A couple of UAF students were told to expect animosity and distrust when they visited Vietnam and Cambodia this summer. Instead, they found a red carpet.

“You go over there being told they hate Americans, but especially in Vietnam, we were told that we were their favorite visitors,” said Faye Gallant.

Southeast Asia was only one of the stops for students Ben Christian and Gallant, who also traveled extensively through Russia, China, Mongolia, Malaysia, and Singapore over the course of six months as part of an interdisciplinary graduate school project for the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The adventure was more than a simple tourist trip for the pair. Christian explained in a follow-up Facebook message that their primary goal is promoting geography in the classroom, a subject he contends is neglected across the United States. Christian and Gallant visited classrooms in North Pole, Alaska and South Portland, Maine, respectively, teaching students about the importance of geography. Students followed the duo virtually on the Internet, reading their blogs and writing them emails.

Exposing the safety of exotic world travel for Americans is a secondary goal for the two geographers. “It was important to us to let people know that 99.9% of the people you meet overseas are friendly, loving, caring individuals who’ll go out of their way to welcome you,” contended Christian through a Facebook message.

This friendly attitude was most apparent in Vietnam and Cambodia, the two discovered. One Vietnamese taxi driver, who upon learning that the two were American shouted, “Oooohh, America!”

Christian and Gallant weren’t expecting such welcome in a country where many are maimed and disfigured from lingering unexploded ordinances and Agent Orange. Agent Orange is one of a larger “rainbow” of defoliants used by the United States during the Vietnam War, and contains dioxin, known to cause cancer and birth defects.

The two credit an enormous will on the part of the Vietnamese to reconcile and move past old scars. Residents of Southeast Asia experienced long campaigns of violence with the French, Americans, and each other throughout the twentieth century.

“We hold more of a grudge against ourselves for the war than the Vietnamese do for us,” Christian added. “Hell, the Cambodians like us so much, they use our money.”

Christian said that during their visit, not one Vietnamese citizen mentioned the war except a tour guide on the demilitarized zone, the place where the country was separated during the Vietnam war.

Many children weren’t even aware the war had happened at all. “It’s a fascinating riddle of a country,” remarked Christian. “The more you think about why they think this way the more you bang your head against the wall.”

Christian feels that the Vietnamese attitude of reconciliation is best expressed by Ho Chi Minh, a revolutionary who led North Vietnam in the late 1960s: “We will spread a red carpet for you [America] to leave Vietnam. And when the war is over, you are welcome to come back because you have technology and we will need your help.”

Gallant and Christian view their trip to Cambodia as a big wake-up call. They toured the “Killing Fields” where Cambodian leader Saloth Sar, more commonly known as Pol Pot, oversaw the death of millions of his citizens in the 1970s in an effort to silence free thinkers and instill a culture of fear. Landmines installed over decades of war maim Cambodian residents continuously. In an article for the BBC News, Stuart Hughes writes that there are 40,000 landmine victims alive today in Cambodia— or one victim for every 290 people living in the country.

“It was absolutely incredible how many people we saw in Cambodia missing one, two, three or four limbs,” said Christian.

Dr. Michael Sfraga, director of the University of Alaska Geography Program, worked with the duo to develop their interdisciplinary study. “It doesn’t surprise me what they found,” he said. Sfraga contends that along with a gracious culture, Vietnamese citizens have access to information, are embedded in the economics in the region and world, and are foreign-policy smart.

Will Gallant and Christian be going back to Southeast Asia anytime soon? “As a geographer, it was one of the most fascinating political, cultural, and economic studies,” said Christian. “I’d be on the first flight back to Ho Chi Minh City.” Gallant whole-heartedly agreed.

For more on the adventure, visit the extensive blog and photo galleries Gallant and Christian have constructed at http://www.geographyua.org/eurasia/eurasia.cfm. The two are planning on a formal presentation on their trip sometime this semester.