[Phnom Penh, 2/19/23] With infinite grief, much regret yet elation, I said goodbye to Siem Reap after a three-week stay. Didn’t even get a chance to chirp ciao ciao to Best Mom, but who knows, maybe I’ll be back. On the way to Phnom Penh, our express van stopped in Skun, what a cool, masculine name, and there, I was able to buy not just quail eggs but silkworm pupae. I had had
The good folks of East Palestine certainly shouldn’t be there, but where are they going to go? Firstly, is it possible to get far enough away to be safe? Secondly, can they even afford to relocate, and if so, for how long?
Someone who visited a few months ago commented on how troubled the town looked even pre-disaster. This is easy for me to believe; I lived and worked in western Pennsylvania for several years back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and once drove through East Palestine myself. You could say even back then that the town was far from prosperous. In fact, the entire region had seen better days, to put it mildly, and I doubt if it has improved since then.
I have a good friend from the area who moved back there to retire. He’s only about 15 miles away from East Palestine, yet when I spoke to him the other night, he seemed curiously unworried about the whole thing. But he doesn't worry about things much in general, saying that since he can't do anything about it, there's no point in staying informed. Here in a nutshell is what is ailing our society.
Reading your observation of the Cambodian resentment at its historical losses reminded me of a book I read years ago, "Balkan Ghosts" by Robert Kaplan. Every ethnic and cultural group in the Balkans had a period in the area's history where its influence and territory was at a maximum, and each of them harbors the irredentist (?) hope that it can regain that pinnacle once again. It may have been where I first realized that the hatreds some of these places harbor are fueled by perceived grievances that go back centuries, sometimes even millenia. Most Americans, including (or especially?) those in the leadership class, have no sense of how big a factor this is in relationships between older cultures in other parts of the world. The US tends to get chummy with former enemies quickly--I wonder if this will change when it is no longer the world's top dog (coming soon to a theater near you!)
As for whether there is any safe place left in the USA, I’d expand that to ask if there is any safe place left in the world. The trick is to figure out how to stay clear of the thrashing elephant in its death throes.
And on a final note: sorry, but I can’t eat the bugs. Not hungry enough yet, I guess--I’ll try going vegan first, if it comes to that.
'Silky outside but squishy inside, it’s suspended between meat and fruit, a paradox indeed, with a complex, nutty taste redolent of some distant, prelingual past, though not without hints of your totally fucked up future, as embodied and ensouled by its nagging bouquet. The velvety Tenuta Casenuove would make a perfect accompaniment, but if you’re broke, the pissy Ganzberg beer, if you want to call it that, is fine.'
Why I drop everything and sit at my laptop to read the latest offering from Dinh Hoang Linh instead of doing what I intended to do this morning. Thanks go out as ever. There are an awful lot of Mr, Mrs, Ms etc Nguyens in Australia. Now usually prefaced by an English first name.
I tried silkworm pupae both in VN (same as your picture) and northern China, where they were much larger, about the size of a quail egg that you only eat the boiled inside of, leaving out the envelope that is disturbingly bitter tasting in the smaller ones.
mrpili, in VN they make excellent booze with giant centipedes. Once they catch them, they let them empty their guts for 3 days in a container, then drop them alive in a jar filled with ~60° rice alcohol. You can see it twirl and shake while spewing out the precious venom. After 6 months you get a very clear beverage with a truly wild taste that is unique. Contrary to snake wine that often has an aftertaste of rotten meat, centipede wine is cleaner, and if you have enough of it (I tried a quart), hits you like speed. Venoms contain complex proteins that we humans are barely starting to understand. For example they isolated a protein in centipede venom that kills pain better than opiates, yet isn't addictive because it doesn't target the pleasure rewarding part of the brain.
Linh Dinh, I am writing a polemic piece about the Western naming convention of having Japanese and Chinese names backwards - family names last, like real good Christians (and not first, as is/was the un-tradition in much of East Asia). Is this true also for Vietnamese people? Is your "real name" (by which you are known in Vietnam) not Linh Dinh, but Dinh Linh? So, is Dinh your family name?
My name in Vietnamese is Đinh Hoàng Linh, so yes, the order is reversed. My middle name, Hoàng, is very common for males, with Văn the most common.
Since so many Vietnamese have the same last name, Nguyễn, with a few others also very common, it would be too confusing to call someone Mr. Nguyễn, so the first name is used instead. You'd be Mr. Thorsten.
There are many foreign soccer players in the Vietnamese professional league. Some of them have adopted Vietnamese names, and some have even become naturalized Vietnamese.
The Ukrainian Mykola Lytovka became Đinh Hoàng La, for example, and the Nigerian Maxwell Eyerakpo became Đinh Hoàng Max. As you can see, Đinh Hoàng is not unusual.
When the Dutch Danny van Bakel became Vietnamese, he changed his name to Nguyễn van Bakel, so he changed just one word. Most creatively, his Dutch last name became his Vietnamese first name! He's still Mr. Bakel.
...But that last name first name switch is quite something - and on a global scale. Causes much confusion. Is Li Hao a Mr. Li or a Mr. Hao? I can never tell at first. 🫣🇨🇳
Curiously, in Bavarian dialect, people are referred to by their first names prefaced by the definite article der or die, for instance der Hans die Mari, not Herr Hans or Frau Mari. If there's more than one Hans in the village, you can disambiguate by prefixing Hans with his last name e.g. der Hofmeister Hans. The last name acts as a disambiguating adjective.
This is correct. Some Germans, especially in the villages, go by their Beruf (occupation) and their given names, for example: Bäckermeister Helmut (backer-in-chief Helmut). Most of our ancient family names or situational or practical anyway. Schmitt was Schmied, meaning a blacksmith. Or place names, as in Egon vom Wald (Egon of the forest). In normal conversations, we can say "Helmut the Baker, "or "Baker Helmut," yes. But of course... not in any official documents. With the deliberate reversal of Asian names in all Western media, news, print, scholarship, etc., I think we went too far. What would have Freud Sigmund said about the trauma of getting read your names backwards? 🫣
Thank you for another fabulous article. I have had some well prepared bugs myself. Silkworms seem very popular probably boiling silk cocoons produces a lot of cooked silk worm pupa.
My luk-krung son is studying ecology and the feasibility of adding bug protein to our diet at an excellent U.S. university . Fortunately, biting bugs are fairly rare in Hawaii. I do wonder what deep fried giant centipede would be like.
You are my favorite blogger - nothing like reality to wake a reader up.
I still have not figured out how to send Mr. Dinh $50 for beer money. Anybody know how?
The good folks of East Palestine certainly shouldn’t be there, but where are they going to go? Firstly, is it possible to get far enough away to be safe? Secondly, can they even afford to relocate, and if so, for how long?
Someone who visited a few months ago commented on how troubled the town looked even pre-disaster. This is easy for me to believe; I lived and worked in western Pennsylvania for several years back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and once drove through East Palestine myself. You could say even back then that the town was far from prosperous. In fact, the entire region had seen better days, to put it mildly, and I doubt if it has improved since then.
I have a good friend from the area who moved back there to retire. He’s only about 15 miles away from East Palestine, yet when I spoke to him the other night, he seemed curiously unworried about the whole thing. But he doesn't worry about things much in general, saying that since he can't do anything about it, there's no point in staying informed. Here in a nutshell is what is ailing our society.
Reading your observation of the Cambodian resentment at its historical losses reminded me of a book I read years ago, "Balkan Ghosts" by Robert Kaplan. Every ethnic and cultural group in the Balkans had a period in the area's history where its influence and territory was at a maximum, and each of them harbors the irredentist (?) hope that it can regain that pinnacle once again. It may have been where I first realized that the hatreds some of these places harbor are fueled by perceived grievances that go back centuries, sometimes even millenia. Most Americans, including (or especially?) those in the leadership class, have no sense of how big a factor this is in relationships between older cultures in other parts of the world. The US tends to get chummy with former enemies quickly--I wonder if this will change when it is no longer the world's top dog (coming soon to a theater near you!)
As for whether there is any safe place left in the USA, I’d expand that to ask if there is any safe place left in the world. The trick is to figure out how to stay clear of the thrashing elephant in its death throes.
And on a final note: sorry, but I can’t eat the bugs. Not hungry enough yet, I guess--I’ll try going vegan first, if it comes to that.
'Silky outside but squishy inside, it’s suspended between meat and fruit, a paradox indeed, with a complex, nutty taste redolent of some distant, prelingual past, though not without hints of your totally fucked up future, as embodied and ensouled by its nagging bouquet. The velvety Tenuta Casenuove would make a perfect accompaniment, but if you’re broke, the pissy Ganzberg beer, if you want to call it that, is fine.'
Why I drop everything and sit at my laptop to read the latest offering from Dinh Hoang Linh instead of doing what I intended to do this morning. Thanks go out as ever. There are an awful lot of Mr, Mrs, Ms etc Nguyens in Australia. Now usually prefaced by an English first name.
Thanks Linh, great piece again!
I tried silkworm pupae both in VN (same as your picture) and northern China, where they were much larger, about the size of a quail egg that you only eat the boiled inside of, leaving out the envelope that is disturbingly bitter tasting in the smaller ones.
mrpili, in VN they make excellent booze with giant centipedes. Once they catch them, they let them empty their guts for 3 days in a container, then drop them alive in a jar filled with ~60° rice alcohol. You can see it twirl and shake while spewing out the precious venom. After 6 months you get a very clear beverage with a truly wild taste that is unique. Contrary to snake wine that often has an aftertaste of rotten meat, centipede wine is cleaner, and if you have enough of it (I tried a quart), hits you like speed. Venoms contain complex proteins that we humans are barely starting to understand. For example they isolated a protein in centipede venom that kills pain better than opiates, yet isn't addictive because it doesn't target the pleasure rewarding part of the brain.
Meh... I'm not much into this bug-eating thing. Not even shrimp (which is the closest to bugs I eat) I care that much for.
Linh Dinh, I am writing a polemic piece about the Western naming convention of having Japanese and Chinese names backwards - family names last, like real good Christians (and not first, as is/was the un-tradition in much of East Asia). Is this true also for Vietnamese people? Is your "real name" (by which you are known in Vietnam) not Linh Dinh, but Dinh Linh? So, is Dinh your family name?
Hi Thorsten,
My name in Vietnamese is Đinh Hoàng Linh, so yes, the order is reversed. My middle name, Hoàng, is very common for males, with Văn the most common.
Since so many Vietnamese have the same last name, Nguyễn, with a few others also very common, it would be too confusing to call someone Mr. Nguyễn, so the first name is used instead. You'd be Mr. Thorsten.
Linh
Awesome. Good to know about these things. Many thanks! 😃
Hi Thorsten,
There are many foreign soccer players in the Vietnamese professional league. Some of them have adopted Vietnamese names, and some have even become naturalized Vietnamese.
The Ukrainian Mykola Lytovka became Đinh Hoàng La, for example, and the Nigerian Maxwell Eyerakpo became Đinh Hoàng Max. As you can see, Đinh Hoàng is not unusual.
When the Dutch Danny van Bakel became Vietnamese, he changed his name to Nguyễn van Bakel, so he changed just one word. Most creatively, his Dutch last name became his Vietnamese first name! He's still Mr. Bakel.
Linh
Tell me about it. I have Chinese and Japanese "adoptions" of Mr. Thorsten. In Japan, I am Toaster-san! 🇯🇵🤪
...But that last name first name switch is quite something - and on a global scale. Causes much confusion. Is Li Hao a Mr. Li or a Mr. Hao? I can never tell at first. 🫣🇨🇳
Curiously, in Bavarian dialect, people are referred to by their first names prefaced by the definite article der or die, for instance der Hans die Mari, not Herr Hans or Frau Mari. If there's more than one Hans in the village, you can disambiguate by prefixing Hans with his last name e.g. der Hofmeister Hans. The last name acts as a disambiguating adjective.
This is correct. Some Germans, especially in the villages, go by their Beruf (occupation) and their given names, for example: Bäckermeister Helmut (backer-in-chief Helmut). Most of our ancient family names or situational or practical anyway. Schmitt was Schmied, meaning a blacksmith. Or place names, as in Egon vom Wald (Egon of the forest). In normal conversations, we can say "Helmut the Baker, "or "Baker Helmut," yes. But of course... not in any official documents. With the deliberate reversal of Asian names in all Western media, news, print, scholarship, etc., I think we went too far. What would have Freud Sigmund said about the trauma of getting read your names backwards? 🫣
Hi Thorsten,
My name read backward, and with my middle name taken out, sounds like lênh đênh, or "adrift" in Vietnamese, so that has become my fate.
Linh
For folks who won't eat bugs, do you also avoid shrimp or crayfish?
I know that many shellfish are in a way just giant bugs. And yet I do eat them on occasion. But not the shell!
Thank you for another fabulous article. I have had some well prepared bugs myself. Silkworms seem very popular probably boiling silk cocoons produces a lot of cooked silk worm pupa.
My luk-krung son is studying ecology and the feasibility of adding bug protein to our diet at an excellent U.S. university . Fortunately, biting bugs are fairly rare in Hawaii. I do wonder what deep fried giant centipede would be like.
You are my favorite blogger - nothing like reality to wake a reader up.
I still have not figured out how to send Mr. Dinh $50 for beer money. Anybody know how?
Thanx and mahalo plenty.
Mr. Pili, Waiehu, Hawaii.
Hi mrpili,
I do have a donate button at the top of my blog:
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/
Thanks!
Linh
Paypal.