Trip to Hanoi

After reading Trip to Hanoi, I was honestly shocked on how open-minded many of the Vietnamese people could be with the Americans who are attempting to destroy their country with mass destruction at the same time. The Vietnamese people are somehow about to trust the Americans and believe that they are doing whatever they can to help. Even those Americans visiting Hanoi for the anti-war movement are not asked what it is that they do to help, but instead they are treated with politeness and respect. The story takes place during the most brutal time of the war, yet the people from Vietnam are able to say, "We know the American people are our friends. Only the present American government is our enemy" (215). They are standing up for the American people by believing that the government is their only enemy, although in Platoon, it is clearly shown that the soldiers felt no obligations to stand up for the Vietnamese people despite what side they were on. Santog can't help but wonder how they could be so naive about the Americans. I felt just as bewildered as Santog because I could not figure out where their ideas were coming from. I expected the Vietnamese people to place all the blame on the Americans whether they claimed to be a part of the anti-war movement or not because that is what Americans tend to do. Instead Santog and her three companions are being "thanked for [their] unsolicited efforts" (214). They treat the Americans with such gratitude that it almost makes you feel guilty because you know that Americans as a whole would never return such a favor. These acts of kindness push Santog further and further away from understanding their culture because she doesn't want to believe that Vietnamese genuinely do have faith in the Americans.