ABSTRACT
At the former Vietnamese imperial city of Hue, recently listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, a site interpreter told me the following story. A group of Vietnam veterans were visiting Hue for the first time since they had left it at the end of the American war in Vietnam. All of the former soldiers had been involved in the American counter-attack following the Tet Offensive in 1968. She described the profound and moving affect the monuments had on them. As they walked around the site, they all kept repeating to her: ‘Did we do this?’ ‘What did we do?’ At the end of their tour, one of the Americans took off his cap, took out his wallet and put some money in it before passing it around to his companions, each of whom also put money in the cap. They then handed the tour guide the money and asked her to give the money to the director of the Hue monuments and conservation centre: their contribution towards the work of conservation and renovation.
