Thang Nguyen 555
Cultures on Collision Course
recent posts
about
Tag: Vietnam
-
Just like an old-time movie, friends met yesterday to rehash. We mentioned briefly the passing away of our friend’s brother: nerdy, good old boy and an ATM machine service man and family man. In short, the least likely candidate to die young. Yet, he had been long gone (by now 3 years). Earth, Wind and Fire…
-
Tonight is New Year‘s Eve (Giao Thua) here in Vietnam. Senator McCain and Lieberman are also here on their SEA trip. But many years ago, McCain probably heard the sound of firecrackers. Tonight, there won’t be firecrackers, but everything should happen just as it has for centuries: visit ancestor’s graves or ash stored next to a…
-
The night before New Year’s Eve (year of the Dragon), Saigonese and expats got a choice to watch the rehearsal at formerly known as Independence Palace, or nurse a beer at Acoustic. Years ago, this neighborhood was a hang-out place for privileged kids who attended nearby French lycee. Today, at least in this den-like corner,…
-
In his year-end Opinion, David Brooks of the NYTimes recited a story about people in Louisiana who had lighted a candle for neighbor’s graves. This year-end here in Vietnam, I saw just that and more…incense, flowers and fruit. People are either already home or on the way. They cook, clean and cater to many needs,…
-
Most people are out to celebrate the upcoming New Year (Tet). Dzzzzzzzzzzzzo! Heineken toast! Except for one young man, crutches aside, lifted his body (one leg dangling, the other with flipping blue jeans) up to train his upper-body. Now, that got my attention. I complimented him on finding out the right angle to wrap his hands around…
-
It’s time to celebrate. Harvest time. City folks here in Vietnam go home where beer and Banh Chung (Bean Cake) are waiting, while country folks truck in their flowers and fruits in the opposite direction to sell in the city. This year, we don’t see the return of H5N1. So eat on. Chicken and ducks. A…
-
I heard “Bonjour Vietnam” again last night…”un film de Coppola…” http://stanmark.multiply.com/reviews/item/9?&show_interstitial=1&u=%2Freviews%2Fitem It evoked psychedelic images and texture of horror (adapted from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.) Yet we were sitting in a boutique studio, with aged ladies sang along to Le Uyen Phuong’ s Last Word to You , equivalent of Bono and Cher: “let’s lay down one last…
-
Orhan Pamuk must be born of “Other Colors” and in the “Snow” who later built his “Museum of Innocence“. He got the Nobel Prize for his unique perspective and perception on being in the middle of things: Istanbul. Pamuk invited us back to his childhood, to view changes through a child’s eyes “when we watched the…
Thang Nguyen 555 