10/10/2009

We finished the 10 day trip with a visit to Hue. Hue was the old capitol of Vietnam before the French took over so there are still remnants of the Vietnamese Dynasty. Including the largest Imperial City in Vietnam called the Citadel, which is in the middle of a huge restoration process because most of the original Citadel was destroyed in the French War and then the American War. Before we went to the Citadel we went to dinner at the house of the former princess of Vietnam. The residents of the house today are relatives of the former princess and the man that we met with is a Hue history buff who used to be a history professor before the Vietnam War, but was unable to be a professor after the war. He has written 10 books on the History of Hue and Vietnam Dynasty. He was the cutest old man I have ever seen in my life and he had all of these treasures that he shared with us. Documents from the King of Vietnam and even a bowl that dates back from the 1500's that was given to his family by the royal family. Also amongst his treasures was a snow globe from San Francisco that he got in 2006 when he went on a grand tour of the United States. He loved that snow globe.
The next day we went to the Citadel and saw a very interesting remnant of Vietnamese history. The Vietnamese Dynasty had a lot of Mandarin influences so there was a Emperor and a queen and a lot of concubines and unics and such. I even got to dress up like a Vietnamese Princess which was cool. (Pictures to follow of coarse). Two interesting things about the Citadel in the main entrance to the Citadel you could see bullet holes in the wall from supposedly American guns and they have chosen not to repair these holes. They are a reminder of how the legacy of Vietnam was damaged by a the war. The other interesting thing is that around the Citadel is a huge wall and a mote, which at first seems medieval, but if you think about it before the french invasion of Vietnam in 1861 Vietnam had never seen artillery. All wars were fought on horseback or on foot, so you could stand on top of you wall and see the enemy approach and the wall you built would actually protect you because large amounts of troops couldn't really breach the wall all at the same time. Then with invention of cannons, you could blast a whole in the side of the wall and troops could enter the Citadel from any location they wanted, which made taking over much easier. Within a year of the French attacking Vietnam they had taken over the entire country and within a few years they had taken over most of Cambodia as well.