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

The Common Guard was the “local police force commissioned to help the army keep peace in the villages” (191), though they became a source of trouble. Chin was a member of the Common Guard and used his power to coerce Ba to marry him. Hayslip highlights the corruption and harm that organs of the Republican government caused peasants via this organization.

Duyen and No are the traditional components of a happy Vietnamese marriage. Duyen refers to love and passion, while no refers to duty (406). According to tradition, the two components should be balanced. When deciding to marry Ed Munro, Hayslip worried about the absence of duyen but felt she must consent to the marriage anyway. The choices of Vietnamese women during the war were dictated by conditions beyond their control.

Guerrilla warfare is an unconventional form of warfare in which the underdogs, or less powerful military, utilize small bands of fighters and armed civilians to sabotage and attack the enemy. Both the Viet Minh and Viet Cong engaged in guerrilla warfare successfully. Because guerrilla warfare erases the line between combatants and non-combatants, the war had a devastating impact on civilians.

Republicans controlled South Vietnam at the start of the war and were allied with the Americans. Hayslip highlights the rampant corruption in the Republican government and their cruelty in dealing with peasants—it was the Republicans who tortured Hayslip, for example. They were associated with foreigners and for that reason were not considered legitimate rulers in rural Vietnam.

A siclo is a “bicycle-powered pedicab” (150). When Hayslip returned to Saigon in 1986, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, siclos had replaced taxis. They were a symbol of the change to the city and its poverty at that time.

The Viet Cong were the military forces of the communist movement in Vietnam. The peasants, including Hayslip’s family, were initially sympathetic to the Viet Cong because they were not associated with foreign imperialism and treated the villagers well. As the war continued, however, the Viet Cong invoked harsh discipline, including killings, to keep villagers in line. A victim of both Republican torture and Viet Cong brutality, Hayslip came to conclude that family was more important than abstract labels.