Chinese pharmacy. Shown is poet Nguyen Quoc Chanh. Last week, our good friend Mai Sơn, a writer and translator, died. In 2021, Mai Sơn got severely sick immediately after his second shot of Pfizer. Though he could barely talk, Mai Sơn came to Vung Tau twice to see me, Chanh and Cao Hung Lynh in 2022.
1 comment:
The Vietnamese-Chinese cultural relationship totally perplexes me. Every Vietnamese shop I've been to has Chinese decorations and symbols but the two cultures often seem slightly hostile to each other.
At a local bubble tea place the Vietnamese owner was showing me this big new year lamp he'd bought with Chinese words that shot sparks and sounded like firecrackers. I asked what the Chinese words said and he laughed a lot and said "I don't know."
I loved that place though. It was often 2 family members working at a time. The other 2 who weren't working would either sit in lawn chairs behind the counter or even sleep on a cot in the back. Americans could learn from them how to chill out sometimes.
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