Impulsive Crimes, Petty Crooks, Master Thieves and Society Wreckers

[Saigon, 10/30/19]

5:56AM and I’m back at Noir. Since the cappuccino machine isn’t ready, I’ll have an Americano, which is just black and bitter water, but with a floating film of brownish, cloudy sediment that, under the right light, looks just like Obama smiling.

A very short white woman with two backpacks, worn front and back, has just walked in. She’s the only other customer. With her dark hair and facial features, she might be Israeli. Dangling from her haunch is a well weathered palm leaf hat with a cute crown that may have been bought in Laos.

Though an unholy mess prone to a million diseases, we’re still lit from within and animated by the sacred, but my reverential mood is crapped on. A Thai pop song has just come on. Recorded music is a universal bane. Since it’s 6:33, I can now trek to Eysan. There, I can think and write in silence.

Six days from now, I’ll be on a bus to Saigon. In Southeast Asia, transportation options abound, so even within a city, you can just hop on the back of some guy’s motorbike. Life is much less regulated here than in the “free” West. Most Americans can’t even use Greyhound to escape to another strip mall partitioned nowherelandia. For $21, I’ll have a seat on a Hoang Gia [Royal Residence] bus. Arrived in Saigon, I’ll take a boat to Vung Tau, so should be in a room of my own by evening.

I’ll return to a society in crisis. With Christmas near and Tet just ten weeks away, this period should be festive, but shops are closing, workers laid off and tenants are abandoning cheap rooms to flee back to their villages. Some are so broke, they can’t afford even the cheapest mini bus, so must walk hundreds of miles. There are fewer factory orders from the West, you see, and many fewer tourists.

When I checked with a Saigon-based friend three weeks ago, he said everything was fine, but, Jewjabbed thrice and a devourer of CNN, he’s beyond clueless. Hospitals shouldn’t treat the unvaxxed, he once said.

If it’s not you being bombed, incinerated, poisoned, laid off or slowly starved to death, suffering satisfies, so more horror tales from Gaza, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, East Palestine, Maui or Philadelphia, please. Otherwise, life is so boring.

After that last sentence, I had to shut down because I could feel a headache coming. Like everybody, I chafe at limits, but they always laugh last, so it’s already 8:27PM. In bed, I’m lying on my belly under a yellow lamp. With my window open, I can hear traffic noises and a very faint music, perhaps karaoke.

Anticipating my return to Vietnam, I started to read its news. On 11/25/23, a 39-year-old woman stabbed her husband 38 times after he had given her hell for drinking with friends. He won’t do that again. That same day, a man poured gasoline on himself, hugged his wife then set both on fire. She wasn’t badly burnt. On 11/26/23, a man nearly killed his eight-month-pregnant wife by torching her. Violence in Vietnam tends to be familial.

On 11/22/23, a 50-year-old bank security guard was stabbed to death by a 25-year-old robber. Though unarmed, he had chased after the criminal onto the street. A bystander had also intervened by knocking the crook’s motorbike over. The 25-year-old and his 22-year-old accomplice were both unemployed, with unpayable debts incurred through gambling.

No Vietnamese criminal is generating as much buzz as Trương Mỹ Lan. A Cantonese born in Saigon, she had a small shop in An Đông Market, then she met Eric Chu Nap Kee, a Hong Kong Cantonese with British citizenship. Already a billionaire, Kee needed Lan to move into the Vietnamese market. His wealth allowed her to start Vạn Thịnh Phát in 1992. Meaning Ten Thousand Prosperities Generated, it’s primarily involved in real estate.

By 2023, Kee and Lan have acquired or built many of Saigon’s most prestigious buildings, such as Union Square, Times Square, Duxton Hotel, Bonville Land, Sterling Residence, Lambert Residence, Sherwood Residence and Thuận Kiều Plaza, etc. In 2015, they bought a mammoth 19th century villa for 35 million bucks, then hired a Singaporean firm to oversee its elaborate restoration. They own a yacht, two boats and 19 cars. One of their two daughters, Chu Duyệt Phấn, is a top notch Hong Kong restauranter. Phấn owns the Korean Hansik Goo, French Feuille, Singaporean European Whey, Italian Testina, Thai Plaa and Cantonese Ying Jee Club. Her company, ZS Hospitality, is named after Zeo Shen, the Chinese kitchen god.

Community minded, ZS hosts Share Love tea parties, participates in a charity walk to help prevent suicides and is behind a Gratefully Green campaign to “provide care and comfort to the disadvantaged.”

Trương Mỹ Lan and her family have certainly come a long way. Mỹ Lan means “beautiful orchid,” by the way, but her birth name, Muội, actually means “soot.” Born black, she’s now pale yellow, lavender or virgin white.

Where she started, An Đông Market, was across the street from my childhood home. I remember seeing my father on its second floor balcony in March of 1975. “I can’t believe the Americans are abandoning Vietnam,” he said, but they had made their money and reached a deal with China. Cash in then run is how America’s elites roll. They just did it again, in Afghanistan. Ukraine appears next.

Like Uncle Sam, Trương Mỹ Lan is also a hustler and hypocrite who can never get enough of anything. Though Vietnam only allows anyone to own, at most, 5% of any bank, Lan used an army of fake investors to possess 91% of Saigon Commercial Bank. With that power, she dispensed $12.6 billions in loans to more than a thousand fake companies. That hustle alone pocketed Lan more than twice the net worth of Vietnam’s second richest individual, Phạm Nhật Vượng. He got his start selling then manufacturing instant noodles in Ukraine. Even as that country is being destroyed, Mibiha is still eaten there.

Though she paid off many officials to overlook her deft dealings, Lan was still nabbed last year. To many Vietnamese, her arrest brings to mind the execution of Tạ Vinh in 1966. One of six Chinese monopolists of rice in South Vietnam, Vinh was killed by Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky. Considering Vinh’s web of power, it was a very bold move.

Ky himself had a shady side, of course. From his headquarters at Tan Son Nhat Airport, Ky imported drugs from southern Laos. Maintained by cash, power rakes it in. For a while, Ky was as pumped up as Vladimir Zelensky. How many dumbshits born yesterday still think he’s Churchill? It’s nearly impossible to educate such retarded children. Shouting slogans, they’ll march to a collective death.

Though every society has its impulsive crimes, petty crooks and master thieves, only a few deliriously embrace, over decades, their wreckers.

[Philadelphia, 10/31/13]

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[Philadelphia, 10/4/16]

[Philadelphia, 11/16/12]