Tourism, Collective Memory, and National Identity in Vietnam’s Sites of Remembrance: A Case Study of the War Remnants Museum

The War Remnants Museum, which is located in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, has been the focus of the exclusionary nature of memory regarding war history, given the fact that this museum focuses on war crimes committed in the country while simultaneously ignoring the war crimes committed by the Communist Party of Vietnam. Vietnam, once part of a French colonized territory, known as Indochina set out in 1954 to be a globally recognized independent government. However, American intervention in the country in 1960 would set off a war that was not fully over until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Given Vietnam’s history, they offer multiple sites of remembrance that define their national identity and tourism industry. Vietnam has a long history of tourism, going back to the time of French colonization, and is now dependent on the revenue from tourism in their country. Many of these tourist sites are war sites, whether they be museums, sites of remembrance, or locations from the wars. However, the story told to tourists at these sites are often exclusionary in nature by excluding the stories from those of the Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) and the South Vietnamese soldiers due to the North’s victory. These stories are also manipulated to only present a positive representation of the Communist Party. Through this manipulation and exclusion, it begins to affect not only what tourists take away from these war sites but what those living there remember about the war and what the next generation will learn about their country’s history. In this paper, I will argue that the Communist Party in Vietnam pushes a pro-Communist state narrative through their tourism industry at all types of sites, most notably at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. While not entirely Communist, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) endorses a narrative that supports the communist state and its version of Vietnamese national identity. This affects the collective memory of the war and the way national identity is presented to tourists (who most likely have limited knowledge and understanding of the war).

The term “tourism” is broad and goes beyond just war sites to religious and historical places, and even down to the local histories, especially in rural Vietnam. For the purposes of this paper, I’m looking at tourists who are seeking out sites from what the Vietnamese call “the American War”. The tourists I’m looking at in this paper exclude veterans who are returning to Vietnam, Viet Kieu, and scholars and historians, who will have extensive knowledge of this conflict. I’m looking specifically at the average tourist from anywhere in the world, who may be traveling to Vietnam for a variety of reasons, but will have a limited framework understanding of the war, particularly of the Vietnamese side of the conflict. For many of these tourists, their perception of the war is informed by their own education, guidebooks, and for American tourists (and maybe even those outside of the United States) Hollywood and popular media.

The War Remnants Museum is a museum dedicated to remembering the violent conflict with America, along with other violent crimes committed throughout the country’s history. The museum is located in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. The museum was originally named the Exhibition House of American and Chinese War Crimes, and was then later renamed the Exhibition House of Aggression War Crimes and is now known officially as the War Remnants Museum. In order to understand this museum, I turned to other scholars’ descriptions of the museum, along with more modern travel guides, such as TripAdvisor, because the War Remnants Museum’s official website has not been updated since 2012. According to TripAdvisor, the museum is “the Museum of thematic research, collection, storage, preservation and display of the material, photographs, artifacts on the evidence of the crime and the consequences of the war that the invasion force has caused to Vietnam…In 35 years, the Museum has welcomed over 15 million visitors at home and abroad. Currently with about 500,000 visitors each year, the War Remnants Museum is one of the only cultural tourism to attract high public credibility at home and abroad.” This museum represents the complexity of memory about the war within the country and to its (Western) tourists because it is state-sponsored and is representative of the narrative and feelings of the state, and not necessarily the locals. It is also exclusive in how it leaves out the war crimes committed by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, a criticism many (especially American tourists) have made. Nonetheless, the history represented at the museum is important given the way much of the horrors of the war are overlooked by popular memory, especially in the United States.

Ticket prices and information about reduced fares were corroborated with other sources, making me believe the information listed on the website, while a decade old, still seems to be accurate. According to the War Remnants Museum website, the ticket price is 40,000 dong (which is $1.71 in USD). Students, armed forces, veterans, and “senior officials of the revolution” have a reduced fare by 50% (which is just 85 cents in USD). Furthermore, according to the website, “war invalids and martyrs families, those with children under 6 years of age, [and] children in remote areas” are free to visit. So, while exceptions are made, it would still be difficult for those living further North to be able to afford to travel to the museum, especially given the low wages in the country. It’s also worth noting that these exceptions are made for those involved in the Communist cause along with those who are currently serving their country in different forms (students and armed forces). However, this museum seems to be widely accessible for many Vietnamese living in the South, meaning the narrative being told about foreign aggressors and the violence they caused is also easily accessible. Because this state-sponsored history is accessible to the public, the CPV is able to utilize the museum to refute competing narratives.

The narrative at the War Remnants Museum is told through a majority of pictures, even relying on the words of the United State’s own Robert McNamara, who served as the Secretary of Defense during the war. Scholar Jamie Gillen writes, “...the museum’s message is not only a look into the past but also a vision of the present and the future: A peaceful and strong Vietnam has been and continues to be victimized by U.S. imperialism but is in no way weakened as a result.” The narrative at the War Remnants Museum is not just one of foreign aggressions and war crimes, but one of Vietnamese resistance and resilience. Gillen, who has studied the War Remnants museum at length, writes, “in keeping with a dominant theme of the museum, explanations of U.S. violence against the Vietnamese are contrasted with Vietnamese resilience and strength.” This idea of Vietnamese resilience, strength, and resistance to outside forces is one tied to their national identity; these values are engrained in the memory of the war and the identity of the Vietnamese people as a collective.

In order to understand how the War Remnants Museum fits into this idea of collective memory and national identity, we must first look at the history of tourism within Vietnam. After generations of French occupation, Western interest in tourism travel to Vietnam increased during the 1950s, offering “beautiful pastoral vistas, hundreds of miles of placid coastline, outstanding big-game hunting, several architectural treasures, and a vibrant… and cultural life.” This interest was welcomed by the officials of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) not only for the Western money tourism brought in but for the state legitimacy tourism provided. Capitalizing on the French influence on the country, tourism officials marketed Vietnam as “a slice of Europe in Asia.” Travel to Vietnam increased again at the turn of the decade, with the number of tourists nearly doubling in 1960, from where it had been in 1957. However, as the war grew in Vietnam, the number of international travelers dropped below 30,000, increasing again in 1967, and then doubling in 1969 and 1970. However, those travelers were more often involved in the conflict rather than tourists coming to see the country. And those few tourists, mostly Westerners, who were taking a “pleasure” trip to Vietnam had little genuine interest in Vietnam as a country but were more interested in seeing the war in Vietnam upfront and up close. However, those who did travel to Vietnam found it not only unsafe because of the violence but found it difficult to find lodgings and even those who were able to find accommodations faced another question of safety with the growing poverty in South Vietnam. In addition, getting to Vietnam was a challenge for tourists. Ships going to the RVN had stopped in 1964 and the one American airline that did offer flights had very few seats and was a risk to even fly on at all.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Communist Party’s subsequent takeover of the country, travel to Vietnam changed. While immediately following the war Vietnam depended on the support of the Soviet Union. In the early 1980’s, tourism in Vietnam averaged nearly 7,000 visitors a year, most of whom were from places like Cuba or socialist European countries. As government officials recognized the benefits of opening the country to tourism from the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s, attention became focused on building a tourism industry within the country. Once travel to Vietnam opened to the West in the late ‘80s, the number of visitors went from 10,000 in 1986 to almost 40,000 in 1988. However, with the breakdown and subsequent fall of the Soviet Union, the money that came from the Eastern Bloc diminished, affecting Vietnam’s ability to build its tourist industry. Given this, Vietnam declared 1990 “Visit Vietnam Year” and continued to work to build their tourism industry.

In the 1990s, tourism in Vietnam began to grow. However, as Laderman points out, the War Remnants museum was not found “either in the listings of sites of interest or on their maps of the city’s principal tourist attractions” from the VNAT. This is not only an interesting exclusion due to the fact that it is now one of the primary places listed to visit when going to Ho Chi Minh City, but also because of what the museum held. It could be speculated that this museum was not a place brought to tourists’ attention because of the overwhelmingly negative narrative, as Vietnam was not in a place to be intentionally isolating itself from international tourists, especially in the early 1990s.

Looking at the tourism statistics from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), it’s difficult to ascertain the exact number of tourists from the last decade and a half. Jamie Gillen cites the VNAT as reporting that “in 2012 Vietnam received 6,585,384 international tourists, up from 5,873,047 in 2011.” However, the estimated total of international travelers for 2018 is 15,497,791 people. Out of that number, 687,226 travelers were from the United States. This is a notable increase from just almost a decade prior, as the estimated total for 2008 is 4,253,740. Out of these travelers in 2008, 417,198 of them were from the United States. It’s important to note that the VNAT’s numbers available to the global public on their website only go back to 2008 and only up to September of 2019. What’s also important to look at is the number of tourists from each country, especially when looking at US tourists, because they tend to perceive the material at the War Remnants Museum differently than other international travelers, most likely because of preconceived notions and ideas. There is clearly a notable increase in tourism to the country, especially U.S. tourism to the country, which speaks to Vietnam’s growing tourism industry, changing relations with the United States, and ever-growing presence as part of the global community. This is also confirmed by the total tourism receipts from 2000-2018. In 2000, the total VND (Vietnamese dong) was 17.40 trillion. That number jumped to 620.00 VND trillion by the end of 2018. From all of this, it’s very easy to understand just how much travel to Vietnam increased over the course of the 2000s. The question is now: What attracts these travelers to modern-day Vietnam?

According to TripAdvisor, it’s easy to see why world travelers may pick Vietnam as their place to visit. The general overview of Vietnam on TripAdvisor states, “The jungles and monsoon forests of Vietnam are diverse ecosystems that are alive with unique wildlife. Trekking is a popular activity here, particularly the mountains of Sapa and the primeval landscape of Cuc Phuong National Park. For a more urban escape, take a guided food tour of Ho Chi Minh City, making sure to squeeze in visits to the historic Hoi Truong Thong Nhat palace and the intricately adorned Emperor Jade Pagoda.” It’s clear that some of the reasons why tourists travel to Vietnam have remained the same from the 1950s and 1960s. People are still traveling to Vietnam for the gorgeous landscapes and religious and cultural sites that adorn the country. In a way, this focus on its French cultural history romanticizes Vietnam. Through focusing on their French past along with the French culture and architecture that remains, it’s clear that there is a focus on a certain type of tourist, most likely a white, Western, and English-speaking tourist. Kennedy and Williams agree with this idea, writing, “Through the strategies of establishment of a Europeanized identity, ambiguity in references to the 1945–75 conflict, depiction of that war as a provincial event, portrayal of U.S. involvement as a social activity, and historical minimization, the tourist industry writes a narrative of Vietnam as welcoming, nonthreatening, and steeped in a history that transcends recent animosities.” It begs the question that if the focus of tourism within the country is not on the war but on other aspects of their past, what is being erased?

However, some are traveling for the war history that appeared after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Communist Party takeover of the country the same year. This can be seen in the descriptions of Ho Chi Minh City on Trip Advisor. TripAdvisor states, “As Vietnam’s largest economic center and cultural capital, Ho Chi Minh City boasts soaring skyscrapers that tower over charming French colonial structures and traditional pagodas from Saigon’s yesteryear. …Visit The War Remnants Museum for a glimpse into the Vietnam War, wander down Bui Vien Street for cheap beer or cruise through the Mekong Delta for sprawling views of paddy fields and houseboats.” Sites such as the War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, the Cu Chi tunnels, the War Remembrance Museum, and the Hoa Lo prison have appeared after the war ended, some places being historical sites and others being a place of remembrance and memorial. Regardless, attraction to these sites goes beyond just the average curious international traveler and strays into the territory of dark tourism.

It is important to discuss dark tourism because the War Remnants Museum, along with other war sites in Vietnam, are sites of remembrance that stray into the category of dark tourism. The ideas discussed in this paper regarding ethical tourism extend past just dark tourism within Vietnam but to tourism on a global scale. Dark tourism is a term that comes from the late 1990s, created by John Lennon, who was a professor at Glasgow Caledonian University, along with one of his fellow professors. Dark tourism is tourism to places that focus on sites of death and destruction. When thinking of dark tourism, most think of sites like Chernobyl, the killing fields in Cambodia, or Auschwitz. However, sites like the Cu Chi tunnels, the War Remnants Museum, and the Hue and My Lai massacres fall under this idea of dark tourism. Within Vietnam’s own tourism industry, there is a sub-portion that focuses on this dark history because of the war with America.

Collective memory is the memory of an event or series of events that is remembered by a certain group of people. For example, the United States has a collective memory regarding the Vietnam War, but so do the Vietnamese. Collective memory can be complicated, given the fact that individual memory on its own is complicated and conflicting. Behind collective memory are certain narratives that the state wants others to remember. It’s very much a state-pushed narrative, which appears in state-controlled sites of remembrance, such as the War Remnants Museum. As Kennedy and Williams say, “These narratives interact with and alter the composition of personal memory, of the larger public memory, and of official history.” The state-pushed narrative interferes with collective memory, as the collective memory of the state is often not the reality of those events or the way many individuals remember those events. Collective memory often includes collective forgetting (or collective amnesia/denial), harming those who are being forgotten within these narratives. Kennedy and Williams explain, “These sites also legitimatize the relations of power implicit within them. Other reconstructions are rendered questionable or in need of correction.” Sites like the War Remnants Museum, which are sponsored by the state, have this controlled narrative, pushing it as the authentic and true narrative. In the case of the War Remnants Museum, other narratives that would acknowledge the harm the Vietnamese caused to South Vietnamese generals and officials after the fall of Saigon would be considered false. Vietnamese scholar Viet Thanh Nguyen writes, “...the museums and memorials of Southeast Asia transform, much as memory and forgetting themselves do. Museums, memorials, and memories change because their countries change.” The War Remnants Museum has evolved over time as Vietnam and tourism within Vietnam has changed, reflecting what will both attract visitors and lay out a specific narrative that the CPV is putting forth.

National identity is the identity countries put forth about themselves. It’s identity and the way they are recognized on the global stage. Collective memory can often affect national identity, the identity that a country wants to put forth can also affect collective memory. Collective memory and national identity are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually inclusive—they are always tied to one another. The Communist Party in Vietnam uses this war and American aggressions to define their country’s history, especially given Vietnam’s long history of being colonized, and how they as not only as a state party, but as a country, overcame colonization. This conflicts with preconceived notions and attitudes towards these events, especially on the part of those who grew up in the United States. Kennedy and Williams state, “Through these tactics, would-be tourists who remember the Vietnamese as enemies are provided with re-presentations of Vietnam, which suggest new constructs for remembering the country without its nemesis status”. In addition, Julia Bleankey states, “As veterans shuttle from authentic places to organized and museum sites, they form new ideas about Vietnam that, in turn, complicate their previously formed memories about the country”. However, while for some these revised narratives allow for an opportunity to see Vietnam and its citizens in a new, positive light, these same narratives can alienate those who hold firm in their preconceived understandings of these events. While for some veterans, they are able to see these experiences in a new way, the alienation of the average traveler can especially be seen in American veterans or those who have close relatives or friends who are veterans of the war. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in U.S. travelers’ reactions to the War Remnants Museum. As Julia Bleakney states, “This narrative exemplifies the museums larger agenda, to present the atrocities against Vietnamese people committed by French and American powers regardless of the offense it may cause western visitors…The museum uses this propaganda to convey the atrocities but omits to explain how the Viet Cong or the Northern Army used it.” This is further seen in the visitor log in the museum, where visitors are free to leave their thoughts. Scott Laderman quotes examples from the log, some of which call the Vietnamese out for their exclusive narrative, but others outright deny the happening of some of the horrific events presented in the museum (most notably the My Lai massacre). As tourists become isolated from the narrative at sites like the War Remnants Museum, they are unable to learn anything from the sites themselves, holding firm in these preconceived ideas.

Ultimately, this one-sided collective memory extends behind the places where the state designs the agenda but bleeds into local interaction with tourism. As the state-pushed version of the war becomes more solidified and becomes more accepted by those outside of the government, this idea of collective forgetting becomes more and more prominent. This presents another issue because tourists interact with those outside of these museums. Kennedy and Williams explain, “...tourism’s narratives tangle in among the others to form the very complex public history within which both tourists and Vietnamese negotiate their own identities in relationship to each other and to the past.”. As the local population accepts this narrative and this exclusive version of events, collective forgetting affects tourists and their learning of events in a negative manner. The more the state-controlled narrative becomes intertwined with collective memory and national identity, the more the local population accepts it, and the worse collective forgetting becomes, meaning tourists have little to no access to these narratives, even outside of these state-controlled sites.

To say that the Communist Party in Vietnam is the only government to create a one-sided narrative reflected in their museums, particularly the War Remnants Museum, is an incorrect statement. Governments all over the world inherently create one-sided narratives when remembering conflicts. Viet Thanh Nguyen writes, “We ignore that past, we pretend it does not exist, or we write its history to serve a prejudicial agenda”. Often when remembering violent conflicts with a human cost, it’s difficult for all actors to admit to wrongdoings and mistakes made. Collective amnesia and denial also factor into this, especially in the United States. The War Remnants Museum has been highly controversial because of its blatant one-sided perspective, despite the fact that there has been little to no controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. for excluding the Vietnamese and honoring their lives lost at the site as well. Furthermore, as Laderman states, “two exhibits dealing with the war at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., in 2002, neither addressed the war’s consequences for the Vietnamese people”. However, for Vietnam, a country that depends so heavily on the money of international travelers and the tourism industry, understanding what narrative is being told to international travelers and the exclusionary nature of that narrative is critical because most of these tourists are going to have a limited framework perspective of the war, especially if they may be from countries like Australia and Korea, whose involvement in the conflict is less widely-known.

Scholars have been focusing on the War Remnants Museum as a place of primary interaction for tourists, along with being at the forefront of the state’s collective memory regarding the war. This museum has come under scrutiny and criticism for not portraying the war crimes committed by the Viet Cong or the RVN, either to American soldiers or South Vietnamese (who suffered especially after the withdrawal of troops and the fall of Saigon in 1975). This criticism does not come from just visitors and tourists, but other historians and scholars as well. The exclusionary nature of these narratives affects those whose memories are being forgotten.  It affects those who were harmed by the truth of these events, and whose stories are no longer being told by the masses. This is particularly crucial when examining the narratives and memories of the South Vietnamese soldiers, who are not honored in globally recognized places like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Their narratives are of particular importance because of what they experienced after the war, often violence and forced “reeducation” from the Communist Party. The lives of Cambodians and Laotians who were lost as a direct result of the violence and the chemical agents, and whose lives continued to be affected by this, are also important to remember when thinking about the exclusive nature in sites of remembrance. These direct effects and human costs are hardly discussed in scholarly works or sites of remembrance globally.

Understanding how tourism affects the memory of events is important when thinking beyond tourism to just war sites in Vietnam. Knowledge of the cultural and historical importance of sites and how those narratives have been written or changed to reflect the state’s sponsoring of them is critical to understanding those narratives as a whole. Furthermore, knowing who is excluded from these narratives, and who is excluded from this history, is equally critical in order to understand and interact with these places responsibly. The responsibility tourists have to understand these histories fully, and respectfully interacting with them is important when one begins to stray into the territory of dark tourism, as those sites are often sites of death and violence. When not interacting with the sites respectfully, when not having respect for these places’ history, and not doing our duty as tourists to poorly educate ourselves about the things we may learn (or the things we may not learn) at these sites, questions of ethicality and morality arise. As tourists, there is a responsibility to inform ourselves of the narratives being put forth at the sites we visit and educating ourselves about the nation’s history. It is important to understand who wrote the narrative being told at these sites and the purpose behind it, and those they may have excluded. This is critical because sites of remembrance are just one of the highly influential ways history can be written and remembered.

Works Cited

Bleakney, Julia Norma.“Revisiting Vietnam: Memoirs, Memorials, and Museums.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2004.

“Explore Ho Chi Minh City - The Pearl of the Far East; a dynamic city that dazzles and delights.” TripAdvisor. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g293925-Ho_Chi_Minh_City-Vacations.html. Accessed July 18th, 2022.

“Explore Vietnam - About Vietnam.” TripAdvisor. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g293921-Vietnam-Vacations.html. Accessed July 18th, 2022.

Gillen, Jamie. “Tourism and Nation Building at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104, no. 6 (2014): 1307-1321. Accessed July 2nd, 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24537616.

“International visitors to Vietnam in December and year 2008.” Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. https://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/en/post/1257. Accessed August 15, 2022.

“International visitors to Viet Nam in December and 12 month of 2018.” Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. https://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/en/post/13551. Accessed August 15, 2022.

Kennedy, Laurel B. and Rose B. Williams, “The Past without the Pain: The Manufacture of Nostalgia in Vietnam’s Tourism Industry.” In The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Socialist Vietnam, edited by Hue Tam Ho-Tai, 135-163. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=66397&site=eds-live, 139.

Laderman, Scott. Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Meaning of War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016.

Sampson, Hannah. “Dark tourism, explained: Why visitors flock to sites of tragedy.” The Washington Post. November 13th, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/travel/dark-tourism-explainer/. Accessed March 27th, 2023.

“Total tourism receipts (2000-2018).” Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. https://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/en/post/10260. Accessed August 15, 2022.

“Ticket price.” War Remnants Museum. http://warremnantsmuseum.com/posts/ticket-price. Accessed July 19th, 2022.

“War Remnants Museum - About.” TripAdvisor. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293925-d311103-Reviews-War_Remnants_Museum-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html. Accessed July 18th, 2022.

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Originally from San Diego, Kylie graduated from Westminster in 2023 with her BA in History and a Minor in Sociology. She is interested in collective memory regarding events post-1945, with a focus on the Vietnam War.