A Building to Remember

The queue was long. Longer than expected for a Saturday morning.

My parents stood beside me. Their faces showed curiosity and fatigue.

We came to see Ho Chi Minh's preserved body. The line snaked around the complex.

All three of us had mobility issues. Legs and hips protested against standing.

We didn't go inside.

We walked around instead. Took photos with the building in the background.

I thought about preservation. About keeping a myth alive.

There's a song. "We're going down, down in an earlier round, and

sugar, we're going down swinging." The line came to me standing there.

It's a song about a failing relationship, about going down before the final fight,

before you see how it ends.

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Built to Last

The mausoleum demands respect. Massive. Gray. Imposing.

Brutalist architecture in Soviet style, all concrete and stone, unadorned

and unapologetic.

Brutalist architecture is raw and honest, stripped of decoration.

It doesn't try to be beautiful—it tries to be permanent.

It tries to stand against time, against weather, against forgetting.

We didn't see the body.

The queue was too long, so we walked around the complex instead.

I found myself more interested in what surrounded the mausoleum than

what was inside it—the way the building sits in the landscape,

the way it feels both sacred and strange.

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The Last Request

Ho Chi Minh didn't want to be preserved.

He wanted to be cremated, his ashes scattered across the country.

But history had other plans—those who came after preserved him,

built a mausoleum, created something different from what he had asked for.

The relationship between the man and his memory is complicated.

The man is just a body in a mausoleum,

but the memory is just a line in a song—a myth, a story,

something that can be reshaped, reinterpreted, remembered. T

he man who wanted to be cremated is now preserved in glass.

The man who wanted to be scattered is now contained in stone.

Ho Chi Minh knew about exile. He spent thirty years away from Vietnam,

wandering through France, China, Thailand, working as a cook, a photographer,

a revolutionary.

He left as Nguyen Ai Quoc and returned as Ho Chi Minh—"He Who Enlightens."

He left in defeat and returned in triumph.

On September 2, 1945, he stood in Ba Dinh Square,

the same square where his mausoleum now stands.

He read the Declaration of Independence:

"Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."

Twenty-four years later, on September 2, 1969, he died. The same date.

The same square. A heart attack in Hanoi, before he could see his country unified,

before he could see the war end, before he could see victory.

Six years later, in 1975, the year of the cat, Vietnam was unified.

Victory came, but he was already gone. He went down in an earlier round,

before the victory, but he went down swinging—fighting for independence,

fighting for freedom, even when he knew he might not see it.

The fight continued. The cause won.

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Uncle Ho: The Godfather

There's a photo of Ho Chi Minh holding a little girl—his goddaughter, Aubrac.

He's picking her up, smiling. This is the human side of a revolutionary:

the man who fought for independence, who wrote poetry, who worked as a cook,

who held children, who showed hospitality, who was kind.

But the body is preserved. Monuments are built. His face is printed on money.

He becomes a symbol, and in that process, sometimes we forget

the man who held children, who showed kindness, who was human.

Just beyond the mausoleum, there's his stilt house—the simple wooden structure

where he actually lived. Humble and unassuming,

built on stilts over a pond, surrounded by trees.

The opposite of the mausoleum in every way: small instead of massive, wood instead of

stone, life instead of death.

His face is on every banknote. The man who lived in a stilt house is now printed on

money, preserved in currency, turned into value itself.

The man who wanted to be cremated is now immortalized in paper and ink,

passed from hand to hand, used to buy and sell.

There's irony in that—the humble man on the valuable note, the simple life

turned into currency, the person made into money.

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Memory Over Monument

Maybe some things are meant to fade. Maybe some stories are meant to end.

Maybe some bodies are meant to return to the earth.

The mausoleum will stand for a long time, the body preserved for as long as science

allows. The myth will continue to be told, reshaped, reinterpreted.

But maybe what matters isn't the preservation itself—it's what we do with the memory,

how we honor not just the body but the person who lived inside it.

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Scattered, Not Preserved

We walked away from the mausoleum, my parents and I, and I thought about

how I want to be remembered.

I don't want to be preserved in glass.

I don't want to be turned into a monument.

I want to be cremated, scattered, returned to the earth.

I want my story to be told, but I want it to be told by the

people who knew me, not by institutions that might reshape it.

Maybe that's the difference: a monument is built to last,

but a memory is built to change. A monument preserves the body;

a memory preserves the person.

I want to be remembered as a person—not as a symbol, not as a myth, not as a story

that can be reshaped. I want to be remembered by the people who knew me, who saw me

hold children, who saw me show kindness, who saw me be human.

I want to be remembered for the fight I fought, for the way I went down swinging,

for the way I believed in something even when I knew I might not see it,

even when I knew the fight might outlast me.

Not as a body in a mausoleum. Not as a face on money. Not as a myth.

Just as a person who fought, who believed, who went down swinging.

Most people say palms are natural. Palms are not equal. Palms are not fair.

That's just how it is—some palms are longer, some shorter, some have different lines,

different fates. That's nature. That's life. Accept it.

But I attest: the star is equal. Not the palms—the palms are not equal.

But the star is. The star on the flag is equal. The nations are equal.

The people are equal. That's not nature. That's belief.

That's what we fight for.

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The Same Date, Different Year

On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh stood in Ba Dinh Square and read

the Declaration of Independence. He began with words from another declaration,

from another country, from another time:

> "All men are created equal.

They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,

among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Then he expanded it, made it universal:

> "In a broader sense, this means:

All the nations on the earth are equal from birth,

all the nations have the right to live, to be happy and free."

He quoted the American Declaration of Independence,

then the French Revolution's Rights of Man.

He used their words to claim his own country's freedom.

He used their principles to deny their colonial rule.

The star on the flag is equal. The nations are equal.

The people are equal. Not the palms—the palms are not equal.

But the star is. The star is equal.

He ended with: "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."

Twenty-four years later, on the same date, he died—before he could see victory,

before he could see his country unified.

Six years later, in 1975, the year of the cat, victory came.

The fight continued, and the cause won.

His body is preserved. Monuments are built. His face is printed on money.

But maybe what matters isn't the preservation—maybe what matters is the victory,

the independence, the freedom, the words he spoke,

the declaration he made, the fight he fought.

Maybe that's what we should preserve: not the body,

but the victory; not the monument, but the declaration; not the myth, but the truth.

The mausoleum stands there, a monument

to a man who went down in an earlier round. But the fight continued. And it won.

We came to see a building.

We deviated from our original plan—we didn't see his body,

we walked around the monument instead.

We took photos of stone and concrete. We thought we'd remember the building.

But we walked away remembering the man. Not the brutalist architecture.

Not the preserved body. Not the monument that will stand for centuries.

We walked away remembering the person—the one who lived in a stilt house,

who held children, who went down swinging.

The one who believed in something even when he knew he might not see it.

The building will stand. But we remember the man.

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Is This Communist?

Some might read this and ask: is this communist? Is this pro-communist?

No. This is not about communism. This is about the person, not the ideology.

This is about memory, not monuments. This is about how history remembers people,

how memory works, how symbols are created.

This is about the man who quoted the American Declaration of Independence,

who quoted the French Revolution's Rights of Man,

who used their words to claim his own country's freedom.

This is about universal equality—not communist doctrine, but human belief.

The star is equal. Not because any ideology says so.

Because we believe it should be. Because we fight for it to be.

This is humanist. Individualist.

Universalist. It reflects on how memory works,

how symbols are created, how people are remembered.

This is about remembering the person—not the body in the mausoleum,

not the face on the money, not the myth.

Just the person who fought, who believed, who went down swinging.

The building will stand.

But we remember the man.

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*"Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."*

*Written in Hanoi, December 27, 2025*  

*After visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex with my parents*

*This is a personal reflection on memory, legacy, and preservation.

It is a philosophical meditation, not a political statement.

All historical references are based on documented facts and public records.*

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