Page 100 - Demo

1885 Redefining Americato halt. The two dozen tourists, all Westerners, stepped close to the bamboo trapdoor. He spun it on its hinge until it was vertical, revealing a pit as deep as a grave and as long as a coffin, a dozen sharp wooden stakes embedded in the earth. %u201cStep on trapdoor, you fall in.%u201dAfter a couple of tourists took photographs, Mr. Ly waved the group forward. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, gray slacks, and polished brown leather shoes, whereas at home he typically lounged in shorts and perhaps an undershirt. What was strangest to Phuong was seeing her father joke and chat with the tourists. Whenever he spoke to Phuong at home, it was mostly to call for another beer, to fetch him his cigarettes, or to request a particular dish for dinner.%u201cAnd this, an original tunnel.%u201d Mr. Ly stopped and pointed at a square hole the size of a sheet of writing paper, covered with a wooden board and a scattering of leaves at the foot of a eucalyptus tree. %u201cHere, guerrillas live for years and attack Americans anytime.%u201d The tourists were almost all Americans, but this history did not seem to offend them. Instead they seemed fascinated, raising their cameras as he lifted the board to show the narrow, dark entrance. Off in the distance, from the shooting range, a machine gun fired a burst of rounds, each bullet costing a dollar, according to their father. Phuong was bemused by the fact that these tourists would want to spend their money and their day here instead of at the beach or a fancy restaurant, or in a hammock at a rustic riverside caf%u00e9. The reason for such behavior, her father said, was that the foreign tourists only knew one thing about this country, the war. These tunnels, then, were a must-see on their itineraries. Michael Brooks/Alamy Stock PhotoTourism in Vietnam is often focused on what Americans call the Vietnam War, or the Second Indochina War, as the Vietnamese call it. Here, a tourist to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum in Saigon inspects the cockpit of a U.S. Bell Huey helicopter.How does %u201cFatherland%u201d address war tourism? Why does Mr. Ly seem so animated when he is leading tours?Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.