Vinh Moc Tunnels, Vietnam, Museum and Preservation Efforts, December 2019, part one

Greetings,  In December of 2019 and January of 2020, I visited the nation of Vietnam. While there, I made a special effort to see the Vinh Moc Tunnels. The Vinh Moc Tunnels are often considered the best preserved Vietnam War tunnel system that exists today. Unlike the better known Cu Chi Tunnel System, which was created primarily by and for military use by military personnel (I am including the Viet Cong as military personnel ), the Vinh Moc Tunnels were created primarily for civilian use. They were intended as a system for safe and hidden transportation and safe shelter during the frequent American bombing raids.  (There doesn't seem to be too much easily available on the web about the Vinh Moc Tunnels. Therefore, with a recognition of all its faults and weaknesses, I offer this link to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%E1%BB%8Bnh_M%E1%BB%91c_tunnels ) 

The author, in the tunnels

In this post, I will focus on the preservation, maintenance, and upkeep aspects of the Vinh Moc tunnels. The "museum side" of things. While I am not a museum professional, and would welcome feedback from those who are, I hope to give enough information here to give some sense of how a relatively recent historical site in a developing nation is maintained.

I hope to do a few posts on my day at the tunnels. Perhaps I'll also be able to get out some old photos and can share images of the current Cu Chi tunnels (which are not, according to the Lonely Planet Guidebook, either completely authentic or accurate but do give an interesting feel for what the tunnels were like. In my opinion, both tunnels are well worth visiting if you have the time.) 

Visitors Facilities

The Vinh Moc Tunnels does have two buildings for visitors. Both are relatively primitive but informative.

There are two museum type buildings to welcome visitors. This is the one closest to the entrance. It is used primarily to show a film about the site and its history.  The film was in Vietnamese but it did have English subtitles.

Behind the site, next to the public bathrooms, chickens graze on the lawn.
There is a 2000VND fee to use the restroom and a person sits there to collect it. This is less than 10 cents.

Along the public walkway, there are many vendors stands that sell drinks and snacks.
The vendors call to visitors as they pass. "Hello, you wanta buy something?"

Modern, generally good quality walkways have been added for visitors.

More chickens on one of the less well paved, side routes for the complex.

The tunnels were originally built as bomb shelters for the local civilian population who were subjected to frequent, intensive bombing campaigns by the American Air Force. This is a display of some of the different kinds of ordinance that was dropped on the region. My understanding, and I do not have details at this time, is that one challenge in opening the site for tourism was unexploded ordinance and how to disarm it. 

Another shot of the ordinance monument / display,

Just a photo of a nearby farm house that borders on the tunnel area. I am not sure if there is any connection between the people who live inside (or their chickens) with the monument itself.

Entrances

The tunnel complex had many entrances. Historically these entrances were often kept concealed and hidden from view, something that is not desirable when tourists and other visitors come. Also, my suspicion is that the entrances were some of the most vulnerable parts of the system, most prone to collapse, and needed to be given extra reinforcement and structural support. Additionally the tunnel entrances are now used by many people every day of the week all year long, and, probably, ironically, see much more traffic than they did when the system was used a s

Obviously the entrance has been reconstructed and in a more reinforced and sturdy fashion than the original.

This portion of the tunnel entrance has been reinforced with wood, something that I am quite certain never occurred with the original. If memory serves me right, I do not think that such supports were here the first time I visited in 2007. Notice the stairs heading down.

While clearly a substandard picture, notice the two boards that cross the tunnel entrance. While easily bypassed, these are meant to warn and deter vistors that this area of the tunnel is not intended for unescorted visitors on their own. Later, with a guide ( a story that I will share in a different post ) I got to visit this area of the tunnel.

Another rebuilt tunnel entrance. This one also have a cross bar indicating that it should not be entered by unescorted visitors. 

Another entrance with wooden reinforcements.

Wooden reinforcements that show a crack in the wood and concrete reinforcements on the other side. Notice the Vietnamese language graffiti. This was not uncommon in the tunnels.

Another tunnel entrance, this one on the side of the area that borders the ocean. 

Electric Lighting

I do not believe the electric lights here were part of the original tunnel system. I believe that instead home made lanterns using oil and candles hung on the wall were a major part of the system but there may have been other parts of the tunnel available as well.

This is what the original lighting looked like. It was made out of an old bottle, perhaps one discarded by the American forces.

Internal Tunnel Maintenance

Inside the tunnels there was a lot of reinforcement of the walls being done with concrete. Here are a few photos to show such work.

The tunnel ceiling. My guess is that there is a plan to cover this with wood. Notice the bricks. I do not believe that these were used much in the original tunnels.

A rebuilt tunnel entrance made entirely of concrete.

Now this is particularly interesting. In one part of the tunnels, an area not normally open to unescorted visitors, a metal sheet covered with the red, muddy clay of the tunnels covered part of the tunnel. Down the side I could see extensive digging, and a deep, unsafe looking tunnel that went down to who knows where. Of course, I had to ask, and my guide told me that under the metal sheet there was a bomb shelter from the war days.

Of course, with all this concrete work being done, one must have wheelbarrows,
and I found a pair of them, covered with concrete in a cubby hole on the side of the tunnel.
Why waste time each day bringing them up and down, into and out of the tunnel each night?

Tourist Signs

One can't have a historical site open to the public without at least a few signs, can you?

I'm not sure if this is historically sound or if it is a modern restoration and preservation work, but there are drainage ditches next to the tunnels.

Finally, a couple photos of yours truly, the author, 

exploring the tunnels

A Vietnamese language travel video on the tunnels

Books for Sale

(just FYI, at this time, I am straightening out an issue with Amazon. So I won't actually get credit if you buy any of these books --except, of course, the books by me at the end, but the first five won't get me anything or support this blog. Nevertheless, they are all excellent books and I enjoyed them all.) 

FINALLY

books by me. If you really want to support this blog,or enjoy it and wish to see what else I've done, please check this out. Thanks.

  

South East Asian Cultural Boundaries of the Pre-Modern World and their Continuing Effects on the Modern World.

Author's note: Originally written almost 9 years ago. Still significant today. I've spent a lot of time in the last ten years studying, visiting, teaching, and hanging out with refugees from this part of the world. This is the map that made a lot of things click.
SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2009
Asia / Refugee Stuff : South East Asian Cutural Boundaries and the modern world.

Ah! I wish I could go back to graduate school and make writing and researching about Asian culture and history the focus of my life. Alas! It shall not be so anytime soon.

Therefore, for the moment, I must be content to speculate, pontificate and elucidate in these pages instead of elsewhere.

The importance of this map is explained in the text. 

One of the joys of academic research is when you get those wonderful "Eureka" moments. That great "Ah ha!" feeling sweeps throughout you and you realize that a great deal of once complex information suddenly makes sense and fits a pattern. (Of course, one must be careful of assuming this feeling actually means your conclusions are making sense. Conspiracy theorists and schizophrenics, for instance, are blessed with brains that misfire this way all the time. Still, the sensation is blissfully exciting, which explains perhaps why schizophrenics and conspiracy theorists spend so much time lost in their own odd thoughts.)

Recently while reading "In Search of Asia" I had such a moment while viewing this map. The map is entitled "Centers of power in Southeast Asia at the end of the Eighteenth Century" and appears on page 98 of the 1987 edition of "In Search of Southeast Asia."




Essentially what the map shows is the extent of cultural power and cultural influence in various centers in southeast Asia at the beginning of the modern era. At the time the kingdoms and cultures that are now dominant in Burma, Thailand and Vietnam did not have boundaries in the sense of anything resembling the modern sense of the term. And the role of the king was often different than in Europe of the time as well. Simplifying greatly for ease of transmitting a concept, the king hd less of a political role and more of a ritual role in the lives of his citizens. His power was not seen as uniform through a given geographical territory. Instead, his power radiated outward from the center, becoming weaker the further one was from that center. Instead of there being a strict boundary to the state, instead the state just sort of faded away becoming less and less important until it faded away altogether at the edge of civilization. Then came the rugged lands of hills and forest and jungle, the lands where the uncivilized people who existed outside the pale of civilization.

And that's what this map shows. The black "core area" is the center of the civilized area. Beyond it is a gray realm, where civilization exists but there's a certain lack of sophistication although the people are still part of the dominant culture. Light gray is a "fringe area" and the striped lines represent the areas where two different relatively equal states vie for control.




Now if one examines the map of Burma what you essentially see is the way in which Burma is divided between a dominant, Burmese culture, and a surrounding area with many other minority cultures. And it is from these minority cultures, i.e. the Karen, the Chin, that many refugees come. And to some extent the reason they come here is over a dispute over their relationship with the central government of the state now known as Myanmar.

In neighboring Thailand this map also shows the difference between the areas where hill tribes (some of which overlap with Burma) live.

As for Vietnam, the map shows the area where the so-called montagniards live.

A similar map could easily be made for China.