little did I know. The wire were still live. This past April, the loudspeakers were at it again. It was the war, all over again. 8am. 4pm. 8pm. War, war, war<\/em>.<\/p>\n During the war, the loudspeakers must have been helpful. Sirens, air attack alerts, orders to evacuate and seek shelter. Last month, as the loudspeakers went back to work, they might have reminded the older generation of those difficult and hurtful days when American aircraft sent bombs exploding all over the place. Rolling thunders, or some such awe-inspiring war campaign slogans.<\/p>\n Now, there\u2019s a new generation. And what comes out of the loudspeakers is simply a bothersome, irritating chatter. It keeps you from sleeping or enjoying your coffee, it makes it difficult to listen to your i-pod.<\/p>\n And it talks about something no one really wants to hear in this town. The Vietnam War.<\/em><\/p>\n They sure like to make a big deal of that victory. And believe me, 35 years later, that victory\u2014the \u2018liberation of South Viet Nam\u2019 and the \u2018nation\u2019s reunification\u2019 is a big deal. Some say it\u2019s just a way for the party to maintain moral authority. We did it.\u00a0 We defeated a big country. We reunified the nation.<\/em> That just went on and on and on on the loudspeakers for most of April.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t matter that some people also think \u2018we\u2019 defeated the country only to surrender to its economic and Kentucky Fried Chicken power a couple of decades later. And some have also been talking about reunification, except that they wonder what would have happened if the nation had been reunified under a different regime.<\/p>\n Visiting Saigon, a Ha Noi friend wistfully said, \u201cSometimes I wish the Americans, and the French could have stayed longer. Give the North some of the openness of Saigon.\u201d<\/p>\n She was referring both to architectural openness, the wide streets and more orderly construction. And she was also referring to the caf\u00e9s, the shops, and the sidewalks where people openly go about their business, enjoying themselves, with little apparent interference from the police, and the bureaucrats. And she was referring to the attitude of the people, saying what they mean, and meaning it.<\/p>\n She’s of a generation that hadn\u2019t really thought about the war, other than the stuff told in school. The hard sacrifices and the determination of her parents’\u00a0 generation, the heroic exploits to defeat a big and brutal enemy. Some of that is true, but as time passes, she\u2019s learning other things.<\/p>\n Back in Ha Noi, she and her friends came to hear three Vietnamese American writers read at the gallery and caf\u00e9 I run. She says her English wasn\u2019t good enough to get it all, but she was beginning to get a sense of what it meant. For the people who weren\u2019t victors. Who sought refuge in America and worked hard to create jobs, new roots and new identity for themselves outside the country.<\/p>\n That was the stuff writers Ben Tran<\/strong> and Andrew Lam <\/strong>talked about one night in the gallery . They talked of defeat, of new opportunities, of memories of another Viet Nam.<\/p>\n