A couple of months ago, I saw the musical Miss Saigon. Going into it, I had no idea how real and horrifying the issues discussed in the show were during the Vietnam War and how the consequences continued long after the end of the conflict.
At the beginning of the show, a young Vietnamese girl named Kim is forced into prostitution after her village is destroyed in the conflict. Buying girls were fairly common during this time especially with American soldiers because it was a way for them to deal with the trauma and because they had the mindset that they were going to die anyway. However, the problem was that these American soldiers would sleep with the Vietnamese girls and get them pregnant. Although the soldiers would often promise that they would bring the girls to America, they were ultimately heartbroken when the Americans broke their promises and went back to America without them. The soldiers left these women pregnant and alone when the war ended. Many mothers abandoned their children at orphanages or even garbage cans. The children weren’t wanted by either Vietnamese or Americans. They grew up as a disgrace and were known as Amerasians. In the show, the American soldier, Chris, falls in love with Kim, but eventually leaves her after getting separated. Just like all the others.
Another problem was that the men would usually not realize that they had children in Vietnam after the war. In the show, the soldier goes back to America and gets married after the war. After 3 years, he founds out that Kim is still alive and that he has a son. When Chris goes back to Saigon to see them, Kim kills herself because she is sad to see him with his wife. In the end, Chris takes his son back to America with his wife.
This is just one story out of thousands. The musical debut in London in 1989 just as these children were being discovered. They were the result of the (mostly) one night stands that the American soldiers had with the women of Vietnam. Life was hard for these children because they were outcasted and disgraced. Although it isn’t much of an issue now, it affected the lives of the children that were conceived from the American-Vietnamese relationships. When this show came out, it was extremely controversial and pushed boundaries and raised awareness of this issue. For that, it serves an important role in talking about the consequences of the Vietnam War.
This post is really informative about the effects of the Vietnam war in popular culture. I skipped around that in my film post, not focusing on war films and instead on the golden age of blockbusters, but this gives a real look into how war effects art and the stories that can be told so powerfully through the art of theatre.
ReplyDeleteWow this was a really interesting blog post. I had never considered these type of consequences of the war. It is interesting how you can learn about history through different mediums. I like how you were able to tie something we were learning about in class and relate it to one of your interests.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting to consider. We've talked about the economic and political consequences of the war in both the US and Vietnam, and even about some social consequences, but we didn't really talk about this aspect. Are "Amerasians" still ostracized in Vietnamese society today?
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