Thang Nguyen 555
Cultures on Collision Course
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Tag: United States
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Rain pours so hard here in Saigon. It feels like a city wash. Yet bike traffic never ceases. Wet city streets didn’t stop weekend spontaneous racing. Hard-earned money got washed away just as quickly as it is earned, mostly at beer stalls. People press RESET and go on. It’s not too different elsewhere. Just differs in intensity…
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“I want nobody nobody but you” blasted out from, of all places, busy Hang Xanh circle, Electronics Supermarket by Thailand. Buy a laptop, got a free phone. Flat screen tv‘s, refrigerators and karaoke systems. Should be the envy of our proverbial Maytag man since N American market has been saturated for a while. How many TV’s can you fit…
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Yahoo News had a piece about Diaspora, the return. It features Mrs Nguyen Cao Ky, who is now a proud owner of a Pho restaurant in former Saigon. She said to have spent a few months in the US, and the rest in Vietnam. Other Viet Kieu expressed similar sentiment: “when I am here, I…
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Both have open air market. Both got some body of water that defines the city. But that’s about it. 6 hours apart, they might as well be worlds apart. Dakao, even without the street construction, can test your patience. Dalat, even with a new bridge construction, can afford its lake water drained for months .…
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You can feel it. The energy, aspiration and action. I haven’t seen an idle person here in Saigon. Even people with great disabilities crawl on their hands and knees, through rough and uneven gutters to sell lottery tickets or variety of snacks. Everybody is proud of their native son: Ngo Bao Chau, math genius. The country is…
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The LA Times, August 15th issue, ran a story about a Vietnamese fisherman in New Orleans. He has faced enough trial and tribulation a man can afford in one life time: boat people, legal immigrant life, Katrina, and now Gulf oil disaster. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0731-viet-fisherman-01.jpg-20100816,0,4824071.photo Captain Nguyen is no ordinary captain. His boat has seen no Treasure…
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A couch floats down the river right pass Bong Bridge a while ago. As of this edit, there was a “hot” clip about police trying to stop a girl from jumping to her death on another bridge. Vietnam still has to battle with forces of nature, (typhoon Utor) and economic pressures (bad debt). Here, before…
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I would hold the door for the person behind me as always. I would call people whom I have avoided and face those dark alleys once petrified. I would lay down my guards, strip off my veneers, and empathize with others. I would clean up my desk, make my bed and re-arrange my shoes. One…
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I am back to the land where people work animals into daily speech: – strong as an ox – wrinkle as a monkey – dumb as a cow. Everything gets used more than once (recycled): plastic bags, banana leaves. In Understanding Vietnam ( through literature) published by Berkeley Press, the author, after surveying many well-known pieces, came to see that…
Thang Nguyen 555 