Vietnam, Past Is Prologue

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's  exhibit Vietnam, Past Is Prologue features some beautiful, creative maps from artist Tiffany Chung.

Operation Lam Son 719, 30 Jan – 6 April 1971

The exhibit highlights the experiences of former refugees from Vietnam where Chung grew up and experienced the war. Her work re-maps memories that were denied in official records. The round bead-like shapes may be troops or civilians or both.

Easter Offensive 1972 – NVA attacks of MR IV

All maps are done with acrylic, ink and oil paints. Here are boat trajectories from the exodus out of Vietnam.

Reconstructing an exodus history boat trajectories in Asia, 2017

Operation Lam Son 719, Feb 1971 – Operation Dewey Canyon II & the attack toward Khe Sahn

Operation Lam Son 719, Feb 1971 – ARVN

For more on the artist and many more maps see her page at Tyler Rollins Fine Art. The exhibition runs through September 2, 2019.

Map Acquisition Syndrome

Map Acquisition Syndrome - is there a cure? I have been given so many maps by people clearing out their apartments that it has overwhelmed my filing system. Many have been sitting in shopping bags for a year now while I figure out what to do with them. Here are some paper maps people have foisted on me knowing I can't say no. This is therapy-before I file them away I need to show off my bounty.

Insight FlexiMap of Budapest - so shiny it's hard to get a good picture.

For contrast here's the Budapest tourist agency map  

Details from the shiny flip side of the Insight map - the road to Lake Balaton and the Metro

 

Rand McNally map of Italy-an undated map from a Fodor's travel guide. The credits mention a Stuttgart office that no longer seems to exist. 

Here is a newer Fodor's map of Naples. This one produced by the British map company Lovell Johns.

Old Quebec - a nice pictorial map  

"Marco Polo" map of Russia. These maps come with stickers so you can mark places of personal interest. 

Same company-Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Note the delicate task of naming Saigon. 

Official City of Rome tourist map with pictorial details.

Monte Carlo tourist agency map

Bilbao Turismo

Bilbao Transportes 

AAA map of Tucson

Sorry for the poor quality of some of these pictures. I don't have a professional map photography setup. There are many more - stay tuned for another installment.

The Bombing of Laos

The United States and its allies dropped over two million tons of bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War. That's a ton for every citizen of the country (at the time) and equal to a planeload every 8 minutes for 9 years. National Geographic's August issue has a great article and map of the bombing sites.

 Bombings were concentrated on the Plain of Jars in the north and the Hi Chi Minh Trail in the south, a supply route between North and South Vietnam. Here is a detail showing the Plain of Jars.

 The interactive map has a time slider so you can see the numbers grow over the war period (1964-1973) The article discusses the opportunities and hazards all this scrap metal presents. An unknown, but very high percentage of these bombs did not explode on impact and are still out there, waiting to explode. In 2012 15 Laotians were killed and another 41 injured by live ordnance. The U.S. government has put a relatively small amount of money towards the removal of unexploded ordnance. Laos could use some more help cleaning up after us.

For more information see National Geographic.
If you click on the interactive map, you can download the text overlay image which gives you a map of Laos in isolation - no bombs, no neighbors.

This Pizza Proves Vietnam's Sovereignty Over Islands

Students at Hoa Sen (Lotus) University in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) made this pizza after a dispute with China over control of the Paracel (Hoang Sa) and Spratly (Truong Sa) archipelagos in the South China (or East Vietnam) Sea.

Tuna from nearby waters was used to shape the archipelagos. Boundaries and details were made from shrimp, chicken and mushrooms. This project was a response to the Haiyang Shiyou 981 standoff, China's deployment of an oil rig in the waters near the Paracel Islands (claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan) over the summer. See tuoitrenews for more details.

Here is a map from Wikipedia outlining the disputed archipelagos.

 

 For some older context here is the Paracel Islands as shown in Zheng He Voyage Map (the group of rocks at the lower right hand corner)

 "MAO KUN MAP-19" by Mao Kun - mybook. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MAO_KUN_MAP-19.jpg#mediaviewer/File:MAO_KUN_MAP-19.jpg