-^-for posterity-^-

i visited the reunification palace today. people who lived through the war might remember because of its gates. they were smashed through by a tank in ‘75. it also was the home of diem. it sits in the middle of the city, right next to the mall, the cathedral and the park with numbered trees.

the gates to the palace are painted off white and are much smaller than they should be. the front lawn is lush and green. it is scarred by a long, curved driveway with flag poles arching out circularly from the building each bearing a solid red flag. a large red flag with a golden star is perched above the building. only large corporate buildings loom higher.

the building is a throwback to the 60’s. the walls are made up of strange geometrical shapes all curving together and all looking well out of place. i was sure that there had to be a bunch of lava lamps inside.

i entered and waited for the english tour. it ended up being me and two australians there on holiday. our guide spoke very rapidly. at first i thought she knew the language. i fired off a question at her and she threw back a blank stare. i asked another question and got another stare. i guess she just memorized what was on the tour. hilarious.

she took us from room to room. we went in the “official meeting room of the american puppet government.” it was full of terrible plush circular chairs. they all looked like they were out of some beatnik nightmare. we entered another room. it was the office of diem. it had a large black lacquer desk at one end. very large. who would have known a puppet government would have so much paperwork. there were also more terrible plush chairs. looked more like jack kerouac’s office.

we went upstairs. there was a movie theater. man, diem had it rough. i laughed out loud. gold trim and red velvet everywhere. i guess the us tax money was used both to keep out communism and keep diem busy watching the latest james bond thriller. there was a “room where the puppet government gambled.” fascinating. there was a large bar shaped like a barrel cut in half. there were circular couches. tacky. tacky. tacky. our tax dollars went for this kitsch? another room housed many, many stuffed animals. skeletons of anything you can hunt, i guess. large elephant feet hollowed out. weird stuff.

we ambled up to the roof. i could only imagine a large tank heading down the main road towards the gates and smashing through them in ‘75. the tanks remained there to this day. they sit of to the side with some jets. now, did the gun of the tank go over the gate? it didn’t work logically. the gun seemed to be lower than the highest point of the gate and it stuck out further than the rest of the tank. did they turn the gun to the side to barrel through the gate? did it fit through the bars in the gate?

the roof housed the all important dance floor. tasteless.

there were two large circles painted in the cement. they were the places where a renegade fighter pilot stole a plane and dropped two bombs. they must have been small bombs. our tour guide says that the pilot then, “flew the puppet government’s plane to the north and he lives there to this day as a hero.”

we ended our tour by heading down to the basement. the walls were lined with maps large telephones were everywhere. desks were crude and everything was cement. this is where all the important decisions were made. you know, decisions like: well, send these group of people with guns here to shoot at these people and if we have more guns and more people we can kill a lot more of those other people.

as ex-eagles’ running back ricky “running” waters once eloquently put it, “for who? for what?”

the tour ended with a quick stop over in the kitchen. it turns out most of the appliances that diem ate off of were imported from tokyo. would there be a worse way to end the tour?

i leave feeling strange. here i am, walking past the huge american embassy on my way back to my small room, felling constantly out of place. the air is fresh and the sky is blue. flags fly around proclaiming every ideology imaginable. from communism to commercialism, the vanguard party to the federal reserve board. the ardent supporters of ideological extremes have caused so much pain in this world. no one is altogether right.