.
Showing posts with label Phuoc An. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phuoc An. Show all posts
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
.
Staring at cellphones, a universal disease. These three ladies work at our plastic recycling plant. Good friends, they often hang out together, and sometimes, I tag along so I can be taken to places I wouldn't normally go to. Plus, it's pleasant to be around lovely women.
In Ea Kly, there's a nice café that's often empty because it also houses a tiny hotel, with rooms rentable by the hour. Locals don't want to be suspected of having a sexual fling just because they had a cup of coffee.
Once, I went in there with these three, plus one of their daughters, so I joked, "Tomorrow, they can all say brother Linh went into the hotel with three women!"
"Plus a little girl!" one of them added.
"Yes, what a sick dude!" I laughed. They all laughed.
They're all married, with children.
.
Staring at cellphones, a universal disease. These three ladies work at our plastic recycling plant. Good friends, they often hang out together, and sometimes, I tag along so I can be taken to places I wouldn't normally go to. Plus, it's pleasant to be around lovely women.
In Ea Kly, there's a nice café that's often empty because it also houses a tiny hotel, with rooms rentable by the hour. Locals don't want to be suspected of having a sexual fling just because they had a cup of coffee.
Once, I went in there with these three, plus one of their daughters, so I joked, "Tomorrow, they can all say brother Linh went into the hotel with three women!"
"Plus a little girl!" one of them added.
"Yes, what a sick dude!" I laughed. They all laughed.
They're all married, with children.
.
.
Reviewing Apocalypse Now Redux for the Guardian, I pointed out that Vietnam is overfilled with language, but in Coppola's depiction of Vietnam, there are almost no words.
I wrote:
.
Reviewing Apocalypse Now Redux for the Guardian, I pointed out that Vietnam is overfilled with language, but in Coppola's depiction of Vietnam, there are almost no words.
I wrote:
You may have noticed that I have so far mentioned no Vietnamese characters. That's because there are none. The only Vietnamese speaking part belongs to a south Vietnamese army translator, who gets to yammer: "This man is dirty VC! He wants water! He can drink paddy water!" This in a movie that Coppola famously declared "is not about Vietnam - it is Vietnam". This movie, then, is really about a bunch of pale guys, Coppola included, wading into their own hearts of darkness. It is certainly not about Vietnam. I'm not even sure it's a Vietnam war movie.
[...]
As Willard's boat travels up the Nung river, the only signs of civilisation are two US army bases and, in the new extended version, a French plantation. This has nothing to do with the Vietnam of reality. As anyone who has been there will tell you, Vietnam is (and was during the war) grossly overpopulated. Rivers and roads are lined with settlements. The US, by comparison, is more wild. Another thing a visitor to Vietnam can readily see is the ubiquity of the written language - that is, of civilisation. Signs and banners are everywhere. None of this is apparent in any of the panoramic shots of Apocalypse Now. Coppola hasn't just withheld speech from the Vietnamese, he has also banned them from writing.
.
.
Nearly all Vietnamese public schools have this exact image of Ho over their entrances.
To his right:
FIVE INSTRUCTIONS FROM UNCLE HO
(TO YOUTHS AND CHILDREN)
LOVE YOUR NATION, LOVE YOUR COMPATRIOTS
LEARN WELL, WORK WELL
UNITE WELL, BE WELL DISCIPLINED
MAINTAIN CLEANLINESS VERY WELL
BE HUMBLE, HONEST, BRAVE
To his left:
WHETHER THE MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS OF VIETNAM CAN BECOME BEAUTIFUL, WHETHER THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM CAN STEP ONTO A GLORIOUS PLATFORM TO BE EQUAL TO THE POWERFUL NATIONS OF FIVE CONTINENTS, MUCH OF THIS DEPENDS PRIMARILY ON THE LEARNING EFFORTS OF THE CHILDREN.
Blue sign over entrance:
LIFELONG LEARNING IS THE KEY TO ALL SUCCESSES.
Again, the emphasis in on building up the Vietnamese nation. There's nothing about global solidarity or international socialism, no Jewish derived messianism, in short. That's not how the yellows think, period.
Having spent decades in the West, Ho was an internationalist, but his image has been refashioned into that of a benign, enligtened and, yes, Confucian elder.
.
Nearly all Vietnamese public schools have this exact image of Ho over their entrances.
To his right:
FIVE INSTRUCTIONS FROM UNCLE HO
(TO YOUTHS AND CHILDREN)
LOVE YOUR NATION, LOVE YOUR COMPATRIOTS
LEARN WELL, WORK WELL
UNITE WELL, BE WELL DISCIPLINED
MAINTAIN CLEANLINESS VERY WELL
BE HUMBLE, HONEST, BRAVE
To his left:
WHETHER THE MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS OF VIETNAM CAN BECOME BEAUTIFUL, WHETHER THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM CAN STEP ONTO A GLORIOUS PLATFORM TO BE EQUAL TO THE POWERFUL NATIONS OF FIVE CONTINENTS, MUCH OF THIS DEPENDS PRIMARILY ON THE LEARNING EFFORTS OF THE CHILDREN.
Blue sign over entrance:
LIFELONG LEARNING IS THE KEY TO ALL SUCCESSES.
Again, the emphasis in on building up the Vietnamese nation. There's nothing about global solidarity or international socialism, no Jewish derived messianism, in short. That's not how the yellows think, period.
Having spent decades in the West, Ho was an internationalist, but his image has been refashioned into that of a benign, enligtened and, yes, Confucian elder.
.
.
Red banner, "GLORY TO THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST PARTY FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS."
Blue banner, "BUILD A CIVILIZED LIFESTYLE A CULTURED FAMILY."
Notice how the red and blue banners keep going down the street, and this is found all over Vietnam, especially in small towns.
As for the snack stand, "sữa" ["milk"] is routinely mispelled as "sửa" ["fix"], and this is a mistake one shouldn't make if one has gotten past second grade.
.
Red banner, "GLORY TO THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST PARTY FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS."
Blue banner, "BUILD A CIVILIZED LIFESTYLE A CULTURED FAMILY."
Notice how the red and blue banners keep going down the street, and this is found all over Vietnam, especially in small towns.
As for the snack stand, "sữa" ["milk"] is routinely mispelled as "sửa" ["fix"], and this is a mistake one shouldn't make if one has gotten past second grade.
.
.
Among the offerings at this snack stand is "XÚC XÍCH ĐỨC" ["GERMAN SAUSAGE"], but what you'll get is a mediocre hot dog. Unlike the boys below, these girls are reacting to me because they're not staring at smart phones.
As for the woman at the snack stand, she's not wearing some weird peekaboo dress, but a cloth covering over her shorts. Since Vietnamese women are so terrified of turning darker, they sometimes wear these flimsy cloth coverings, especially when they're on their motorbikes. Hoodies, too, have become popular for the same reason. I never saw these phenomenons in 2001, when I last lived in Vietnam.
.
Among the offerings at this snack stand is "XÚC XÍCH ĐỨC" ["GERMAN SAUSAGE"], but what you'll get is a mediocre hot dog. Unlike the boys below, these girls are reacting to me because they're not staring at smart phones.
As for the woman at the snack stand, she's not wearing some weird peekaboo dress, but a cloth covering over her shorts. Since Vietnamese women are so terrified of turning darker, they sometimes wear these flimsy cloth coverings, especially when they're on their motorbikes. Hoodies, too, have become popular for the same reason. I never saw these phenomenons in 2001, when I last lived in Vietnam.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)