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Finding a quiet place to write isn't at all easy, for canned music is everywhere! I'm sitting at La Primavera. Berliner Garden would be even better, but it's not near my hotel room.

One of many interesting passages from Mouhot's book:

Speaking of the Annamite servants, I shall quote what the Abbé Gagelin says about them, for I can testify to its truth. "All sensibility," says he, "appears deadened among them; they are very proud, however, and great cheats. There is so little affection among them, that the nearest relations never think of embracing; even a child, returning to his parents after a ten years’ absence, would not think of such a thing. Among brothers and sisters it would be considered almost a scandal. They will not permit us missionaries to caress a child, not even a baby. This coldness is not confined to their domestic relations; under an ardent sky, which should warm the imagination, they, in their stupid sang froid, will not tolerate in a preacher the slightest movement or gesture." However, to compensate for these defects, the abbé, who, even in the opinion of several of the other missionaries, has been guilty of great errors in his letters, might have added that, at times, they are capable of acts of devotion and self-sacrifice truly great and courageous.

More from Mouhot on the Vietnamese:

Intelligent, and with a desire for civilization, the only difficulty is to know how to guide them. From my own experience and that of others, I believe the Annamite to be lively, adroit, intelligent, and courageous; but obstinate, vindictive, a dissembler, a liar, and a thief; slow to get into a passion, but terrible when he does so. His dirtiness surpasses anything I have ever seen, and his food is abominably nasty. Rotten fish and dog’s flesh are his favourite diet.

It's salted and fermented fish, Henri! Not rotten...



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