(we promise one another/ published by ... washington. d.c., 1971)
selected, translated and published by don luce+
j.c, schafer+ jacquelyn chagnon
(washington d.c., 1971)
foreign intervention/ we promise one another ...
(p. 29)
With bullets of their civilization
-- MIÊN ĐỨC THẮNG
In Việtnam the family has traditionally been the most important social unit. The whole family was involved in the planting, growing and harvesting of the rice. The smallest boys watched the water buffalo while their fathers plowed and cultivated the rice paddies. Toward the end of the day, an older boy would take his father's place and plow the last few furrows while his father rested. When a man married, the cycle would begin again. The following folk song tells what life was like in the village when there no war:
Our village has a lovely landscape,
With its people living along the rivers
Curved like a dragon.
Thanks to the Supreme Sky, summer follows winter,
Making farming prosperous.
In every profession in the village,
Both men and women excel in their work,
When the sun shines, they work hard;
When the sun sets, they return home,
Day after day, month after month,
they enjoy their work and hardships.
But the beginning in 1965, with the large forced refugee movements, this family structure began to break down. Thousands of foreign troops pored into the country. The fathers joined one army or the other, the women washed uniforms for the foreign soldiers, the young girls worked in the bars and brothels, and the children shined shoes and became pimps for the American GI 's. Modern American military technology inflicted increased violence on the land and population, provoking fear among Vietnamese that no place in their land was safe.
Now refugee camps surrounds South Vietnam' s larger cities which have become increasingly crowded as people flee the countryside to escape Việt Cộng terrorism and American bombing. The importing of consumer goods and luxury items in a futile attempt to curb rampant inflation has led only to an increase in corruption and a confusion of Vietnamese value. Faced with such circumstances, many Vietnamese have become lost and disoriented,
AUCTIONS
By Phạm Thế Mỹ
phạm thế mỹ musician [qui nhon 1930- saigon 2009]
(photo: internet)
Fifty piasters. who will buy from me?
Five million piasters, who will buy from me?
Five million piasters, a million youth for sale
Fifty piasters, who will buy this bright young student?
A pair of legs still strong,
Who will buy from me? Who will buy from me?
For sale, all my land,
For sale, all my love,
For sale, my friends,
For sale, my kind wife;
For an extra million,
I' ll sell myself,
Who will buy from me? Who will buy from me?
For an extra million, I' ll sell all for me;
I need to buy a patriot.
Anything for sale? I'll buy everything,
Fifty thousand for an pimp,
Five million for a mandarin
With a big salary
Who gained power step by step;
Who gained for sale? I' ll buy anything.
I need dirty hands,
And playboys,
Sweet smelling as garden worms
Wandering up and down the streets.
I' ll buy anything, I'll buy everything;
Here is a million, I' ll buy a monk
For a million;
Don' t forget me,
Anything for sale? I' ll buy everything,
An extra million, don' t forget me,
An extra million, don' t forget me.
phạm thế mỹ
WHAT A SIGHT! 550,000 GI' s IN VIÊNAM
By Thế Phong
Thế Phong [ i.e. Do Manh Tuong 1932 - ]
(photo by Phat Nguyen/ Con Dao Island, 1974)
Thế Phong is an airman working with the press office of the Vietnamese
Air Force. He spent two years working for the American military in
Việtnam and was a lecturer in politics at the Vũng Tàu training center
which produced cadres for the Government of the Republic of Việtnam' s
pacification program. Working closely with the American military in
South Việtnam, he has had an opportunity to observe the effect the
presence of GI 's has had on Vietnamese society. Many of his poems
contain lurid details of the actions of Americans in Việtnam. Included
here are excerpts from a long poems.
Well, well,
Our friends
The Americans have arrived in our country.
They have manpower,
They have money,
They have munitions
(the recipes of the magic formulas,)
And there are 550,000 of them.
Deserted places
Become military bases.
Petrified,
Stupefied,
We Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming:
Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh City,
Qui Nhơn, Chu Lai, Tân sơn Nhứt, Biên Hòa ...
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 over-population.
For the survivors
Each grin of rice we eat
Is imported from vast fields in California.
Germany and Korea are divided countries too,
But they' re doing all right --
While we suffer in the most cruel and obscene way,
What an irony!
I' ve been walking the roads of my beloved land;
One afternoon when I stopped, terribly hungry,
What I have I to tell you?
Where can I ask
For clean breathing space?
In thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku,
Kontum buried in the mud,
To dusty Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng,
Our girls brazenly ply their trade to sex- straved GI' s --
Coloreds,
While,
Reds,
Blacks,
Democracy protectors!
Freedom fighters!
I ve seen them all!
Anyplace they set foot on
They re followed by our women and girls,
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'
Without respite
Day and night
our country exposes itself to rockets and bombs,
Hundreds of raids are being carried out daily.
In an office there was a Vietnamese woman
Whose officer husband was away;
She had cute son,
He could mumble a few words.
He wept and screamed,
Scared of his mother' s American visitors;
Unlike her,
He was not a bit impressed by dollars;
Shaking his head
Shouting louder,
Broken into tears,
He called his father' s name.
His father had long been denied a leave,
He was leading his troops
Against the enemy in the highlands.
The woman worked for the Americans
To get money,
And that would be that --
She thought.
The American officer who employed her
thought differently,
He said, " I will help you,
Your husband is an army officer,
He is my best friends ..."
Not long after that
He felt madly in love with her.
One rainy evening
He proposed to drive her home,
It rained,
It rained,
The car ran smoothly on the road
When suddenly he pressed the brake pedal.
The car didn 't overturn
But she was trapped.
HUMILIATION
By a Student
Holding her tight
In his two hairy arms
He kissed her savagely,
Then raped her in the back seat,
He gave her all the MPC 's (*) he had,
A lot money.
That night
Her child 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
And tore them to pieces
Calling to 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 tight his present
Mumbling his father 's name ...
[Dead tired
after a hellish night of love
she did not bother to go to work
Stretching her shoulders
half smiling
she looked at her bed 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 Le van Duyet On
She said:
"I give you all these cheap things
I do not want them anymore
They are very, very cheap ..."
To day
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 5 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 now are as good as the highways in the States
I felt gratified to the RMK
and the US Army financed road reconstruction program
Today I went out
and I had a strange feeling --
it was not election time
But I saw
NIXON-AGNEW posters everywhere
I was confused beyond words
I want to ask 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 (*)
---
* page 91- 92 TENGGARA 5/ 1969 -- Dept. of English/ Univ. of Malaya/ Malaysia/ Kulua Lumpur/Malaysia)
I have a question
To ask good Americans like Bernard Fall,
Who wrote 'The Two Việtnams', "discussing problems in both
the North and the South,
Who died on Vietnamese soil
In a field trip with the Us Marines in Quảng Trị
I want to ask good Americans
Like the US missionary
Who tried to learn about us
And to do good things in the name of Christ.
You are people of wisdom,
People of strength;
But are you honest enough
To admit the silly mistakes your fellow country men committed
In the name of friendship!
I for one cannot entertain
The prospect of your 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 bring salvation,
I know you will feel humiliated,
I tell you
You must learn American
If you want to know
What the hell going on ...
the phong [TRANSLATED BY ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN]
---
* Military Payment Certificates (MPC 's) are issued to servicemen as currency for military -
operated facilities and services provided in Việtnam. They are used in lieu of green dollar.
( Don Luce 's note)
BULLETS
By Miên Đức Thắng
miên đức thăng musician [1945 - ]
Oh, the allied countries have given our people
Bright pretty bullets made of copper!
The Vietnamese people need food and clothing,
So generous allies increase their aids,
And supply us with more bright pretty bullets.
The Vietnamese strave to death,
They cannot eat a million bright pretty bullets.
We, father and son, meet each other
under the flying bullets,
We, brothers, meet each other
under the flying cannonballs,
We, fellow villagers, meet each other under
the gun in the square;
In the name of peace
The allies support the two regions
With the bullets of their civilization.
miên đức thắng
CHILD OF MỸ LAI
By Lê Dân
lê dân producer [1928-- saigon 2016]
Dear Mỹ Lai, my heart aches
With the cry of my young brother
Dying beside the corpse of his mother and grandmother,
Among the sound of guns
And barbarous laughter
Ricefields raise our children,
Why kill them, our people,
In so many places, so many times?
Why add hatred and violence?
Is it to achieve your rule
Upon this country
Of red blood and yellow skin?
Look at the heap of flesh and bones!
From thousands of years of struggle,
Each priceless person
Belong to Việtnam.
My young brother is like a bud
Just growing on the tree of our nation,
The root, his father, he was never met;
The sap, his mother, he has never known,
And so it is with million of brothers and sisters,
They have killed him, the but of our tree;
They have killed his mother,
Killed his source of milk,
Yet can they kill four thousand years of tradition?
Can they kill four thousand years of tradition?
Can they kill his father
Who carries the gun against the invaders?
And can they kill the hatred
Within him as he dies?
His farewell is not his last word
For his brothers will be born and grow up,
Like the warriors of Phù Đổng,
To repay the nation
Which has raised them,
The nation standing like a centennial tree,
And on its branches like the green buds
They will grow up,
Millions of hands to end this war
And drive from our country
These killers who cannot hide themselves,
Humanity will judge them.
Mỹ Lai, I ache every second,
I cannot wait for an hour,
Or for the evening to pass,
I must act now
To save old mothers
And young children.
lê dân
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