by Chris Mullin
Wednesday, 29 July
Awoke at 5.30 a.m. and went up to the roof, where the air is cool, to read. By 7.30 it was too hot and I retreated. I am reading Cherie Blair’s autobiography, Speaking for Myself, which, despite some snide reviews, seems an honest, generally self-deprecating account of her remarkable life and the tensions at the heart of the New Labour court. On the penultimate page a revelation: ‘Tony has a very quick temper.’ Now that is something I never noticed in nearly ten years of dealings with him.
This evening to Tan Son Nhut Airport to welcome Number One Daughter back from Laos. A browner, leaner, more self-confident Sarah Mullin than the one to whom I bade farewell at Heathrow four months ago.
Friday, 31 July
Emma, Sarah and I took the hydrofoil down the Saigon river to Vung Tao. Past warehouses, cranes, oil storage tanks, container ships, tugboats, barges loaded with aggregate to within an inch of the waterline. Giant pylons march through the mangrove swamps towards the city, whose demand for electricity is growing exponentially. Under the huge new suspension bridge, which at the moment seems to lead nowhere, but undoubtedly presages the conquest of yet more territory by this most voracious of cities.
By early evening we are back in the chaos of Saigon. Actually, to call it chaos is not quite fair. It does work, kind of . . .
Wednesday, 5 August
Kontum, Ngoc’s childhood home. First we must pay our respects to Grandpa, who died two years ago. He lies in a marble tomb in a cemetery a few miles along the road to the north. Death in Vietnam, like marriage, is now big business and from a distance the cemetery resembles a crowded town, with lavish tombs crammed together creeping up the hillside. We carry offerings of fruit, which we leave in a neat pile on the tomb, and take turns to light joss sticks. Sensing the possibility of a handsome gratuity, a woman appears from nowhere and starts vigorously clearing weeds from the area around the tomb. She is duly rewarded and her weeding becomes less vigorous from the moment the money touches her hands. Also, a group of children, eyeing the fruit we have just left. Ngoc delivers a stern lecture about allowing a decent interval to elapse before they steal it, but we know that it will disappear as soon as our backs are turned.
Then to Mangden, high in the hills, where a statue of the Virgin has been unearthed, causing a miracle to be declared and attracting pilgrims from all over. She stands on a plinth, surrounded by flowers, candles and seats with memorial plaques containing the names of sponsors, gazing out over virgin forest which will not be virgin for much longer. A mile or two back along the road, the forest is being cleared to make way for a new resort; vulgar houses of Californian dimensions are in the process of construction.
Thursday, 6 August
Kontum
This evening we visited Mr and Mrs Lai, a handsome couple who run a photography business in the main street. They have brought up ten children, all happy, healthy and successful. A large photograph of the family, taken on their golden wedding, has pride of place on the wall. Given the tragic history of their country, to have reared so large a family and emerged unscathed is no small feat. But you can go down as well as up. Ngoc is shocked to learn that our laundry is washed by a former classmate of her sister’s (‘a handsome boy, very privileged’) whose family were once among the most successful in the town. Yet when the father died they could not even afford a coffin.
Friday, 7 August
Kontum
Occasionally I fantasise about retiring to Vietnam. Not to the heat and chaos of Saigon, but maybe to Kontum. I would buy a couple of hectares overlooking the Dakla river and build a wooden house with a veranda and wooden shutters, open on all sides to let the air flow through, solar panels on the roof – my only concession to the twenty-first century. The gutters would lead into an underground reservoir to ensure a plentiful supply of water. Around it I would plant a tropical garden growing avocados, grapefruit, rambutan, papaya and, of course, coffee, not to mention jasmine and bougainvillea. There I would fade into obscurity, surrounded by my wife’s large and loving family.
The case for not doing so is (a) there is not the slightest chance that I could get my slowing brain around more than a few words of this most complicated of languages; (b) it would mean almost permanent separation from my children and grandchildren; and (c) I am not sure I could cope with the world beyond my compound, the dirt, pollution, the relentless march of consumerism and its attendant destruction of the natural environment. Oh, I know it is wrong to begrudge the Vietnamese their new-found prosperity and I don’t. In time, no doubt, they will adjust, but not, I am afraid, in my lifetime.
We called at Grandpa’s plantation, a sad place now. No sign of the coffee bushes that made his fortune. Only a poor man and his family scratching a living growing vegetables. There is a rumour that it is to be sold for a car showroom.
Number One Daughter, Sarah, who speaks Vietnamese, has been playing tricks on her younger sister. ‘Con dien khung’, she has taught her to say, telling her that it means ‘I don’t speak Vietnamese.’ Only after Emma has happily repeated this on several occasions does she discover that it actually means ‘I am crazy.’ She is not amused.
Saturday, 8 August
A tearful goodbye to Aunty Yen and then we set off down Highway 14 through the Truong Son Mountains to the junction where the borders of Vietnam meet those of Laos and Cambodia. It was through these mountains that the Ho Chi Minh trail once ran, along which thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers travelled on their way south. Unlike us, of course, they walked and many perished en route under the relentless bombing.
As we leave the mountains the cloud that has been with us all day lifts and we emerge into a land of luminous green rice paddies, tended by peasants in conical hats. Soon we are skirting Da Nang, a monstrous, ever-expanding city playing host to vast, vulgar entertainment complexes with names like Vegas and Queen’s Palace. The coastal fringe, where the huge American base once stood, is being developed by Japanese and Korean joint ventures into condominiums where the Asian rich besport themselves, immune from the stark realities beyond their compounds.
Sunday, 9 August
Hoi An
Narrow streets, ancient courtyard houses and pagodas, merchants’ mansions. A glimpse of what once was and will never be again. A sliver of old Vietnam that has somehow survived the depredations of the twentieth century and which the powers-that-be have in their wisdom (and with the help of UNESCO) decreed shall be protected from the merciless onslaught of the free market which rages all around. If only old Hanoi had been preserved like this.
Monday, 10 August
Up early for the long drive south along Highway 1, surely one of the world’s most dangerous roads. Much of the driving is psychopathic. I lost count of the number of times we had to veer off the road in order to avoid head-on collisions, sometimes on blind bends.
The landscape, if we can but notice, is classically Vietnamese. In the blue haze to our right, the Truong Son Mountains, from which we emerged two days ago, green rice fields, wallowing water buffalo, duck farms, sampans negotiating narrow rivers. We are in the narrowest part of Vietnam. At times the mountains close in upon the road, squeezing the land available for cultivation.
By evening, thanks to the lightning reflexes and steely nerves of our driver, San, we have been delivered safely to Doc-let, a beach resort just north of Nha Trang.
Tuesday, 11 August
Doc-let
Sunrise. Blue sea, gentle waves, a cool breeze, a lone wooden fishing boat cruising offshore. The bay is half enclosed by a thin spit of land at the end of which is an island. Already the beach is full of chattering Vietnamese, who, unlike the still sleeping foreigners, are well aware that this is the best time of day. Three hours from now and the heat will be unbearable. An old man is dredging for cockles. If he is lucky, he tells Ngoc, he will earn 10,000 dong, about 40 pence, enough to buy a kilo or two of rice.
Our beach, needless to say, is pristine. Further along it is a different story. I walked a
mile along the shore to a nearby fishing village, only to find that the beach is a huge garbage dump, thick with plastic and other twentieth-century detritus. The industrious, ingenious Vietnamese, who over centuries have seen off wave upon wave of invaders, have themselves been defeated by the accursed plastic bag. They simply can’t cope with it. Until not so long ago all garbage was degradable. If you bought a snack from a pedlar, it came wrapped in a banana leaf. Today it is likely to be encased in plastic. Plastic garbage litters the outskirts of every hamlet, every village, every town. In places it has been scattered by the wind, caught in trees and scrub, despoiling the landscape. Sooner or later a state of emergency is going to have to be declared.
Thursday, 13 August
Ho Chi Minh City
To Le Van Sy to report to Granny on our travels. A minuscule old lady in silk pyjamas, her spine is so crippled that she cannot sit for more than ten minutes at a time; mainly she lies on a bamboo sofa. Her mind, however, remains crystal clear.
Tuesday, 18 August
To the Caravelle Hotel to address the monthly lunch of the Britain–Vietnam Business Group. The Ambassador has come down from Hanoi for the occasion. My talk is entitled ‘My 35-year love affair with Vietnam’, though in truth the romance has worn thin over the years. The heat, the chaos, the relentless consumerism have taken their toll. To be sure, however, I will always love the Vietnamese for their energy, generosity and optimism.
This evening to Cholon to meet the parents of Thao, cousin Duy’s wife. They were both Viet Cong, disappearing into the countryside in 1961 and reappearing only after Saigon fell in April ‘75. They lived for years in Tay Ninh Province, close to the border with Cambodia, sometimes retreating into Cambodia to escape the relentless bombing. They describe seeing friends blown to pieces, the terror of never knowing when death would come from the sky, people caught by the shockwaves vomiting blood, and treating napalm victims (he was a medic) with unspeakable injuries. They estimate that only 50 per cent of those who went with them into the bush survived and of those who did many were seriously damaged. Miraculously they emerged alive and sane. ‘We were born under a lucky star,’ they said.
Wednesday, 19 August
This evening we entertained the family – aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews – to a farewell dinner in a Hue-cuisine restaurant in District 3. Granny even put in an appearance, taking her place at the head of the table, so tiny that she was only just visible. We delivered her back to Le Van Sy and she stood at the door waving goodbye. It is unlikely that the girls and I will ever see her again.
Thursday, 20 August
Singapore
Suddenly we are in a world where great order prevails under heaven. Where traffic signals are obeyed. Where there is little or no litter and efficient public transport. Where everything works as it is supposed to. Like Vietnam, Singapore is a one-party state (although, unlike Vietnam, it masquerades as a democracy). The presence of the state is considerable, although generally benign – unless you are a drug trafficker, in which case you can expect to be hanged.
We are staying with our friends Kieu and Joergen. She worked with Ngoc at Saigontourist in the old days. He was the Danish Ambassador to Singapore before retiring and settling into academic life. From their ninth-floor balcony, huge views across the island to the downtown skyscrapers, a veritable Manhattan.
Saturday, 22 August
To the war graves cemetery at Kranji. Row upon row of identical tombstones, each bearing the name of a British soldier who perished in the Japanese invasion. According to Joergen, we were unlucky. The commander, poor fellow, surrendered without knowing that the Japanese had only 24 hours’ worth of ammunition left.
Sunday, 23 August
Joergen remarked that British diplomacy had been degraded in the last ten years. ‘British ambassadors used to be the best. Now they are glorified commercial counsellors, lacking weight.’ As if to prove his point, an article appeared in today’s Straits Times headed ‘Rise of Britain’s pink diplomacy’. It carried a picture of Chris Bryant, who, as the article points out, rejoices in the nickname ‘Captain Underpants’ after posting that unfortunate picture on a gay website. ‘New minister in Foreign Office tells ambassadors to push for gay rights,’ says the headline. The article concludes: ‘The old Western belief that certain values are beyond dispute and must be exported as quickly as possible remains very much alive, if not in Washington, then at least in London.’
We spent a pleasant day at the bird sanctuary and after a leisurely supper Kieu took us to the airport and waved us off for London.
Tuesday, 25 August
A poll in today’s Guardian shows Labour trailing the Tories 42–25. The Tories are ahead on all fronts – economy, education, law and order – save health, where we retain a narrow lead. They are said to be in the lead among all social classes in all regions. Most Lib Dems, it appears, would rather see a Tory government than a Labour one. All of which suggests that, barring miracles, we face meltdown.
Friday, 28 August
To Edinburgh for the festival. In contrast to the Labour conference, where I am a total irrelevance, I am much in demand on the festival circuit. This weekend, three engagements: a session on the diaries this afternoon, one with Polly Toynbee tomorrow on the class divide and on Sunday (at the television festival) a debate about politicians and spin. The diaries event attracted 600 people (at £7 a head) and was followed by a pleasant hour of book signing.
Saturday, 29 August
Edinburgh
Everyone is talking about last night’s speech by James Murdoch, son of Rupert, in which he launched a great broadside on the BBC and what he called ‘state-sponsored journalism’. His main complaint was that the BBC is using the licence fee to fund a free website which makes it impossible for other broadcasters (notably his own BSkyB) to charge for theirs. He also laid into the regulator, OFCOM, demanding outrageously that BSkyB be freed from the obligation to produce impartial news. One has only to look at Fox News to see where that will lead. There is some sympathy for his point about BBC Online, but it does stick in the gullet to see a mini-oligarch like Murdoch junior posing as a champion of competition and free speech.
Sunday, 30 August
To the Dean Gallery of modern art (much of it junk) in search of paintings by Dawyck Haig (I found one), then back, via the Waters of Leith, to the conference centre for a session on spin. Sky’s Adam Boulton in the chair. The other panellists were Lance Price, who used to be Alastair Campbell’s deputy at Number 10, Peter Oborne (who believes that the entire political class is corrupt and useless) and Heather Brooke, the woman who forced the disclosure of MPs’ expenses. A good-natured discussion, but predicated on the proposition that the only spinners were politicians whereas, as I did my best to point out, political journalists are the biggest spinners of all. Afterwards a drink with Adam and Anji Hunter, who is now a corporate bigshot. Adam reckons that Gordon will stand down at the last minute rather than face annihilation. Angie, Lance and I strongly disagreed. Letting go is not in Gordon’s DNA.
Monday, 31 August
Sunderland
Among the chores that awaited on return from Vietnam, a month’s supply of the Echo to leaf through. Chock full of underclass mayhem – lootings, burnings, stabbings, rapes plus a killing or two. The good news is that our Nissan plant seems to be in line to produce the company’s new electric vehicles. Thank goodness for Nissan.
Friday, 4 September
This evening, at the monthly party meeting, we were addressed by representatives of the probation officers’ union, who talked of impending ‘meltdown and devastation’ as a result of the government’s proposed spending plans. One had to pinch oneself to realise that all that has been proposed so far is a reduction of 2.4 per cent and this on top of a 70 per cent real terms increase in spending on probation since we were elected. When I put this to them, they immediately conceded that it was so but claimed that most of the increase had been wasted on a computer system that didn’t
work and an increase in bureaucracy, which may or may not be the case. The moral of the story seems to be that, however much the government invests in the public services, it can never expect the slightest credit from those in the front line.
Sunday, 6 September
Today’s Sunday Times is leading with a story lambasting Gordon Brown for (apparently) refusing to demand that the Libyans compensate the victims of IRA bombings. The latest instalment of a foolish game that’s been going on since the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, on the grounds that he is dying of cancer. The more interesting issue, upon which almost no one has touched, is whether or not Megrahi had anything to do with Lockerbie. The case against him was wafer-thin and he had an appeal pending which might well have resulted in his conviction being quashed.
Thursday, 17 September
To Millbank for a meeting of Reform of Parliament Committee, where, under the masterly chairmanship of Tony Wright, we spent the day discussing how to prise Parliament loose from the tentacles of the executive. Time is short and Tony is anxious that we should focus on a few measures rather than big-bang proposals which will get nowhere. We homed in on two issues: (1) how to recapture control of the parliamentary timetable and (2) how to increase the independence of select committees. Needless to say, it is all more complicated than it appears at first glance and there are those (not I) who remain to be convinced that there is a problem that needs solving. My suggestion for September sittings, thereby putting an end to the scandalous 82-day summer recess, provoked friendly nods from some of the lay experts, but not much enthusiasm among the elected.