This is a good view of the Japanese Covered Bridge in Hoi An. Quite the tourist attraction in town and it is very nice...15th century or something. Glad it survived all the wars in this country's history. Everyone wants a picture of it or from it or in it.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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2 comments:
Bring back memory of the shops near this bridge on my tour. TY
Actually, there aren't that many wars in Vietnam's history, and those they fought, they usually won. Wars against the Kingdons of Champa and Kampuchea are, after all, what gave Vietnam its long coastline and rich Mekong Delta. Khanh Hoa, the province including Nha Trang, has only been Vietnamese for 352 years. Nha Trang itself was founded by a Frenchman (Yersin) in the late 1800s. Vietnam was spared WWI and WWII, though tens of thousands of Vietnamese fought in those wars in the French Army, or worked in France as war workers. (Among the most important in WWI, Vietnamese lacquer artisans, who coated aircraft fabrics.) Yes, HCM hoodwinked the OSS into thinking he had a large, well armed anti-Japanese resistance, but the battalion's worth of small arms they received from the OSS were only delivered a few months before war's end, and there is no credible evidence of any sustained campaign against the Japanese by the nascent Viet Minh. Nor, frankly, did they have the capabioity. This is not to imply that Vietnam's economy did not suffer during WWII. Overall, prosperity dropped and many necessities, such a gasoline, became very scarce. And, there was the famine in North Vietnam caused by Japanese rice impounds, but even taking into account possible tens of thousands dead in that act, the impact of the war in France and Euroope in general was far more destructive.
Of interest, the few mixed Japanese-Vietnamese I have known were all from the Danang area.
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