The motorbike man tricked me into an out of the way hotel, but it\u2019s OK. Exiled to \u0110\u1ee9c H\u01b0\u1eddng on V\u00f5 Th\u1ecb S\u00e1u, I must walk past the 1862 mass grave each morning. This dawn, I was steered into its cowshed to pray. Though standing below ground level among ghosts, I wasn\u2019t spooked. To thank them was the least I could do.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, I\u2019ll move to the center of town. Still in the suburb of hell, I see a kid with a cardboard box on his head<\/a>. An older girl with him is collecting recyclables to sell. Inside P\u00e9 X\u00edu Caf\u00e9, men play carom billiards<\/a>. Returning from Ma Thi\u00ean L\u00e3nh Bridge, domestic tourists file past. It\u2019s named after a Korean mountain where thousands of Chinese troops died in 666 during a failed invasion. In the 1930\u2019s, over 350 Viets perished here building a bridge that\u2019s never finished. If similarly overworked on an empty belly, you\u2019d drop dead too in this heat.<\/p>\n A truckload of soldiers just rolled by. Though Con Dao is strategic, it didn\u2019t appear so to Marco Polo in 1294, \u201cUpon leaving the island of Java, and steering a course between south and south-west, seven hundred miles, you arrive at two islands. The larger is named Sondur, and the other Kondur. Both being uninhabited, it is unnecessary to say more respecting them.\u201d Though it had been settled for over 4,000 years, who knows if anyone was around when Polo swung by. Kudos to the Italian for getting its name exact.<\/p>\n Kondur is C\u00f4n \u0110\u1ea3o. In Malay, it means Calabash. Dropping by in 1516, Fern\u00e3o Pires de Andrade said this was a great place to buy chickens and sea turtles, and to get fresh water, of course. The first bard to show up was Lu\u00eds Vaz de Cam\u00f5es. After Con Dao, the author of Os Lus\u00edadas<\/em> popped into Vung Tau before landing in Macau.<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t mind some bacalhau casserole<\/a> or piri piri chicken right about now! Of course, I\u2019m spoiled. Yesterday, I had boiled fatty pork dipped in fermented shrimp paste at some Nam \u0110\u1ecbnh joint. Hearing my accent, the waitress had to ask, \u201cWhich province are you from, uncle?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI came from Vung Tau.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing this didn\u2019t satisfy her, I fessed up when it\u2019s time to pay, \u201cYou could hear my Nam \u0110\u1ecbnh accent, correct?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right!\u201d she smiled.<\/p>\n Origins and accents always matter. Con Dao eateries often clarify their cuisine\u2019s provenance, so this is Long Xuy\u00ean and not Saigon broken rice with pork chop, for example, and here\u2019s where you get Ngh\u1ec7 An rice gruel or beanthreads with eel.<\/p>\n Before my late lunch yesterday, I visited the infamous tiger cages, then Vo Thi Sau\u2019s grave. The teenaged martyr has become this island\u2019s patron saint. Newlyweds ask for her blessings. Pilgrims leave replicas of high heels, conical hats, purses and dollars, etc. They also offer her real food, from imported cookies to entire suckling pigs.<\/p>\n At the tiger cages, visitors often made sure their heroic dead didn\u2019t lack nicotine. That\u2019s why there\u2019s this sign, \u201cWAX STATUES ARE VERY FLAMMABLE. WE SUGGEST VALUED VISITORS DON\u2019T PLACE LIT CIGARETTES ON WAX STATUES.\u201d It\u2019s bad enough to be starved and tortured while alive. Decades after death, they don\u2019t need to be torched, if only symbolically and inadvertently.<\/p>\n How lethal was Con Dao? During 1928-1932, 800 prisoners died of all causes, according to French records. In 1938, only 22 perished, however. Peter Zinoman sums it up, \u201cThere is no reason to think that most prisoners who died in captivity were sick or on the verge of death at the time of their arrests. Rather, it was the brutality and squalor of the prison system itself that weakened and ultimately killed them.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1943, head warden Charles Tisseyre reported, \u201cThe month of my arrival, 172 deaths. In cells for 25 or 30 detainees, I found 110, 120, 130.\u201d [\u201cLe mois de mon arriv\u00e9e, 172 d\u00e9c\u00e8s; c\u2019\u00e9taient des locaux pour 25 ou 30 d\u00e9tenus\u2009; j\u2019en ai trouv\u00e9 110, 120, 130.\u201d] Of course, this was near the end of WWII when even those in France barely ate. Photos of skeletal Jews in German concentration camps must be considered in context. Millions starved to death worldwide.<\/p>\n After the French left, Con Dao was used by the South Vietnamese to lock up Communists and other political prisoners. In Just As I Thought<\/em>, Grace Paley recounts the case of Thieu Thi Tao. At 17-years-old, she was arrested \u201cfor spreading Communist propaganda\u201d while still a student at Marie Currie, a school for Saigon\u2019s elite:<\/p>\n In prison, Thieu Thi Tao was beaten on the head with truncheons. Her head was locked between two steel bars. Water was forced down her throat. She was suspended above the ground.<\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n Late in 1969, Thieu Thi Tao was transferred to the island prison of Con Son, along with her sister, Tan, who has since been released.<\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n She was one of five women in her cage. A bucket of lime stood above each cell. At different times, the women were doused with lime or sprayed with tear gas. During their menstrual periods, they were given no means to keep themselves clean.<\/p>\n While no one has disproved these facts, such a summary would enrage those who suffered at Communist hands on the South Vietnamese side. What about those who were tortured or killed in \u201creeducation camps\u201d after 1975?! The bigger point, though, is that people everywhere throughout history have been punished most barbarically for their beliefs. That so many Vietnamese could risk such suffering while knowing what their forefathers had gone through is a testimony to their character. Deficient of such, nations won\u2019t last.<\/p>\n The South Vietnamese were suckered by American bullshit about freedom, democracy and fighting Communism. In WWII, Uncle Sam was Stalin\u2019s ally. They then divided Europe, straight down the middle, into two fiefdoms! After the Fall of Saigon, Samuel backed Pol Pot at the UN and moved most of his factories to Communist China. Clinton, Obama, Trump and Biden have all had photos taken in front of a giant bust of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. Afghans and Ukrainians have also been duped. Americans should know by now Sam only protects war profiteers and Jews.<\/p>\n Though defeated, South Vietnam lingers in books and songs. At Con Dao\u2019s main market, I heard \u201cR\u1eebng L\u00e1 Th\u1ea5p\u201d [\u201cForest of Low Hanging Leaves\u201d] being played as shopkeepers set up. A snippet:<\/p>\n On the tape recorder, she has just sang,<\/em>“My fate is to love the suffering soldier far from home.”<\/em>Amid the old forest the singing voice rises,<\/em>But in that old forest I can see nothing. <\/em>\u00a0<\/em>[T\u1eeb m\u00e1y thu thanh c\u00f4 n\u00e0ng v\u1eeba ca:<\/em>\u201cTr\u1ecdn ki\u1ebfp y\u00eau anh l\u00ednh kh\u1ed5 xa nh\u00e0\u201d<\/em>Gi\u1eefa r\u1eebng gi\u00e0 vang ti\u1ebfng h\u00e1t th\u1eadt cao,<\/em>Nh\u01b0ng gi\u1eefa r\u1eebng gi\u00e0 t\u00f4i c\u00f3 th\u1ea5y g\u00ec \u0111\u00e2u.]<\/em><\/p>\n More:<\/p>\n Why not sing for mothers missing their distant sons?<\/em>Or sing for those who have just lain down last evening?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>[Sao kh\u00f4ng h\u00e1t cho nh\u1eefng b\u00e0 m\u1eb9 h\u1eb1ng \u0111\u00eam nh\u1edb con xa?<\/em>Hay h\u00e1t cho nh\u1eefng ng\u01b0\u1eddi v\u1eeba n\u1eb1m xu\u1ed1ng chi\u1ec1u qua?]<\/em><\/p>\n Thirty years ago, hearing songs about the ARVN soldier could get you arrested, so there\u2019s progress. Each historical horror must be reexamined and mourned.<\/p>\n Near the end of this article, I had to go grab another late lunch. It was past 4PM. Finishing my wonton soup with meatballs and pork, I tossed a black dog lurking by my table a bone, but he didn\u2019t even sniff it. Amazing, today\u2019s Con Dao beasts!<\/p>\n I know someone who spent over a decade in a \u201creeducation camp.\u201d It took months after his release to stop seeing geckos on walls as rare sources of protein. Amused, disgusted, enraged and ashamed, he just had to laugh.<\/p>\n [Ph\u00fa T\u01b0\u1eddng Prison in Con Dao, 7\/9\/24]<\/p>\n [Offerings to V\u00f5 Th\u1ecb S\u00e1u in Con Dao, 7\/9\/24]<\/p>\n [Ph\u00fa T\u01b0\u1eddng Prison in Con Dao, 7\/9\/24]<\/p>\n [Con Dao, 7\/9\/24]<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Postcards from the End is a reader-supported publication. 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