When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace

I’ve heard a lot from the American side of the Vietnam War on account of growing up Vietnamese American taking US history classes, from the South Vietnamese side on account of growing up in the community, and a bit from the North Vietnamese side through recent publications. However, this book is one of the few that speaks from a fourth side - the Central Vietnamese side, fractured on account of being geographically central to the conflicts from all 3 sides.

This is also probably one of the most visceral account as Ly Hayslip doesn’t spare any details when it comes to her upbringing while supporting the war efforts at an early age and also experiencing the atrocities and aftermath of war. She also dives deeply into Vietnamese culture show more to explain why things happened the way they did, as well as the motives and history of both the Republicans (the South Vietnam and American side) and the Viet Cong (north Viet Nam) and even reaches far back as the French colonization (and Viet Minh), which very few works address.

This is also an account from a civilian Vietnamese woman who experienced the war, which elevates its importance in representation and addresses the effects of daily life and how rural villagers were expected to support the war effort as part of their lives but also felt deep and terrible repercussions as a result.

Very well written, deeply personal, and heartbreaking.

I did have some doubts on the accuracy of some personal accounts due to the fact that it can sometimes feel exaggerated from the way the characters speak and react to each other. Nevertheless, the strengths of this story are the unique messages and Hayslip’s advocacy work in helping others. show less

Part of the problem reading history is that sometimes one tends to look at the overall picture; the strategic view, rather than the impact of an event on the individual Le Ly Hayslip has recounted her family's personal experiences during the Vietnam war from the perspective of those caught in the middle. Her story portrays the agony of the destruction of a centuries-old way of life and the ruination of a country. The village she lived in, Ky La, was just a tiny fanning village, one surely no one has heard of. Yet, the village's ordeal, first from the French, followed by the nocturnal terror of the Viet Cong, and finally the rain of American explosives totally obliterating its existence, was shared by much of the country. Pitted against show more the horror of modern warfare the family and village life disintegrated. First suspected of being a member of the Viet Cong, she was imprisoned and tortured by the South Vietnamese. Upon release the Viet Cong assumed she had become a collaborator and added her name to the death list. As she ran away from the village her allegiance to traditional values faded, she bore an illegitimate child, took American lovers, and under duress became a black marketeer. She worshiped at the "shrine of the street-smart and the shrewd, not at the altar of my ancestors." Despite it all, she despairs not for the future, but has tried to break through the cycle of vengeance and. now works for the East Meets West Foundation, an organization which hopes to reconcile the differences between the two countries. show less

This book is the autobiography of a Vietnamese woman born during the tail end of the French occupation and who came of age during the Vietnam War. The narrative jumps back and forth between her early years and her journey back to her family in 1986, when the country was just starting to open up to America. I was both amazed by Hayslip's resilience in the face of so much horror and annoyed by the obvious whitewashing she gives her many ill-advised sexual relationships (a favor she does not extend to others). Still, it's a gritty and real look at the war from a perspective one doesn't see a lot of in America, as well as an interesting read for all of the information on prewar Vietnamese culture. This book is certainly worth reading once.

Read this while I was in Vietnam. Very interesting and horrific personal account of growing up during the American War, as they call it, by a woman who as a child both worked for and was tortured by the Viet Cong (and by the Republcans). She was amazingly enterprising during all of this. I admired her courage but was put off by her terrible taste in men!

She ended up in the States by virtue of her marriage to a much older man, returning to Vietnam to find her estranged mother and sister.

3.5 This memoir started out strong, but then lost something. I didn’t really feel connected to Le Ly and the things she experienced, and I’m not sure exactly why. She has a beautiful and unique way of writing. She has a beautiful heart. Maybe it was the lack of her own emotions when she was raped three different times or left high and dry by an American lover.

Still, this is a unique perspective of the American-Vietnam War from a Vietnamese peasant girl just coming of age. I had never thought or could imagine what it may have been like for the citizen’s of Vietnam caught up in this war. This memoir will give you a lot to think about. The pressure was put on them from all sides. Viet Cong came to Le Ly’s village in 1963. But, the show more real enemies were the French, who ruled over them and basically treated them like slaves, and raped and killed, and the Viet Minh, who fought the French to win Vietnam independence, and followers of North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, a communist dictator indoctrinating its people full of lies against the Americans. Le Ly found out over time that the Americans were the least to be feared.

She did what she had to do to get out of Vietnam and come to America for a better life…and a better life she is definitely living. She runs a couple of nonprofit foundations she started up back in the 1980’s after she returned from visiting Vietnam and seen the conditions they were still living in: 1) East Meets West Foundation and 2) Global Village Foundation. Both of these foundations work at providing basics to the people of Vietnam and placing thousands of orphanages in homes, many of those left behind by American soldiers.

QUOTE: What we do, think, and feel lives after us through the lives we've touched. (p. 368) So true!!
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Book sequel: "Child of War, Woman of Peace" - continues the story of her life in America. (1993)
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Book-to-movie: “Heaven & Earth" (1993), directed by Oliver Stone, starring Hiep Thi Le and Tommy Lee Jones. show less

I read this book when it first came out, and was reminded of its affect on me as I started reading The Lotus Eaters. The latter, written on the basis of research rather than personal experience, failed to engage me. One woman's harrowing tale of survival nakedly exposes the futility of that long and senseless war.

This was the most gruesome, rawest book that I've read in a while. There are no winners. War turns everyone into so small. The author's will to live is incredible. Reading this book while in Hanoi really helped me understand its past.