Both the church sign and the restaurant message about turning off your devices are great. The supermarket checkout stand would be another great place for such postings--it is both annoying and (to me, anyway) incredibly rude to be texting or talking at the same time you're interacting with a live human being trying to help you. Can't you put the thing away for the two or three minutes it takes to acknowledge the existence of the cashier? It's like telling someone that he is only worth 50% of your attention...
Your description of the woman with the machine-less cafe drove me to follow the links to the two pictures on your website. Quite a bastion against modernity, and for some reason quite touching.
Your brief discussion of Nam Cao made me curious, so I did a search and found an interesting essay about him at https://saigoneer.com/trich-or-triet/27227-nam-cao-s-radical-sympathy-and-pursuit-of-happiness-are-still-relevant-even-today. Unfortunately, when I did a cursory search, it seems that very little of his work has been translated into English, so I guess this is where my exploration of him ends. Perhaps a good translated collection of his stories could find a market? I would certainly read it.
I likely spend way too much time reading already, and yet he is one more writer I had never even heard of despite his prominence in his native country. It is always humbling and sometimes even discouraging to realize that you could spend your entire life reading and not even scratch the surface of all that is out there--it is like a traveler having the ambition of visiting every city in the world; it's impossible, of course.
I'm back in Nam and just left Saigon - my thoughts on who really won the war , were the Bankers, Corporations and Investors. Plenty of money for new High Risers but none for the sidewalks. lol It's a busy weekend in your Vung Tau and I see the new huge park is under construction on the beach. This place has gotten even busier since I was last here in 2019 - I actually found my old friend here too - we are the same age. Nice to see the place again tho.
Phones and people living in phone cocoons even when out on the street -- seems to be the topic of the day. The cocoons allow us to bypass the higher aspects of living. Soon the geoengineering will have killed off all that's left of the natural environment. Wondering if you have seen evidence of this destruction in Vietnam, Linh. Maybe the Americans finished the job back in the 70's with Agent Orange and such things. The wildlife and the bugs are disappearing here in the U.S. I think we are all just fiddling in the dark with our demise just a stone's throw away.
Agent Orange and Napalm was the pioneer event implementing geo-engineered change, also a template treatment for modern day wildfire events, but using dessicants instead of 2,4-D, before ignition.
The 6 fires started at the same time, in straight line in Quebec in 2023 on "unseasonably dry" summer conditions.
I too thought those Canadian fires seemed suspicious, so I asked my Trumper buddy. Oh yes, it was Chinese commandos. They get up to a lot of mischief in N America.
Hi everyone,
Not wanting to be distracted, I resisted being on Twitter, but I just set up an account, with three posts with links to articles here:
https://x.com/LinhDinh1963
It's time I have a few more readers...
Linh
Both the church sign and the restaurant message about turning off your devices are great. The supermarket checkout stand would be another great place for such postings--it is both annoying and (to me, anyway) incredibly rude to be texting or talking at the same time you're interacting with a live human being trying to help you. Can't you put the thing away for the two or three minutes it takes to acknowledge the existence of the cashier? It's like telling someone that he is only worth 50% of your attention...
Your description of the woman with the machine-less cafe drove me to follow the links to the two pictures on your website. Quite a bastion against modernity, and for some reason quite touching.
Your brief discussion of Nam Cao made me curious, so I did a search and found an interesting essay about him at https://saigoneer.com/trich-or-triet/27227-nam-cao-s-radical-sympathy-and-pursuit-of-happiness-are-still-relevant-even-today. Unfortunately, when I did a cursory search, it seems that very little of his work has been translated into English, so I guess this is where my exploration of him ends. Perhaps a good translated collection of his stories could find a market? I would certainly read it.
I likely spend way too much time reading already, and yet he is one more writer I had never even heard of despite his prominence in his native country. It is always humbling and sometimes even discouraging to realize that you could spend your entire life reading and not even scratch the surface of all that is out there--it is like a traveler having the ambition of visiting every city in the world; it's impossible, of course.
Good news--I found some translated Nam Cao stories at https://vietmessenger.com/books/?title=chi%20pheo%20and%20other%20stories.
More of those beautiful statues. It is a miracle that there is anyone left with the patience and skill to craft them.
"A much dumbed down world will have no choice but to wise up, or die clutching their dead cell phones" - sad and all too true
Isn't there some saying about about how "they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers..."
"The lips move, but the brain is dead", Bowie: Sounds of the Silent Age - 1977.
Bravo Linh. Good piece. I almost never hear bad things about life in the west from anyone.
I'm back in Nam and just left Saigon - my thoughts on who really won the war , were the Bankers, Corporations and Investors. Plenty of money for new High Risers but none for the sidewalks. lol It's a busy weekend in your Vung Tau and I see the new huge park is under construction on the beach. This place has gotten even busier since I was last here in 2019 - I actually found my old friend here too - we are the same age. Nice to see the place again tho.
Phones and people living in phone cocoons even when out on the street -- seems to be the topic of the day. The cocoons allow us to bypass the higher aspects of living. Soon the geoengineering will have killed off all that's left of the natural environment. Wondering if you have seen evidence of this destruction in Vietnam, Linh. Maybe the Americans finished the job back in the 70's with Agent Orange and such things. The wildlife and the bugs are disappearing here in the U.S. I think we are all just fiddling in the dark with our demise just a stone's throw away.
Agent Orange and Napalm was the pioneer event implementing geo-engineered change, also a template treatment for modern day wildfire events, but using dessicants instead of 2,4-D, before ignition.
The 6 fires started at the same time, in straight line in Quebec in 2023 on "unseasonably dry" summer conditions.
I too thought those Canadian fires seemed suspicious, so I asked my Trumper buddy. Oh yes, it was Chinese commandos. They get up to a lot of mischief in N America.
Chinese commandos?
ROFLMAO!
Muskism.
I am so effing tired of the perpetual psyop this critter is.