When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: Review
In my class, the American War in Vietnam, we have been reading the memoir, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip. In the American canon of literature and movies, which include iconic pieces such as, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, the focus is almost entirely placed on the American experience. Because of the global influence of the American media, particularly that of Hollywood, the American War in Vietnam marks one of the few wars, whose narrative is largely controlled not by the victor, but by the defeated. In her memoir, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, Le Ly Hayslip provides a look into her complex situation as the youngest daughter of a Vietnamese farming family from a point of view that is underrepresented in the American narrative of the Vietnam War.
While not all American depictions of the Vietnamese are racist or inaccurate (though many are), the depictions that do not negatively stereotype the Vietnamese, such as Tim O’Brien’s The Thing’s They Carried, do not really provide an intimate perspective on the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the Vietnamese.
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is a story that is rooted in Le Ly’s relationship with her family members. Although as her story unfolds, many of her familial relationships take heavy blows, Le Ly shows a deep love and concern for her family throughout the story — a trait engrained into her by her mother. Her father, a devout Buddhist, despises the war because it not only destroys lives and families but also corrupts the mind and causing people to abandon their morals. Her father is another example of a voice from an underrepresented group in the American canon of the war in Vietnam: the Vietnamese pacifists, whose cultural influence paled in comparison to that of the American, anti-war hippies.
Although the improbable mix of extremely traumatic experiences and memories, complicated allegiances to the warring sides, and eventual journey to the United States make Le Ly’s individual experience unique even to the average Vietnamese experience during that time, it allows the reader, especially the American reader, to more accurately understand the more common thoughts, opinions, and experiences from the Vietnamese perspective (which is wide-ranging in and of itself). Because it supplies a real, in-depth depiction of life as a Vietnamese, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is enormously helpful to understanding the war’s full picture; and I highly recommend reading it if you’re interested in reading about the Vietnam War from a different viewpoint.
