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Thanks for a $10 donation from a long-time supporter in Lucerne, CA!




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Whenever I walked by his house, morning, afternoon or evening, I would see this old man lying on his cot, and often reading a newspaper, magazine or book.



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An itinerant seller of lottery tickets, she walks with a cane through the alleys. Here, she's having her breakfast of bread dipped into coffee. She pays 3,000 đồng [13 cents] for a small baguette and 10,000 đồng [43 cents] for a small cup of coffee with condensed milk.



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My neighborhood. Using her beat-up motorbike as a truck, this woman brings fresh vegetables to the same spot each day to sell.



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Twenty yards from my front door. Notice the child on the itinerant fruit seller's cart.



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Năm Lửa seafood restaurant. Although girlish in demeanor, and often giggling when taking orders, she was a very professional waitress.



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Năm Lửa seafood restaurant. The woman was promoting Tiger Beer. Her team staged a raffle, for which a table had to drink two cases to qualify. They also had a wall climbing contest, with the winner getting a seaside vacation for two in Phan Thiết. When I left, she was singing, accompanied by a guitarist.

Replacing Communist agit prop teams, you now have roving Capitalist entertainment troupes. Tiger is good. Like nearly everybody here, I like my Tiger.

Twenty years ago, Guinness tried to make inroads into Vietnam, but it failed miserably. I know many people in Hong Kong think of Guinness as nutritious, but it's simply too heavy and soup-like for the Vietnamese, who tend to drink their beer with a chunk of ice, cold and somewhat watered down.


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Năm Lửa seafood restaurant. On the left is a driver, and on the right is my friend Tuân, a factory manager. Four months ago, I went to his sister's wedding in Nghe An.

Tuân said that if I visit him in Long An, his wife will cook up some excellent frog dishes for us to enjoy. Whatever your income level, eating while boozing, "nhậu," is the main pleasure of Vietnam. At our table of eight, there were two women, and they too knocked down the Tiger beer.

The "HAPPY BIRHTDAY [sic]" banner was just there.


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[Taiwanese factory]



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At this Taiwanese factory, there were slogans everywhere, and though I was allowed inside, I couldn't photograph the factory floors.

Translated from the Chinese, many of these slogans are rather bizarre in Vietnamese.

Here, "QUALITY IS LIFE, SERVICE IS THE GOAL / TO IMPROVE QUALITY, START WITH AUTONOMOUS PRODUCTION."

Inside, I saw, "I LIKE OUR COMPANY / I LIKE VERY MUCH THE TASKS IN MY UNIT."



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Thanks for a $15 contribution from a new donor!




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A bread man at 6:30AM this morning. He rode around the alleys with a speaker that repeated in a female voice, "Hot bread here! Thick bodied bread here!"



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[my neighborhood]



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