Who is Ho Chi Minh?

Stop Five, Hanoi 25/04/2015 - 31/05/2015
(Written by Him)

If you have been to Vietnam, taken an interest in the American war, read some of our blogs and glanced at our pictures you will no doubt have heard the name, or seen the face. But who is this mysterious Ho Chi Minh (HCM)? Born on 19 May 1890 in the countryside of North Central Vietnam, HCM would grow up to become the first President of a newly formed Democratic Republic of Vietnam and is credited with leading the country to independence, defeating both the French and the Americans. If even half of what is told about this man is true he was an immense character who profoundly altered the course of history. He remains the most important icon of the Vietnamese people today.

Intelligent and ambitious he studied in the French schools of Hue established by the colonies  before he was expelled for taking part in a protest against agricultural taxes. In 1911 he took a kitchen job aboard a French steamer bound for Marseille. From France he travelled to America where he worked in New York for 2 years as a baker. There he made contact with Korean nationalists and began forming his political ideologies. HCM travelled back to Europe and lived in London where he worked as a pastry chef. By 1919 he had moved again to France under a false name and began taking a more pro-active interest in politics, joining a group of Vietnamese Nationalists in Paris and the Communist Party of France.

He attended various protests here lobbying for Vietnamese independence from France. HCM again moved in 1923 this time to Moscow where he secured work as a teacher before moving to Southern China in 1924. Here, just across the border from Vietnam he began giving communist lectures to groups of young Vietnamese revolutionaries. These youths would in-turn be the seeds of the movement to a new independent, communist Vietnam. By 1945 HCM had leveraged various agreements with the WWII Allied forces, together with achieving a domestic revolution led by his Viet Minh communist party. He would become Prime Minister of Vietnam by September of that year. HCM's first order of business was to promulgate the Declaration of Independence among the people. He would go on to oversee with General Vo Nguyen Giap the final defeat and exit of the French in 1954 and the defeat of the Americans in the 1970's. HCM died in 1969 aged 79 and his body is embalmed and on display in a heavily guarded Mausoleum in Hanoi adjacent to his preserved living quarters and a large, lotus-leaf-shaped museum dedicated to his life & works.

There are many conflicting reports about Uncle Ho and his legacy has become a primary tool of propaganda for the Vietnamese Government. There is eye-witness evidence that his government was responsible for the deaths of up to 500,000 North Vietnamese during a land reform programme post Independence. The Vietnamese government has also banned any publication regarding HCM's non-celibacy as they maintain he never had a romantic relationship and was married to the cause. However there is evidence he married a Chinese woman, 10 years his junior before returning to Vietnam as well as various other liaisons. His face appears on all Vietnamese currency and the former Capital of Southern Vietnam, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh city in his honour. It is said that any author who publicises anything criticising or altering the details of HCM's carefully sculpted reputation is liable to imprisonment and so you will not read this until we have left Vietnam.

We made two attempts to visit the HCM complex in Hanoi. Admittedly without much forethought we decided it would be a great idea to visit on his would be Birthday (May 19) which is a national holiday. We quickly realised how wrong we were when we arrived to throngs of Vietnamese who had made the long trip from the countryside to view the great leader on this special day. 

The heat was cruel and the queues endless. After copious security checks, and a feisty altercation between herself and a burly male usher with no English (the language barrier being well and truly vaulted with vigorous hand gestures & aggressive pointing) we exited the long line of entrants to wander around one pillar pagoda, traditionally the last sight on the HCM circuit. 

We were lucky to see some elderly Vietnamese visitors dressed traditionally in light blue gowns and yellow hats (looking a little like retired ninjas it must be said) who apparently appear only on his birthday. Sweat drenched with our clothes matting themselves to our bodies we posed for photos with Vietnamese families in town for the occasion. It was obvious the heat and stifling masses would be the end of us and soon so with our pruning fingers we flagged a taxi and headed back to the cooler environs of the city centre. HCM had defeated the Westerners once more.

Two days later and several degrees cooler our confidence returned and we made another attempt for the summit. Second time round we managed to view everything on the HCM route in relative comfort. The mausoleum is treated with the utmost respect. Young presidential guards dressed in brilliant white line the length of the 400m walk from security HQ to the building itself. As you climb the large steps to enter this massive granite crypt visitors are quickly scolded, no cameras, no talking, no hats, no glasses, hands out of pockets and lines two by two. We enter the building Noah's ark style, eventually reaching the large, cold and darkened room containing the body.

Ho’s remains lie in a large glass coffin atop a raised stone plinth with only hands and face visible above a blanket, lit by small spot lights. The body itself is guarded by four young men, one to each corner of the coffin, standing to rigid attention. The visitors fenced walkway snakes along the wall of the room about 2 metres from the foot of the coffin at its closest point. Visitors are briskly waved along and the pace noticeably quickens as , until we re-emerge into the warmth outside. It is anti-climactic but visitors to Vietnam should make the effort given HCM's importance to the host country and to twentieth century history in general.

We walked on to the Presidential house and grounds where HCM lived for the latter part of his life. The French style, grand Presidential palace is closed to visitors but this is no significant loss as HCM refused to live in this splendor while his countrymen were still so poor. He instead turned his affections to the gardner's quarters, a small two room stilt house overlooking a small lake and park. He lived, wrote and read in this simple wooden building, maintained the garden, fed the lake's carp and received visiting dignitaries and government colleagues in two stone buildings adjacent. The entire site has the potential to be a somber and poignant reminder but as it turns out this depends on who takes the tour with you. 

We were unofficially accompanied around the museum and gardens by bands of roaming pre-school toddlers. Think of lemmings with sun hats.They were hilarious and certainly distracted the majority of visitors and guards alike. Bumper-car like they would cluster briefly under teacher's instruction before shooting off in different directions, some heading for the lakes edge, others the out-of-bounds grass areas, some carelessly peeing in the grass (while guards shouted and pointed), some simply falling over, and so on. When in transit one child would hold on to the tee-shirt of the next and so on before someone in the middle would get distracted again, wandering out of line, cuing the rest to also break rank. We finished the day with as many photos of these adorable tykes as we did of the sights but it was certainly neither a waste of a day nor film.