Elkanah D. Edwards
Evander Childs H.S.
Like all countries thirty degrees north and south of the equator, South East Asia is one of the world's most beautiful tropical regions. From the air, the continuous rolling hills that simply join one country to another is a breathtaking experience. The natural greenery that seem to manifest itself from the north, all the way to the south is a contribution of the annual monsoon ram that remind us of what the natural world should be like. Sadly, however, we are ever mindful of the fact that such natural beauty will soon catalogued on the endangered species list. The ever flowing, ever brown, ever widening, ever used, Mekong River, is a gift of nature that all creatures, great and small must experience. The calm blue waters of the South China Sea extend an invitation to the believer in the medicinal virtues of the seas that not even the greatest of skeptics can resist. The cultural and historical richness that have been left for ensuing generations to study and learn from, makes South East Asia a school of a different kind - an open university.

The people of Viet Nam were very friendly. From Hanoi in the North through to Ho Chi Min City in the south, the people spoke very openly. They approached with a willingness to befriend us. Usually, the conversations began with the question - "where are you from?" "America!" was all that was needed to get a smiling conversation going. Many of our early encounters with local Vietnamese were with children. Conversations that began as a solicitation for a sale, would quickly turn into a desire to learn more about America and us. I was impressed with the children's willingness to talk about themselves and their families. At Halong Bay, eleven-year-old Joe was very forth coming with information about himself and his family. He was the fourth child in a family of eight children; he was in the 5th grade, and was out on summer vacation- His reason for being at this rest site was to raise money to pay for his education when school reopened in September. At Danang, hundreds of miles away, thirteen- year - old Lulu was just as forthcoming with personal information.

Of great interest, and I must add, surprise, was the ease with which some of the local children were able to converse with us in English. We teamed later that English is taught in some schools. However, most children learn English by listening and conversing with the English-speaking foreigners from Australia and elsewhere, who visit Viet Nam as tourists and foreign-aid professionals.
Child labor is practiced extensively in Viet Nam as well as in Cambodia, as a way of supplementing the family income. At every tourist sight that we visited, children made up a large percentage of the vendors. Lulu wanted me to buy her souvenir cards - ten for one dollar, and would not stop following me until I had made a purchase. I was pushed to make another and another When asked why she was being so persistent, she replied in, local Vietnamese, winch a female by-stander interpreted as, "I need the money for school." Then in an even more persistent tone, Lulu kept asking, "will you give me bible, dollar for my coins?" At first it was very difficult to understand what Lulu was asking. However, when Lulu's persistent request was explained to me, especially when my unofficial interpreter explained, I realized that the coins were not legal tenders at the banks or local business houses. When I offered to take the coins, the joys on her face made me think that I had offered her "a piece of heaven". At that particular moment, it did not even occur to me to ask her, how much it was, or how did she come into 1 possession of so many US coins. Unfortunately, Lulu did not get the US notes that she wanted because she was not able to meet with me at the time and place we agreed to, and 1 was leaving Hoi An at eight o'clock the following morning.
Another point of interest was the ease with which some children conducted their sales transactions, both in Dong and US currency. Most of the children were even able to mentally calculate the value of their goods in dollars, when the buyer insisted that he/she did not have Dong. Did they really understand the rate of exchange? I seriously doubted, it, since many times I was certain that the value of our purchases were much more than the price we paid in dollars.

14,000 Dong=U.S. $1.00

Early on the trip, there was the need to make a distinction between racist overtures and simply curiosity. At the end of the trip, I hope that I was right by, concluding that the experiences I had were not racism but genuine curiosity on the part of maw people, with my color It was obvious that many people were curious to see, someone of non-Asian features as dark as me. Their behavior conveyed the impression that, for the most part many ordinary Vietnamese had not had much close contact with, people of African background. I refrain from saying "black," because I did see dark skinned Asian families from other parts of South East Asia who were also visiting Vietnam This was also interesting, since color television was visible in many homes. On several occasions during the trip, persons would approach me just to touch, or compare their skin color with mine. At restaurants, it was not unusual to be served extras by female waitresses.
At a food market outside of Ho Chi Min City, on our way from Dalat, a local female fanner insisted that I eat along with her from a huge guava that she had given to me. I counted at least three separate occasions when ladies flattered me by telling me that I was a handsome man. I was also complemented for having a lovely smile. It was not possible to conclude that overtures such as these could be perceived as acts of racism.

Another high point of the trip was the interpretation the Vietnamese gave of the war. Across the country, the war was referred to as "The American War." One would have thought that because of the enormity of our involvement in the war, and the pain we inflicted upon the people, especially in the north, people would have been bitter towards, and suspicious of us, Americans. This was not the case People who spoke about the war did so with a smile on their faces. They seemed to have accepted the war as a closed chapter in their country's history. Some of our party, as well as local and foreign intellectuals attribute this rather laissez-faire or simply indifferent attitude towards the war to the age of the Vietnamese population. More than fifty percent of Vietnamese are under the age of twenty-five, meaning that most Vietnamese were not born at the time of the war.
At the Museum of War Crimes in Hanoi, the attitude of the local people was also rather interesting. The large number of foreigners who were touring the building' displayed a deep sense of reverence towards the photographs and inscriptions on the walls, or in the secured glass cabinets. However, for the local people who were also on' tour at the same time, the atmosphere was less solemn. They talked and laughed so uncaringly that in my opinion, it bordered closely to disrespect. But then again, I was forced to ask, was I reading too much into the behavior of the young, and seemingly' intelligent Vietnamese? Could it be that my cognitive knowledge of the horrors of war' was coloring my judgment of the people's behavior?
As we traveled through the country, we were forced to define the term "poverty"' in the context of the Viet Nam experience. In the homes of most people, we saw a television set, a bed and eating utensils in fair to good condition. It was not possible to conclude that plumbing was a feature of every household. In fact, we entered homes that were plumbed; but running water was not always available. Electric cables were visible even in the most remote villages. The most popular form of transportation was the motorcycle, which many people owned; and those who did not ride the motorcycle, rode a bicycle.

We did not see wide spread begging in Vietnam; and, for large cities such as Hanoi, Hue and Dalat, the people seemed very industrious. Many people do farming as a way of life Others are local merchants and vendors who trade in goods intended for the tourist market. The streets and sidewalks were clean.

In spite of all the positives, there were vestiges of poverty in all the communities we visited. The rivers are polluted with human and animal waste. People use the polluted waters for drinking and bathing, thus exposing large sections of the population to various types of diseases such as dysentery, diarrhea, and especially dengue fever. Foods are prepared and sold with little regard for the observance of basic health standards such as using clean hands, clean utensils, and covering perishable foods or foods that cannot be washed, such as bread, from flies and other disease carrying insects. The wages of teachers and other civil servants are small in comparison to what we earn here, in the United States.
A large section of the population is peasant farmers. They still rely on the water buffalo to plough the nee patties. Most farmers own very small plots of land on which they cultivate every possible kind of food that the family needs. Children are used as additional farm hands. This compromises their early education and makes child labor a potential problem for the country.
In Viet Nam, not once did we engage in any discussion with our guide, lecturers, or even the common people about the Cambodians. However, it was quite the opposite while we were in Cambodia. Our Siem Reap guide never ceased to educate us on the unfair treatment of the Vietnamese people and government towards the Cambodians. According to our guide, a sizeable portion of Cambodia's social and economic woes must be attributed to the economic plundering and social maltreatment of the Vietnamese upon the people of Cambodia. "The Vietnamese soldiers raped the women and girls, while the government continues to infringe of the boundary line of Cambodia."
Using the universal parameters of what constitutes poverty, the people of Cambodia are poor. In Siem Reap, we saw beggars - children and adults alike. There were visible signs of malnourished children. There were less medical facilities. There was not a proliferation of electric lines, as we had seen earlier in Vietnam "Kris-crossing" the country. People live in thatched houses with little or no electricity or plumbing. There is much evidence of child labor practiced in Cambodia.
Unlike the Vietnamese, the Cambodians never ceased revisiting the miseries of the war, and its impact on their present situation. Unlike the Vietnamese, the Cambodians make their poverty a daily conversation of self-pity. This feeling of self-pity, and self-indulgences with the horrors of the past, may do the Cambodians no good other than dwarf their ability to make the future a positive experience for all of its citizens.
As someone that grew up and law worked in the Third World, I was very surprised at the quality of education in Cambodia. The country does not enforce, albeit, if it does have, a policy on universal primary education. There are few school buildings in the country, and those that we saw were caricature of the "old schoolhouse, used in the United States over a century ago. Also, where there are school buildings, we were told that they are not large enough to house all the children of school age. As a result, children can only attend school approximately two hours a day. The first group of children must vacate the building to make room for the second group.
Teachers are poorly paid, earning approximately $360.00 (US) annually. To supplement their small earnings, teachers are forced to work after school, perform noneducational tasks such as working in hotels, bars and restaurant.
Wealthy parents employ the some teachers to tutor their children privately On the other hand, poor children and their parents raise money for education by serving as local tour guides at temple cites such as at Angkor Wat. Others become vendors for merchants located in the cities.
There are few teachers' colleges in Cambodia; only one in Siem Reap. This college trains teachers to work throughout the country, however, we learned that few of these teachers ever take up residence in the rural communities. Rural communities are not economically attractively places to work. It is more economically viable to stay and work in the urban societies. The greatest benefit of this is the opportunity to got additional employment that would boost their meager monthly income.
Cambodia's present educational deficiencies, and the plight of the Cambodian people, I had to remind myself, are the direct result of one of its most infamous sons- Pol Pot. Systemically, he killed every educated Cambodian, young and old, under the pretext of purging the country of imperialist sympathizers. This is a grim reminder to us all, that the demonic behavior of men, such as Pol Pot, and Adolph Hitler, (and now, even in more recent times Osama Bin Laden, his vicious attack on innocent people inside the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) must stop, and must never be repeated again.
There were positive things in Cambodia. The ancient temples at Angkor Wat, their architecture, inscriptions and motifs united us with a civilization long gone. Our Siem Reap guide was thoroughly educated on the sites that we were to visit For an ordinary tour guide, he seemed comfortable with such disciplines as history, geography, archeology, and architecture I often wondered how would our guide have handled the tour, in terms of being so seemingly knowledgeable with the history and archeology of Cambodia, if, for any reason, we were forced off the designated path?

In Cambodia, we saw very distinct social communities. We visited typical Third World villages. Most of the houses in, rural, and even some houses in the urban communities are wooden houses covered with thatched roofs. Apart from the minority communities of the Northern minority hill tribes that we visited in Viet Nara, it was not so easy to identify poor versus middle-class Vietnamese. The distinction of social elm in Cambodia is more pronounced. In Cambodia, we saw poor people and we saw "not so poor people."

Although most Vietnamese may admit to it, by and large, there is much' commonality between the two neighbors. Both countries are poor - Cambodia more so' than Vietnam Both have an agricultural economy, with Vietnam inching faster towards mechanical farming. Both depend upon China and the Chinese market for most of their goods and services.
Vietnam however, is able to make its own contribution to the global economy by being a major rice producing country. The education system in both countries has much' to be desired. Vietnam, nonetheless, is providing more opportunities to educate its youth' than Cambodia is presently doing, Suspicion and mistrust of each other's intentions and behavior are characteristics of the relationship between both countries. The Vietnamese avoidance of discussion of their neighbors across the border serves only to confirm that all is not well between these two peoples.
Hazel must be complemented and thanked for the intense, thoughtful, and dedicated planning that went into the preparation process prior to leaving for South East Asia. Her choice of professors to prepare us for the trip was excellent. Each presentation was followed by academically stimulating discussions. The professors did what they were asked to do - introduce the world of South East Asia in an interesting, stimulating way. In South East Asia, when it would appear that the local professors, whom Hazel did not know nor choose, would quell that yearning desire that we were all over taken by, Hazel revitalized the moment by making important comments, or asking pointed questions. The trip would not have been the success that it has been had any of those sessions been anything less than they were.

Of equally great importance was the debriefing institute held from August 21 thru 24. This session allowed each participant to reflect on the region we had just visited, and to continue the process of developing appropriate lessons to suit the needs of our students. I think that I speak for all of us when I say, "the sessions allowed us to make sense of our experiences as well as understand those of the young American men and women who sacrificed their lives in those distant lands so far from home. We will all have much to teach for many years to come."