Man-o-gram #32

Gordon Crocker. Hats off to this cat, it’s likely all his fault, this adventure. That’s him in the picture above, round 1975, not a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away with those trousers now Gordon. 

(He’ll likely murder me for nicking his foto off his wifes fb post 🫣)

As I recall, he bounded into my 5th form Geography class all boyish and excitable. Walk shorts long hair and sideboards, he drove an Austin Cambridge and I got the impression there was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be but hanging with a bunch of smelly teenagers in a prefab. 

He told us “communism’s not necessarily a bad thing, the green revolution pulled China out of starvation, local food in local communites, worked for them…” This was news to me. All I’d seen on our telly or read or heard was pro-American vietnam war propoganda, American dream good, communism bad. 

I didn’t pick Gordon as a lefty then and I doubt he is now. He was just laying down some history on the country, where they were at now, and why. Sound teaching. 

He also told us that detergent was an oil based product and it’s not going to end well from a pollution perspective, “but go home tonight and try washing your dishes with soap, see how U get on.” I wouldn’t have picked him as a greenie either, he was just laying it down. The things you remember. 

I would have been 15 or 16 then, and in my late 50’s I dropped into his retirement afternoon tea, still at my old school in Hamilton. As he spoke at his farewell he turned to acknowledge me turning up, one of his old students, and caught me txting on my phone. Detention for sure! What he didn’t know is I was arranging a catchup after, of my old girlfriend from same school, who he knew, and who I hadn’t seen for 35 yrs. Worth 6 of the best for that. 

Now in Vietnam I have context for what was then utterly intriguing, but still only chalk on a board, pictures in a book, notes on banda newsprint, I can still smell the meths. Chairman Mao has long gone but his doctrine remains, Deng and Xi might have opened to world mkts but there’s nothing free market about their politics or who is in control. 

Ask Tibet. Or any journalist that posts something those in control don’t like. When the Vietcong coming down from the Chinese north finally gave the American war machine the bumsrush in the 1970’s, China moved solidly into Vietnam. 

So today I visited the war remnants museum in HoChiMinh City (aka Saigon) and spent a bit of time sifting through the history. I’ve never been a great fan of American foreign policy since I started paying it attention at Uni.

You know, Team America World Police, the american war machine or ‘military industrial complex’ as Eisenhower phrased it. The USA’s stuck with it now, they’re in debt for trillions of dollars and all the tat of war, well that’s their stock in trade, it’s how they make a living. Bugger. Should’ve stuck with Disneyland and McDonalds (and yes Maccie D’s is in Vietnam, boot up the deep frier) 

So today at the war museum, a reminder of just how foolish some threads of human endeavour can be. Particularly unnerving were the images of the effects of agent orange, the toxic defoliant that poisoned thousands of people, moving through the next generation with newborn deformities. Though whole thing is distressing, and like visiting the torture prisons and killing fields of Cambodia, people alongside me moved from story to story, exhibit to exhibit, in stony silence. Shame that we’re still at it, war being bigger business than ever. 

NZ musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords have a classic line in one of their songs;  ‘if every soldier put down their weapon and picked up a woman, what a beautiful place this world would be.’ Or a man of they’re gay, or a spade if they’re into gardening … imagine how cool that would be if the entire worlds military retooled to grow veggies and fruit tree’s …. Bow chicka wow wow, I’d REALLY get it on for a man in a uniform then. 

Vin chatted me up on his scooter and took me on a tour round the city. Overcharged me of course but hey it was worth it. I had a ball, and weaving in and out of HCM City on the back of a scooter is a trip in itself. 

First the war museum then the Chinese Markets, great noodle soup (banh pho) for lunch and everything asian you might ever want or need. A 300 yr old Chinese temple, buddhist ceremonies, and back to my cheap digs just in time to avoid a monsoon downpour. 

Twelve million people live in HCM City, and scooter per head of capita myst be up there with the worlds best. I’ve heard Hanoi is pretty intense too. Scooters seem to me the legs of Sth East Asia, certainly the glimpses I’ve seen so far. 

Vin pointed out the street where there’s a slew of guitar shops, and I can see myself wasting a half day tomorrow cruising.