To me, this past week
was the most interesting set of readings and classroom discussions so far. We
talked about connections between meaning and place and how place is important
to consider when thinking about collective memory, which is the collection of
memories developed by an individual or a group. In regards to the Alderman and
Dwyer article, “Memorial Landscapes: Analytic Questions and Metaphors,” we
discussed the ideas behind looking at a memorials as a text, arena, and
performance.
In class on Tuesday,
I mentioned how in Vietnam, a country for which a war took the
lives of over three million people, an American tourist can pay to shoot the
same rifles that were used in the war. To give an example, I found an article
online that discusses The National Defense Shooting Range in Ho Chi Minh City as
being that destination. The article explains, “For five dollars, you can fire off a
few rounds on an American M-16, or the AK-47’s favored by the Vietnamese.” The
author even discusses what the Vietnamese attendant said to him: “C’mon and try
it, it’s your chance to be part of the war.” This statement, in particular,
took me by surprise. I find it interesting that a Vietnamese born citizen
would want an American to relive the experience of a war that most likely took
the life of someone in his family. With this particular destination in mind, I
would like to expand on our discussion about reading places as metaphors.
TEXT:
How could we look at
this particular place as a text? This metaphor is meant for us to see a place
as being an authored thing, something given meaning through the experiences of
the author writing it. In the case of the shooting range, it is easy to see how
people would have varying interpretations of this place. For instance, it’s
obvious that the employee working the range had the mindset that totally
disregarded the violent past of the war whereas most would think he would feel the
direct opposite. I for one feel that the idea of this place being a tourist
attraction is mind-boggling and honestly quite disturbing. Just by reading
about this place I know that if I were to ever visit, I would not have the same
mindset. I have too many family members associated with this war and seeing
their grief, I could not sit idly by and shoot guns in a place that holds such tragic memories for my family. My great uncle, one of the first to don the
Green Beret for our country, would be deeply offended to see a place for which
such a tragedy could be relived. This is a good example relating to the
Creswell article in which he quotes “our soon-to-be distinguished guest” Ken
Foote as saying, “places have the power to force hidden and painful memories to
the fore through their material existence.” Creswell also mentions that the
“sites stained by the blood of violence and covered by the ashes of tragedy,
force people to face squarely the meaning of an event.” With that being said,
people differ when it comes to writing the story of a place.
ARENA:
How can we look at
the shooting range as an arena? Well, in class we discussed that this metaphor
is focused around the idea of memorials or places serving as the location for
people to discus the meaning of the place and to compete, sort of like a game
with different teams, for dominance of the processes that make this place a
struggle for identity. Basically, place as an arena means that there are other
groups competing for how something should be memorialized. In this case, the
Department of Tourism in Vietnam uses this place for profit. Vietnam is a
struggling country with limited resources and has recently begun to see the
profits of re-marketing war memorabilia and war-zone locations. So, how do they
want this era to be memorialized or remembered? In the article online, it
mentions that the country is “repackaging it’s collection of war museums,
dusting away some of the dowdy propaganda and sprucing up the exhibits for
greater international consumption.” This shows the political implication of
places as arenas. Also, the article explains that the names of different
museums are beginning to change. For example, “the name of the War Remnants
Museum used to be known as the Museum of American War Crimes.” Like Alderman
and Dwyer assert, when thinking about places as arenas, “it is important to
recognize the historical representation is not only a product of social power
but also a tool or resource for achieving it.” So, how can the shooting range
and its historical representation be a tool or resource for achieving social
power? I might be wrong, but the shooting range is obviously a representation
of the violent history surrounding the Vietnam War and yet the Vietnamese
government is actively exploiting that site for financial purposes.
PERFORMANCE:
As we learned in
class, the idea of a place as performance means that we “recognize the
important role that bodily enactments, commemorative rituals, and cultural
displays occupy in constituting and bringing meaning to places suggesting that
the body itself is a site of memory.” This means that places take on different
meanings by how people perform there. A few questions are raised when we speak
of memorials or places as performance. What is the expected behavior? What are
the expectations for the memorial? How is the place used? When I think of this idea, I think of what we
learned in class about how memorials aren’t just seen by how it looks like in
the landscape but how it is perpetuated by meanings. Here we discussed how the
site of the Athletic Center in Argentina is located below a busy highway and
that it’s passed frequently and not really noticed. However, judging by the
candles we saw in the video, people still associate this site as being a place
of bad memories. In regards to the shooting range in Vietnam, it is located in
the busy city of Ho Chi Minh City and is frequented by tourists. How do these
tourist act there will determine it’s meaning in a sense. Think about how my
great uncle would act in this place. I would think he would be disgusted by the
horrible memories that would come to light. However, a tourist who wants to
experience this site would go shoot the guns and get the experience of feeling
“part of the war.” How we act in a place determines our expectations of that
place as well as the expected behaviors within. Like Dr. Whitson said in class, the
Vietnam memorial in D.C. is a place that has a designated set of expectations.
We wouldn’t have our child sit on the wall and eat ice cream. The site is for
mourning and refuge for family members who lost loved ones whereas the shooting
range in Vietnam is a place in which you are expected to pay to experience what
it was like to shoot a gun in Vietnam during the war.
That is a great point you make and it absolutely coincides with my argument regarding the Vietnam tourist experience of the shooting range. I could practically substitute the shooting range for a site in which Civil War reenactments take place here in America and I would develop the same result. I also agree with your comment that suggests the fresh collective memory surrounding the Vietnam War plays a role in dividing the reactions of people in regards to a tourist attractions geared toward recreating the experiences of historically violent times. The Civil War was over a century ago whereas the Vietnam War was just over fifty years ago. This has to have some influence on our collective memory of these two particular wars and how we would be affected by the ‘pretend’ experience of them.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article by Dr. Foote, “Hungary after 1989,” I couldn’t help but revert back to a quote. Toward the middle of this article, on page 317, it says, “the new memorials are best viewed as part of an ongoing process of commemoration rather than as static objects that, once erected, are gradually forgotten.” I know that both the shooting range in Vietnam and Civil War reenactments here in the U.S. aren’t intended as memorials, however, in a sense they take on that role. In regard to the Foote quote, these experiential-based tourists attractions, whether violent or not, serve as a better articulator of history then some statue or monument.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not Vietnamese.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a couple of different things happening in this situation. First, many people consider Vietnam as a war the Vietnamese won against the most powerful military of the late 20th century. For their Communist government, this was a source of pride and something to be celebrated. Victors have fewer problems reliving events than those who lost. I'm sure some in Vietnam celebrate the war and have built identities based on the idea that the simple Vietnamese soldier fought and triumphed over American aggression. Our perspective is completely different. Even if we think the US should have never been there, like you, we have relatives who served and who had their life changed by the conflict. It reminds me of how until just a few years ago, you could relive the childhood of Josef Stalin at his birthplace and museum in Gori, Georgia. After Georgia lost the 2008 war against Russia, the museum was reformatted as a museum highlighting Stalin's terrible side.
This leads to my other point: It's easy for those in power to rationalize using a national tragedy for profit, especially in these new-to-Capitalism economies. It's an economic triumph over Americans if you can persuade them to pay you to relive a war they lost. You win because a) you profited financially and b) because you managed to use power to make someone relive a negative memory. And as a Vietnamese person working at a tourist attraction, you probably don't have much power at all.
Zach, your comment on the Vietnam War being too 'fresh' in our collective memory brings me to the issue of violent video games. When I got the first Playstation and a copy of the original Medal of Honor game (with a plot focusing on WWII), my dad refused to let me play the game because of the violence depicted, as well as the reality of the events which occurred. He objected not only to the blood and guns as most parents do (even with the horrible graphics back then) but also because, from his perspective, I was dishonoring all who served and died in the war, which includes members of my own family. I couldn’t see his point of view, because in my mind, I was just killing Nazis, and there was nothing disrespectful about that.
ReplyDeleteI also have several relatives who participate in Civil War reenactments, so I’ve spent my fair share of time around this interesting set of people. From what I’ve experienced, it seems that the vast majority of reenactors are amateur Civil War history experts in their own right. Reenactments generally consist of an entire weekend, and they are expected to remain in character for the entire thing. In much the same way as a renaissance fair, these men talk, cook, eat, and dress – down to the itchy wool underwear – exactly as the historical men they are portraying. The utmost regard is given to respecting the tradition and integrity of their ancestors, no matter what side they fought on.
I feel that many ‘historical’ video games walk the line between homage and mockery: their often faux-historical plots make gamers think they are learning history, much as Guitar Hero makes people think that it is easy to play guitar. Civil War reenactments, on the other hand, are purely reverent towards the period of history they represent. I think these Vietnamese firing ranges fall somewhere in between these two categories. For those naïve tourists who no doubt take the obligatory brief history lesson just to indulge in this needless masturbatory gesture, it is no more than a video game. But for those with a true interest and respect for the history, this area can provide an experience unlike any other. Controversial, for sure, but it is up to the users to determine its reputation.
http://www.nww2m.com/2011/09/world-war-ii-themed-video-game-teaches-kids/