Saigon Sleepwalks Its Past : At Every Turn, a Visitor Is Transported to 1975

For Westerners accustomed to Asia’s growing affluence and modernity, another world waits on the streets of Saigon. In many ways time has stood still since North Vietnamese tanks smashed through the fence surrounding the presidential palace in the spring of 1975. Claiming victory, North Vietnam renamed the city in honor of its deceased leader, Ho Chi Minh. But most citizens (and not a few cadres from the north) prefer to call it Saigon.

The old name still fits. More than a decade after the Communist victory, the city seems largely impervious to repeated efforts to transform it. The northerners who dominate Vietnam’s politics both admire and are appalled by the rampant commercialism of their southern brethren and seem curiously unprepared to impose their will. Among the statistics cited by officials during my visit, one in particular stood out: The Communist Party membership in Ho Chi Minh City--a metropolis of 4.5 million people--numbers a mere 60,000. Perhaps the leaders in Hanoi took the late Sen. George Aiken’s advice to heart: Declare victory, and then withdraw.

By day the faded grandeur of France’s “pearl of the Orient” is readily apparent in the city’s landmarks, broad boulevards and once- elegant residences. Excursions on foot into narrow side streets reveal a bygone world. The American Embassy, now the headquarters of the state oil and gas operation, seems almost quaintly vulnerable to one who remembers the siege of April, 1975. A Vietnamese youth kicks a soccer ball over the embassy wall, deftly scaling the front gate to retrieve it.

Souvenirs of the American presence abound, but a visitor must look for them. Ghostly service stations ringed with barbed wire, the familiar shapes of their signs intact, are mute reminders of Shell and Esso.

The city’s traffic offers a mobile history of the past four decades: Ancient Renaults and Citroens date the French era; gaudily finned Plymouths and Chevrolets mark the early American years; Dodge and International Harvester trucks record the fuller U.S. intervention; Nanjing trucks are a reminder of once-close relations with the Chinese, and Kama trucks and Toyota vans suggest Vietnam’s present dependence on Moscow and growing trade with Japan.

A visitor’s daytime walk is certain to attract a crowd, especially youngsters. Municipal officials claim that Saigon has the country’s lowest birthrate, but statistics seem irrelevant as I observe the city’s crowds. Much of the population is far too young to remember when half a million Americans descended on Vietnam. Virtually all of the children proudly shout their few words of English, but many old enough to remember the U.S. presence eye a visiting American warily. Some, however, are willing to experiment haltingly with a language that they have not spoken in well over a decade.

A swarm of children, ill-clothed, mainly underfed, yet remarkably cheerful and friendly, surround me. The more daring among them shake my hand, touch my camera or ask for a handout. After following me for a few blocks--incessantly jabbering words that I do not understand--the children of one neighborhood pass me on to those of the next. The experience is both exhilarating and uncomfortable.

Most Vietnamese assume that the foreigner has money to spend. There are two principal currencies: dollars and foreign cigarettes. Better that one should have a popular imported brand than to be saddled with too much Vietnamese money. On Dec. 1 the dong was devalued from 80 to 380 for one American dollar. But the official exchange rate is virtually irrelevant. My best offer: 1,500 dong . The Vietnamese hope to acquire a small amount of American currency, since it will yield enormous internal purchasing power. For the most part, Saigon citizens appear to be recycling poverty. Everyone is selling--food, shirts, shoes, cigarettes--but few seem to buy.

Saigon by day is an extraordinary experience, but an evening excursion reveals a world almost beyond comprehension. The nighttime traffic seems even denser. Thousands of bicycles, all without lights, wind their way along poorly lit thoroughfares. Crossing major boulevards is risky but necessary, for there are always new discoveries on the other side. Noisy motorbikes--barely visible with their dim headlights--determine my stops and starts; every crossing is a cause for quiet celebration. In the city’s interior streets, far removed from the downtown hotel district near the Saigon River, an aura of mystery is as thick as the night air. Decayed, dimly lit buildings with mansard roofs dominate the narrow back alleys, and at every turn, Saigon imparts a palpable sense of danger and intrigue. I half expect Peter Lorre to emerge from the shadows.

A succession of vivid, almost surrealistic impressions confront me: a typing school where young Vietnamese labor at manual machines left behind by the Americans; old women painstakingly sifting through trash heaps in search of scraps of usable paper; brightly lit store windows featuring elegant wedding gowns on Western mannequins; laborers working at ancient metal lathes without any protection; beauty parlors with young women under hair dryers; stalls featuring Chinese baozi and very credible baguettes, as well as food that seems better left untouched. I enter this world, yet stand apart from it; Saigon is there to see and smell but somehow not to know.

On my final night in the city, I discover a dimly lit store selling a variety of small art objects. A price is quickly negotiated for a statuette. My offer seems absurdly low, but the proprietor is gratified that he has made a sale in American dollars. He carefully wraps my purchase in an old newspaper. I later unwrap the statue in my room and make a startling discovery: The wrapping is a Parisian newspaper from 1952, including a report on Adlai Stevenson’s first campaign for the White House.

I am more exhilarated by the newspaper than by the purchase itself. Questions race through my mind. I want to know more about the proprietor and his city, but that is not part of the transaction. Saigon does not easily reveal its secrets and mysteries, and long after my departure its elusiveness lingers in my memory.