Have You Experienced Starvation?

Recently, my friend Robert (whom I met in one of my classes) told me that he has been living off the food that he picks up from trash bins. At first I could not believe that this was true. After his description and explanation about the trips he makes early every morning to pick up food that the supermarkets throw away, I found out that we Americans have wasted too much food while many young people around the world are suffering from starvation. I'm citing my case as a good example of the condition of starvation in a country as rich as the United States.

I understand the condition of starvation. I was born in Vietnam in 1944. When I opened my eyes for the first time, many Vietnamese people were starving to death. Among 50 infants in my village that were born at the same time, I’m the sole survivor. The reason for their deaths was that their parents could not find food; hence they did not have milk to feed the babies. At that time there weren’t formulas or any other source of milk other than that of the mothers. The famine which started at the beginning of 1944 and extended through the year of 1945 killed around 2 million people. I do not know how I survived because my mom became a widow at the age of 16, two month before my birth. According to our Asian culture, we were the responsibility of my father’s family. They did not have enough food for themselves, let alone extra relations. We too became the victims of starvation and famine. When I became so weak and on the verge of death, I was rescued by my mom’s mother. She took us in and fed us. I survived by her food; and later, by the milk of different women who were nursing and had extra milk (after the famine was over) (Dung, 1995).

You may question: what were reasons that contributed to this terrible ordeal?

There were several reasons contributed to this famine. We can categorize into the following areas:
Political: The effects of World War II on French Indochina. Involvements of France, Japan, and the United States in Vietnam caused detrimental effects to the economic activities of the Vietnamese; the fight for independence from French colony which begun in 1930’s by several groups of nationalists; the invasion of Japan who was trying to form a Greater East Asia War.

Economic: the French and Japanese policies to distribute agriculture products from Vietnam. After the colonial French was knocked out by Japanese force in 1940, Japan applied the rip-off policy which took most of the agricultural products from the North Vietnam to feed their soldiers and to transport to their homes (Dung,1995). While Vietnam was occupied by Japan, the Allies, especially the United States, often bombed roads, making the transport of rice from the South to the North extremely hard. Both France and Japan forcibly hoarded food from farmers to feed their troops, while the French administration was broken and unable to supply and distribute the food. The inadequate food supply caused the famine, appearing in the beginning of 1944. The decrease of land set aside for growing staple crops such as maize and potatoes to make land for growing cotton, jute, and other industrial plants. Because of the decreased land available for growing, harvests of staple crops decreased considerably.

Natural disasters: In Northern Vietnam, a drought coupled with pests caused the winter-spring harvest of 1944 to decrease by 20%. After that there was a flood during the harvest season causing the crisis to occur (Dung,1995).

Under these conditions, my life was jeopardized if I did not receive miracles. Miracle came, first and foremost from God, from my grandmother, and from people that I can never recall. The God blessing and help from others did not stop at the beginning aspect of my life, but will be continuing in my whole life.


Citation:
Dung, B. (1995). Japan's role in Vietnamese starvation of 1944-45. Modern Asian Studies, 29(3), 573. Retrieved March 30, 2011, from the Academic Search Complete Database.

This article focuses on the Vietnamese famine of 1944-45 and points out the Japanese responsibility in the Vietnamese starvation. Causes of starvation; Japan's procurement of general resources and rice; demonstration and implementation of Japanese policy; logistic dimension of Japanese policy, and its impact on the starvation.