Comments on: The Cu Chi Tunnels & the Disneyfication of the Vietnam War http://tochinaandbeyond.com/2010/01/cu-chi-tunnels/ Inspiration and information for travelers to China, Asia and beyond. Fri, 11 May 2012 03:34:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Jess http://tochinaandbeyond.com/2010/01/cu-chi-tunnels/comment-page-1/#comment-297 Jess Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:25:42 +0000 http://www.tochinaandbeyond.com/wordpress/?p=739#comment-297 Dirk -- I actually wasn't disappointed by the War Remnants Museum -- yes, the texts of the exhibits are propagandistic, but the artifacts, and especially the photos, speak for themselves. But you make a really good point about these museums being designed for foreign tourists, and not locals. I wish we had had a more serious tour guide who could have given us a more genuine local perspective on the war. We had serious conversations about it elsewhere, but not at any of the war-related sites that we visited. Dirk — I actually wasn’t disappointed by the War Remnants Museum — yes, the texts of the exhibits are propagandistic, but the artifacts, and especially the photos, speak for themselves.

But you make a really good point about these museums being designed for foreign tourists, and not locals. I wish we had had a more serious tour guide who could have given us a more genuine local perspective on the war. We had serious conversations about it elsewhere, but not at any of the war-related sites that we visited.

]]> By: Dirk Voss http://tochinaandbeyond.com/2010/01/cu-chi-tunnels/comment-page-1/#comment-296 Dirk Voss Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:05:21 +0000 http://www.tochinaandbeyond.com/wordpress/?p=739#comment-296 Well, the War Remnants Museum will disappoint you too. You have to keep in mind that almost all visitors to these museums are foreign tourists. Our guide told us that even the woman selling the tickets at Cu Chi had never visited her very own museum. The museums still display a heavy-handed propaganda that turns off most Vietnamese. We were lucky that we had a tour guide who was actually a Vietnamese war veteran who put the war in a more realistic and quite horrifying context. Vietnamese war sights have a great potential for future development but they to bounce between traditional government ideologies and profit-oriented catering to western lack of taste. The shooting range, for example, is made for gun-obsessed Americans. You don't see Vietnamese firing AK 47s into the landscape. Well, the War Remnants Museum will disappoint you too. You have to keep in mind that almost all visitors to these museums are foreign tourists. Our guide told us that even the woman selling the tickets at Cu Chi had never visited her very own museum. The museums still display a heavy-handed propaganda that turns off most Vietnamese. We were lucky that we had a tour guide who was actually a Vietnamese war veteran who put the war in a more realistic and quite horrifying context. Vietnamese war sights have a great potential for future development but they to bounce between traditional government ideologies and profit-oriented catering to western lack of taste. The shooting range, for example, is made for gun-obsessed Americans. You don’t see Vietnamese firing AK 47s into the landscape.

]]>