HCMC, War Remnants Museum & Independence Palace

You can live in China and in normal daily life, with the exception of websites being blocked by the government, not realize that you're living in a communist country. Vietnam, on the other hand, is brashly proud of its communist government. Quite often the Vietnamese flag (red background with a yellow star) is flown side-by-side of the communist flag (red flag with the yellow hammer and sickle).

At any rate, these flags and propaganda signs are a common site throughout Saigon...
Here is the Vietnamese flag flying beside the communist flag at the entrance of the War Remnants Museum

The War Remnants Museum includes a collection of American planes, tanks and other equipment captured by the during the Vietnam War.Hey, I recognize this jet... it's a T-37 Tweet, my first plane for six months in pilot training. Except this is actually the combat version of the Tweet, the A-37 Dragonfly. Regardless, it came off the same Cessna assembly line in Wichita, Kansas and is a plane that Grandpa Skinner helped to build back in his days on the line there.

However they do not call it the Vietnam War, they call it the American War. The museum never mentions that Vietnam was engulfed in civil war before American troops entered in 1965 and that the country remained in civil war after American troops left.

You know from the very beginning upon entering the museum building what the tone of the displays are going to be...

The claim that the U.S. violated its own claim of freedom from the Declaration of Independence.

Everything here portrayed the American action during the war as war crimes.

The story here was completely one-sided. One of the most impressive features of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum that I went to last year was the courage it took for the Japanese to say in the museum that the Japanese were aggressors during that time and what the Americans and the Allies were thinking, in their own words, of how to proceed with the war and how the decision to use the bomb was made.

Concentration camp? That has a much different connotation in its use, and it seems that the museum is trying to appeal to that connotation...

Independence Palace

Independence Palace was home to the South Vietnamese president starting in 1954 after Vietnam defeated the French and the Geneva Accords were signed, dividing Vietnam into two countries along the 17th parallel.

The palace was originally built as the French governor's residence in Saigon.

On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese tanks smashed onto the palace grounds, completing the fall of Saigon and effectively ending the war between the north and the south. It was subsequently renamed Reunification Palace.

The palace as it stands today... its rooms remain as they did in 1975 for tourists to see.

This Chinese-made, Russian-designed T-54 tank was one of the NVA tanks that stormed the palace on that day. We guess you're supposed to stand here and smile...

What the palace grounds looked like on that day...What the palace grounds look like today...
The only modification that was made (at least that was told to us) was the addition of the Ho Chi Minh meeting room. Other than this, all the furniture, decorations, and equipment in the building date back to 1975.