Seeing Vietnam: Encounters of the Road and Heart

by Susan Brownmiller

In 1992, shortly after the U.S. lifted its travel ban to Vietnam, Brownmiller was sent by Travel & Leisure magazine to visit the small Asian country and record her journey. This fascinating account recalls that visit, providing a richly textured portrait of a beautiful, resilient land and its people.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Susan Brownmiller was an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1994 when I originally read it but found it just as interesting and useful January 2015 when revisiting Vietnam. Parts of this well-written book are evergreen--for example, the sections on history and geography--while other elements have obviously changed with the 20 years that have passed. But that is the charm of this book and why I would recommend it to anyone traveling to or in Vietnam today. This 20-year gap is both amusing and enlightening as I read each chapter as I travelled many parts of the same route Brownmiller travelled. The Cham Museum in Danang remains exactly as described. However, Hoi An has become a tourist town with its main streets lined with travel agents and coffee shops. Today one can talk to anyone willing to engage with a curious visitor unlike Brownmiller's days but many of the conversations remain unchanged. On my last day I sat in a small concrete shop with its eager 30-year old owner clutching my hand as she told me of her dream to become rich taking in tourists' laundry at $1/kilo and selling cans of LaRue beer and bottled water (and renting motorbikes and providing a taxi service and ...). I thought the stroking of my hand a bit odd until later that day I read on page 45 of Brownmiller's text from 1994 "It's a Vietnamese thing, this tactile stroking. A sign of approval."

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes it is fun to read a dated travel account, particularly to see a world that has usually long disappeared. Some of this was interesting, but I felt there was a little too much history and personal remembrances for my taste.

[Aileen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the story of a journalist's trip through Vietnam shortly after Americans were allowed to enter Vietnam. I appreciated the historical aspects of the book but was hugely disappointed that Susan Brownmiller focused on that and not her experiences, her reactions and the reactions of the people she met. Although she offered occasional vignettes, their telling felt incomplete and I often got the feeling that she was alluding to something without giving me all the dots to connect.

It was clear the author was carrying a lot of baggage from the American War/Vietnam War (depends on what side of the Pacific you were born on) and she seemed to prefer to recount that pain or bury us in historical facts than tell us about the people around her. Putting it bluntly, the vast majority of this book was probably written before Brownmiller ever left U.S. soil. A shame.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful companion for my trip to Vietnam; despite being 20 years old, the comparisons between what Brownmiller saw then, when the country had just opened to the US for tourism, and now. She weaves history, mostly about the war, into the very personal travel stories, which left me thirsting for more.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

No doubt groundbreaking at the time Vietnam was "opening" to the west , but 15 years on it seems a bit dated. Still, the solid writing, with comments about the land and people, make for a worthwhile read.

[Dogsandbooks]

DPL 915.9704 B A personal memoir of a trip to Vietnam, North and South, in 1992. Remembering the war through the prism of modern life. The usual troubles with conveyances and guides, but this is mostly about the uneasy alliances of communism and capitalism that is evolving.

[Sharonlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of Susan's. It shows her personality so very well, more so even than "In Our Time," I think.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting primer on developments in postwar Vietnam.