With the exception perhaps of the recently departed Nelson Mandela, there are no other political leaders in modern history I can think of who command as much auspice and importance to a country as Ho Chi Minh does to Vietnam.
Ho dedicated his entire life to the independence of his country, from the early days of its first battle with French colonizers, to the Japanese, to the French again and finally to the Americans.
Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 at the age of 79, only a handful of years before the last US soldiers would leave and Vietnam would be united again under one flag.
He is interred at Hanoi’s Bao Dinh Square, the site where in September 1945 he proclaimed Vietnam’s independence after the Japanese were defeated in World War II. It is a fitting place for his mausoleum, although it is odd that he was embalmed and put on display.
If I remember correctly, his desire was to be cremated, his ashes spread among several different mountains sacred to the Vietnamese. He said that way he could fertilize the soil of his beloved home. Instead, he joined the ranks of Lenin and later Mao as embalmed Communist leaders.
The monument is gorgeous, a giant stone cube sitting atop the steps of the massive public square. Guards with bayonets keep vigil over the doors while the Vietnamese, most dressed in their Sunday best, solemnly file through in line and into the front doors.
Once inside, it is, well . . . as quiet as a mausoleum. I was asked by a guard to take my hands from my pockets. In an unfortunate and wholly accidental lack of cultural diplomacy, I was so wrapped up waiting to see Uncle Ho’s face that I distractedly kept putting my hands into my pockets and the poor guard had to keep reminding me to take them back out again.
It was an otherworldly experience. I remember being able to hear the air-conditioning very well, and the sound of the penny loafers of the old man in front me scooting along the carpet. That great hero of national self-determination finally came into site and looked . . . really old . . . and really dead.
The strangeness of the experience was somewhat spoiled by my students telling me later that evening that they didn’t really think it was his actual body in the case at Bao Dinh Square but a wax replica.
Either way, Ho Chi Minh towers above the drooling, dithering, disappointing leaders of today, and it is with a great affinity and abiding reverence that I remember visiting his mausoleum (even if it was a wax replica inside that case).