When I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, I was warned about what to expect. This still does not prepare for what I was about to see. The Cu Chi Tunnels did its best to clean itself from the war and make it into fun for the whole family. There were features that made sense at the sight, such as the liberation village. The liberation village did its best to try and recreate the everyday life of the of the people of living in the village during the war. But this sense was drowned out by the shameless money grabs surrounding the site. Shoot a gun just like one from the war, only 35000. Chill out with the pool with the family. And be sure to check out the gift shop before you leave. These factors all distract from the greater sense of what the war was like and the actual damage it did to the culture.
Further troubling were the actual tunnels. In the tunnels I was never struck by how the Vietnamese people had to live during the war. I personally never distinguished these tunnels from a naturally occurring tunnel that has no historical significance. This sense seems to point to a systematic failure with the Cu Chi Tunnels.
My disillusionment with the tunnels points to a larger problem connected to the commodification of war. When war is transformed into something that is branded and sold, they will be cleaning it up to make it appeal to the most people possible. Commodifying the war raises the possibility to lose the historical significance to what the war meant in and turns it into something of an amusement park. Because they are trying to make a tragic event appealing, there is a major moral duality created. Do you do justice to the event but make it unpalatable to the audience or do you focus on the enjoyment of the audience but forego some of the facts in the process? The Cu Chi Tunnels are not the only location struggling with this duality, places such as the war remnants museum have altered or withdrawn exhibits because consumers have expressed displeasure with it. This gets to the bottom of the two directions that these sites are being pulled. No matter the financial profit, this question has to be answered to deal with what is allowable in a developing economy. Can a society profit off of a war morally and keeping the history intact?