It still hurts me so much to see the masks, especially on young faces. On old Libtard folks in Maryland, I have come to prefer they wear them so I can spot them coming, I want them to self identify as Globo-stoopids. They all had access to education and free information and the internet their whole lives. They just never learned to think critically, or they preferred to join the dominant tribe. I have no patience and no empathy, though it nags at me that I should. Old timey activists from the Boomer generation now laud the FBI and the CDC. People who would bore you to tears with lectures about processed foods now trust the FDA about experimental gene therapy treatments, or that it’s perfectly respectable to chop off their granddaughter’s breasts at a primo medical facility. Did you know that after 1932 in Germany the fastest growing organization, attracting the bourgeoisie professionals, was the SS? Speaks volumes about human nature.
Weird isn't it? I have friends (we are all old hippies/natural food/organic gardening types) who got the jab for the sole reason that they wanted to be able to travel again. Who's sorry now? I don't ask. One old (in both senses of the word) friend, vaccinated in order to travel, had the good luck to get Covid when on a meditation retreat in India so was handed the Indian kit which included ivermectin among other things. I think that is a form of good karma. Needless to say, she got better quite quickly and flew home to Canada.
But the young fellow who we buy firewood from who wouldn't know organic brown rice from his elbow refused the jab as did my next-door neighbour, ex-plumber and now prosperous garden builder. His history is more complex though, he broke away from a Christian cult as a young man at the expense of never seeing his parents, ex-wife, and children again. Experience with brain washing either makes you either more susceptible or less, not sure why.
"Walking just now through a darkened alley, I noticed a man sitting on a hard bed, strumming his guitar, but just one chord, mind you. Shit, man, even I can do that! Maybe he was rehearsing for a ten-minute variation of “Stairway to Heaven,” Van Halen’s “Eruption” or Django Reinhardt’s “Night and Day.”" Hilarious. Many of us tend to be one-chord wonders as we age! I feel momentarily indicted, but as with so much else, I will forget, thank God (which one I wonder?)
I would hope that the aspiring guitarist was trying to learn "Smoke On the Water".
Speaking of the Amish, I was pleased to see horse droppings in a supermarket parking lot in Bremen, Indiana yesterday. From what I understand, the Amish community chose to remain unvaccinated by and large. I have yet to see an Amish farm in the kind of disrepair that can exist among their "English"(SuperGoy) neighbors. To bad my resume is tarnished.
I enjoyed this "trivial" excursion! Sounds like a small case of the fuckits. Plastic stools in alleys where one can observe what appears to be functional life, wow! They don't allow that around here.
"The iceman cameth all right. Too thin, he hoisted heavy bags of ice cubes and blocks of ice." This puts me in mind of deliverymen I've seen in Taiwan, like the guys who deliver bottled gas. You see them zipping around town on scooters with two or three bottles bungee-strapped precariously on the back.
None but the very newest buildings have gas plumbed in--gas is supplied by bottles on the balcony, and when one runs out, you call for a delivery. This arrives within an hour or two, always delivered by skinny, wiry guys. Usually they have to haul these full 15 gallon steel cylinders up 3 or 4 flights of stairs in buildings without elevators. And because of all the stairs, they're not using hand carts--they have to hoist the bottle on their shoulder. I don't know what these weigh--I'd guess close to 100 lbs. Pretty impressive, especially considering that they do this all day long. Even if I could manage it ONCE, I'd be shot for the day.
Do you have to be thin to get one of these jobs, or does the job keep them thin? (Admittedly, I see far fewer fat people on the street in Asia than I do here in the US!)
I am married to one of the small skinny Irishmen who populate the planet in pockets and you simply would not know to look at him he could sling steel around the way he did in his day as a boiler maker. Absolutely no fat and just lean muscle and tendons. It always amazes me. And the does-it-keep-you-thin conundrum always puzzled me. However I have come to the conclusion that thinness on the whole and almost always comes from not eating very much and that is his story as well.
Isha, when I was in the legions, we knew that to be lean and mean was better than to be bulked up. But then most folks always want to see heavy bruisers in the arena. Lean and mean makes a better worker and soldier, easier to feed and water. Big and beefy muscles demand a lot of time and expensive food. Good for gladiators, not for soldiers. And God Bless the wee pockets of Irish!
Look at pictures of our ancestors from the 1930s, or the GIs who fought WW2. Much shorter and skinnier. I would also be done after one or two deliveries.
As for the Amish, as someone else mentioned, they are unvaccinated and did no masking or lockdowns before that. The smartest lot, if you ask me. Who's sorry now??
Perhaps modern technology IS the problem -- it desensitizes us to so many things. The Amish, I think, use no smartphones, TV or Internet, and certainly not the brainwashing social media. That explains why they are socially and mentally much healthier than most other people. I think we all will need to be more like the Amish if we want to survive.
The bottom line is, I have zero animosity towards biological Jews, for that would be absurd. I'm only vehemently against Jewish thinking, and the crimes against humanity that result from this. That's why I'm highly critical of Nasser, for example. Though supposedly an enemy of Jews, Nasser's Jewish thinking wrecked Egypt.
Here's an exchange I had with Dan Duffy, my friend of nearly three decades;
Dan Duffy
Writes Viet Nam letters ·59 min ago
Linh, I have been startled to catch up with your thought. Thinking your views over has at last let me say something in general about the postcards project I have enjoyed all century. I will write that up over at mine. What to say here on yours about your view of the Jews. If you had jumped the other way, studying to keep mitzvot and learn Torah, I would have tried seriously to talk you out of it. That is our custom. So, you have in that sense done as we prefer. Beyond that, it is always good to hear these things out loud and see them in print. Plenty of people take offense at the Jews and never say so. Since you read scripture, you already know that Hashem and his, whatever, prophets also dislike us and our ways. So, again, you are with the program. Mazel tov. Okay enough fun. I am writing here now to address those security agencies who follow such as you: This man is my good friend. He has done as much as anyone, more than nearly anyone to reconcile the United States and Viet Nam, one mind at a time, with flinty words and no nonsense. Reviewing his work you too will see that no intelligence or propaganda operation could possibly be running him. He will do or say what he thinks, not as he is told. I remain hopeful that his conscience and strength of mind will lead him to express his understanding of the world order in different terms. But that is his fate, not ours. Please leave him alone to do his work as he sees fit.
Reply
Linh Dinh Just Now
Hi Dan,
In short, I have nothing against anyone born Jewish, but only Jewish thinking. It is a destructive ideology that harms Jews themselves. My understanding of this issue was triggered by Henry Herskovitz, above all, who was born Jewish, then Gilad Atzmon, among others.
Speaking to me in Michigan, Herskovitz pointed out the distinction between opposing Jewish thinking to being against Jews. Though Herskovitz is vehemently against organized Jewry and Israel, he's obviously not against his own family, whom he continues to love. Similarly, there are many "Jews" whom I respect and admire, and non Jews whom I'm contemptuous of because they embody or espouse Jewish thinking. That's the virus that must be contained, at least.
In an oddly overlooked story, “Jackals and Arabs,” Kafka deals with this issue. I've discussed it in an article, "Kafka, Anti-Semite":
Anyway, I'm glad you're speaking out about this. I'll always consider you a good friend, and I hope you'll think the same of me.
Linh
The commenter just before you on this thread, Matthew Rossman, was born Jewish. He's a friend who lives right here in Vung Tau. In two days, I'll be interviewed by Jacob Hofman, who might be Jewish. I couldn't care less.
The Jewish ideology is not just deeply racist, but genocidal, though often hidden under a cloak of "progressism." It's fueled by an indignant hatred of the other. If you don't submit to it, you're an enemy to be eliminated.
You should check out Laurent Guyenot's From Yahweh to Zion, Gilad Atzmon's The Wandering Who?, Schlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People, Arthur Butz' Hoax of the Century and this video by E. Michael Jones, "A Goy's Guide to World History."
However, I am halfway through the first book on the list by Guyenot. At first I thought it a wonderful book - I did not know anything about the early history of the Judaic people beyond what I had learned in Sunday school and by reading a few other books in the meanwhile. Reading on, I did notice there did not seem to be footnotes, but heyho - the argument started becoming a bit thin when it got to early British history, which I do know a little bit more about. Then I was dismayed to find the author referring to Thomas Cromwell as a possible Marano (underground Sephardic Jew) who was responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries in Henry 8th time but kept much of the wealth for himself. This is arrant nonsense and made me wonder about the rest of the facts he presents. But I am plowing on but with a bit more of a critical eye. I still enjoy the facts he presents when I do not know them to be false. The halls of mirrors proceedeth apace.
Yes, it is not immediately obvious why he throws in the Jewish references so frequently. He does not seem to be the sort to have such prejudices or to throw in words to get a reaction. Problem solved.
Looks like Kyrie Irving will finally be allowed to play again after agreeing to wear a yarmulke and read passages from the Talmud in front of a distinguished panel of Rabbi's at the local synagogue.
Emperor Silver: "Did you learn your lesson, Kyrie ?
Irving: "Yessum Boss"
Emperor Silver: "Good Boy....OK, go out & play with the rest of the kids now"
I went through a couple of Canon 50D's and a fixed lens Fujifilm, the latter given to me by the writer Mieko Kawakami. I now have a Canon 80D, bought used in Cape Town, and a Sony A6000 with a 16-70mm lens, bought used in Vung Tau. I use the Sony the most.
If the photos are getting better, it's because I've improved as a photographer! This isn't too surprising, since I've been at it just about every day for over a decade.
Many thanks! It's never too late to come to Southeast Asia, so maybe we'll meet in this life!
This morning, I finally coughed up $10 for a bus ticket to Siem Reap. When you're that close to Angkor Wat and don't pay the equivalence of two beers to see it, you are probably mentally ill, but then, who isn't?
Linh, have you had a tetanus shot in the last five years? Concerned about your foot, and possible repercussions. And, why are there poor Vietnamese living in Cambodia? My knowledge of Indochina is about thirty years out of date. Thinking of Cambodia, it’s encouraging and reassuring that those people still exist, despite the genocidal Khmer Rouge. In college, (again, thirty years ago), I thought that Vietnam deserved credit for invading Cambodia and wiping out that regime, but I had no skin in that game. I was a feckless American smart ass college student. I also thought it was interesting how the various conflicts between Vietnam and its neighbors (after 1975) showed how the Domino theory (touted by a Democratic administration) and the perception of a United Communist Bloc was utter crap.
Cambodia has just 17 million people, Vietnam has 100 million, so Vietnamese are still spilling over into Cambodia. I see a stronger presence than just 4 1/2 years ago, with more businesses clearly identified as Vietnamese, and more Vietnamese heard on the streets. There is even a Vietnamese hospital here, Cho Ray Phnom Penh.
A third of Vietnam was once Cambodia, so Saigon, Can Tho, Soc Trang, Tra Vinh and Phu Quoc, etc., stand on territory formerly Cambodia. Cambodians remember this. This is not unlike the presence of San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson, Los Angeles and San Francisco, etc., on Mexican land, but in the American case, the Spanish names even remain.
Along the border, Vietnamese go over to lose money in Cambodian casinos. These businesses employ many Vietnamese to serve Viet patrons. Weird crimes resulting from unpayable gambling debts have sometimes occured, with Vietnamese locked up by Cambodian gangs until money from Vietnam could be sent.
Saddest are the Vietnamese who return to Vietnam without papers. Since no Vietnamese city or town wants to absorb them, they live desperately on the margin of society. They are also accused of being Cambodian illegal immigrants! That is, they're accused of not being Vietnamese at all!
More SE Asian fun facts: Thailand has a population of 70 million, and it’s neighbor Laos has only a population of 7 million. While Thailand is twice as big it has ten times the population. Bangkok has big tall legitimate skyscrapers, on the other hand, I don’t think Laos has a single building over four stories tall. Once known as the most bombed country on the planet, it was left alone to isolate after the abuse. And if you go there as I have make sure you watch your step. Sometimes nothing happens by accident.
So it's demographics, economics, and globalism. And waxing and waning of the ethnic peoples and their empires. The Vagaries of History. I learned a long time ago that there was an overlooked historic irony, that the Spanish/Mexican rulers of the 18th and 19th centuries could never properly populate their Norte Americano provinces, for various reasons, which I thought were mostly climate and demographic, and they invited the "Americans" in. Recently I learned that the main reason during the late 1700s thru early 1800s, for inviting the "Anglos" and "Germans" in to what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas, was because Mexico City feared the Comanche! They invited in the "white" migrants so they could have a buffer against the marauding Comanche. Even the Apache and Navajo feared the Comanche. If you have ever seen the John Ford film The Searchers, that is the background to that story.
During French rule, many Vietnamese were also brought into Cambodia and Laos. Many Vietnamese were chased back into Vietnam in 1974, during the Vietnam War, then Vietnam invaded in 1978. Many stayed, with others leaving behind half Vietnamese children.
Always so happy to see you in my inbox. I am thoroughly enjoying your book Love Like Hate. Saw in the dedication you mentioned a wife. No longer married, I guess. Do you have kids?
It still hurts me so much to see the masks, especially on young faces. On old Libtard folks in Maryland, I have come to prefer they wear them so I can spot them coming, I want them to self identify as Globo-stoopids. They all had access to education and free information and the internet their whole lives. They just never learned to think critically, or they preferred to join the dominant tribe. I have no patience and no empathy, though it nags at me that I should. Old timey activists from the Boomer generation now laud the FBI and the CDC. People who would bore you to tears with lectures about processed foods now trust the FDA about experimental gene therapy treatments, or that it’s perfectly respectable to chop off their granddaughter’s breasts at a primo medical facility. Did you know that after 1932 in Germany the fastest growing organization, attracting the bourgeoisie professionals, was the SS? Speaks volumes about human nature.
Weird isn't it? I have friends (we are all old hippies/natural food/organic gardening types) who got the jab for the sole reason that they wanted to be able to travel again. Who's sorry now? I don't ask. One old (in both senses of the word) friend, vaccinated in order to travel, had the good luck to get Covid when on a meditation retreat in India so was handed the Indian kit which included ivermectin among other things. I think that is a form of good karma. Needless to say, she got better quite quickly and flew home to Canada.
But the young fellow who we buy firewood from who wouldn't know organic brown rice from his elbow refused the jab as did my next-door neighbour, ex-plumber and now prosperous garden builder. His history is more complex though, he broke away from a Christian cult as a young man at the expense of never seeing his parents, ex-wife, and children again. Experience with brain washing either makes you either more susceptible or less, not sure why.
"Walking just now through a darkened alley, I noticed a man sitting on a hard bed, strumming his guitar, but just one chord, mind you. Shit, man, even I can do that! Maybe he was rehearsing for a ten-minute variation of “Stairway to Heaven,” Van Halen’s “Eruption” or Django Reinhardt’s “Night and Day.”" Hilarious. Many of us tend to be one-chord wonders as we age! I feel momentarily indicted, but as with so much else, I will forget, thank God (which one I wonder?)
I would hope that the aspiring guitarist was trying to learn "Smoke On the Water".
Speaking of the Amish, I was pleased to see horse droppings in a supermarket parking lot in Bremen, Indiana yesterday. From what I understand, the Amish community chose to remain unvaccinated by and large. I have yet to see an Amish farm in the kind of disrepair that can exist among their "English"(SuperGoy) neighbors. To bad my resume is tarnished.
I enjoyed this "trivial" excursion! Sounds like a small case of the fuckits. Plastic stools in alleys where one can observe what appears to be functional life, wow! They don't allow that around here.
"The iceman cameth all right. Too thin, he hoisted heavy bags of ice cubes and blocks of ice." This puts me in mind of deliverymen I've seen in Taiwan, like the guys who deliver bottled gas. You see them zipping around town on scooters with two or three bottles bungee-strapped precariously on the back.
None but the very newest buildings have gas plumbed in--gas is supplied by bottles on the balcony, and when one runs out, you call for a delivery. This arrives within an hour or two, always delivered by skinny, wiry guys. Usually they have to haul these full 15 gallon steel cylinders up 3 or 4 flights of stairs in buildings without elevators. And because of all the stairs, they're not using hand carts--they have to hoist the bottle on their shoulder. I don't know what these weigh--I'd guess close to 100 lbs. Pretty impressive, especially considering that they do this all day long. Even if I could manage it ONCE, I'd be shot for the day.
Do you have to be thin to get one of these jobs, or does the job keep them thin? (Admittedly, I see far fewer fat people on the street in Asia than I do here in the US!)
I am married to one of the small skinny Irishmen who populate the planet in pockets and you simply would not know to look at him he could sling steel around the way he did in his day as a boiler maker. Absolutely no fat and just lean muscle and tendons. It always amazes me. And the does-it-keep-you-thin conundrum always puzzled me. However I have come to the conclusion that thinness on the whole and almost always comes from not eating very much and that is his story as well.
Isha, when I was in the legions, we knew that to be lean and mean was better than to be bulked up. But then most folks always want to see heavy bruisers in the arena. Lean and mean makes a better worker and soldier, easier to feed and water. Big and beefy muscles demand a lot of time and expensive food. Good for gladiators, not for soldiers. And God Bless the wee pockets of Irish!
Look at pictures of our ancestors from the 1930s, or the GIs who fought WW2. Much shorter and skinnier. I would also be done after one or two deliveries.
Pol Pot was Jewish??
As for the Amish, as someone else mentioned, they are unvaccinated and did no masking or lockdowns before that. The smartest lot, if you ask me. Who's sorry now??
Perhaps modern technology IS the problem -- it desensitizes us to so many things. The Amish, I think, use no smartphones, TV or Internet, and certainly not the brainwashing social media. That explains why they are socially and mentally much healthier than most other people. I think we all will need to be more like the Amish if we want to survive.
Hi Tom,
I didn't say Jewish, I said Jewish thinking. That's a crucial difference I've stressed many times.
Arab Nasser was also guilty of Jewish thinking.
Linh
Linh very kindly replied at length when I also queried the 'Jewish question'. It was on October 31st the post which contains the word Howling:
Hi Isha,
The Jewish question is a huge topic I've addressed many times. Here are some of my articles about this:
"Blacks, Jews and You," https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2018/09/blacks-jews-and-you.html
"Kafka, Anti-Semite," https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2019/10/kafka-anti-semite.html
"Mass Child Sacrifice in Plain Sight," https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/mass-child-sacrifice-in-plain-sight
"Chris Hedges, Victoria Nuland and the Khazars," https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-victoria-nuland-and?s=w
The bottom line is, I have zero animosity towards biological Jews, for that would be absurd. I'm only vehemently against Jewish thinking, and the crimes against humanity that result from this. That's why I'm highly critical of Nasser, for example. Though supposedly an enemy of Jews, Nasser's Jewish thinking wrecked Egypt.
Here's an exchange I had with Dan Duffy, my friend of nearly three decades;
Dan Duffy
Writes Viet Nam letters ·59 min ago
Linh, I have been startled to catch up with your thought. Thinking your views over has at last let me say something in general about the postcards project I have enjoyed all century. I will write that up over at mine. What to say here on yours about your view of the Jews. If you had jumped the other way, studying to keep mitzvot and learn Torah, I would have tried seriously to talk you out of it. That is our custom. So, you have in that sense done as we prefer. Beyond that, it is always good to hear these things out loud and see them in print. Plenty of people take offense at the Jews and never say so. Since you read scripture, you already know that Hashem and his, whatever, prophets also dislike us and our ways. So, again, you are with the program. Mazel tov. Okay enough fun. I am writing here now to address those security agencies who follow such as you: This man is my good friend. He has done as much as anyone, more than nearly anyone to reconcile the United States and Viet Nam, one mind at a time, with flinty words and no nonsense. Reviewing his work you too will see that no intelligence or propaganda operation could possibly be running him. He will do or say what he thinks, not as he is told. I remain hopeful that his conscience and strength of mind will lead him to express his understanding of the world order in different terms. But that is his fate, not ours. Please leave him alone to do his work as he sees fit.
Reply
Linh Dinh Just Now
Hi Dan,
In short, I have nothing against anyone born Jewish, but only Jewish thinking. It is a destructive ideology that harms Jews themselves. My understanding of this issue was triggered by Henry Herskovitz, above all, who was born Jewish, then Gilad Atzmon, among others.
Speaking to me in Michigan, Herskovitz pointed out the distinction between opposing Jewish thinking to being against Jews. Though Herskovitz is vehemently against organized Jewry and Israel, he's obviously not against his own family, whom he continues to love. Similarly, there are many "Jews" whom I respect and admire, and non Jews whom I'm contemptuous of because they embody or espouse Jewish thinking. That's the virus that must be contained, at least.
In an oddly overlooked story, “Jackals and Arabs,” Kafka deals with this issue. I've discussed it in an article, "Kafka, Anti-Semite":
https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2019/10/kafka-anti-semite.html
Anyway, I'm glad you're speaking out about this. I'll always consider you a good friend, and I hope you'll think the same of me.
Linh
The commenter just before you on this thread, Matthew Rossman, was born Jewish. He's a friend who lives right here in Vung Tau. In two days, I'll be interviewed by Jacob Hofman, who might be Jewish. I couldn't care less.
The Jewish ideology is not just deeply racist, but genocidal, though often hidden under a cloak of "progressism." It's fueled by an indignant hatred of the other. If you don't submit to it, you're an enemy to be eliminated.
You should check out Laurent Guyenot's From Yahweh to Zion, Gilad Atzmon's The Wandering Who?, Schlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People, Arthur Butz' Hoax of the Century and this video by E. Michael Jones, "A Goy's Guide to World History."
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VMZsq9HgopN5/
Anyway, I must cut this short since I have to catch a 6AM van tomorrow to Saigon. I'll write more about my ongoing visa ordeal later.
Linh
Thanks for the re-post, I was curious and confused about Linh’s “anti-Semitism” (which is a ridiculous term).
However, I am halfway through the first book on the list by Guyenot. At first I thought it a wonderful book - I did not know anything about the early history of the Judaic people beyond what I had learned in Sunday school and by reading a few other books in the meanwhile. Reading on, I did notice there did not seem to be footnotes, but heyho - the argument started becoming a bit thin when it got to early British history, which I do know a little bit more about. Then I was dismayed to find the author referring to Thomas Cromwell as a possible Marano (underground Sephardic Jew) who was responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries in Henry 8th time but kept much of the wealth for himself. This is arrant nonsense and made me wonder about the rest of the facts he presents. But I am plowing on but with a bit more of a critical eye. I still enjoy the facts he presents when I do not know them to be false. The halls of mirrors proceedeth apace.
Yes, it is not immediately obvious why he throws in the Jewish references so frequently. He does not seem to be the sort to have such prejudices or to throw in words to get a reaction. Problem solved.
Linh
Looks like Kyrie Irving will finally be allowed to play again after agreeing to wear a yarmulke and read passages from the Talmud in front of a distinguished panel of Rabbi's at the local synagogue.
Emperor Silver: "Did you learn your lesson, Kyrie ?
Irving: "Yessum Boss"
Emperor Silver: "Good Boy....OK, go out & play with the rest of the kids now"
Bill
Lihn, did you manage to fix your Nikon camera? The pictures are looking pretty good lately.
Hi Tom,
I went through a couple of Canon 50D's and a fixed lens Fujifilm, the latter given to me by the writer Mieko Kawakami. I now have a Canon 80D, bought used in Cape Town, and a Sony A6000 with a 16-70mm lens, bought used in Vung Tau. I use the Sony the most.
If the photos are getting better, it's because I've improved as a photographer! This isn't too surprising, since I've been at it just about every day for over a decade.
Linh
Hey Linh,
I'm hoping we'll meet in the next life. You seem like family to me, a great human being.
I'm a big admirer of you-just sent you a little something. Best wishes, Ralph
Hi Ralph,
Many thanks! It's never too late to come to Southeast Asia, so maybe we'll meet in this life!
This morning, I finally coughed up $10 for a bus ticket to Siem Reap. When you're that close to Angkor Wat and don't pay the equivalence of two beers to see it, you are probably mentally ill, but then, who isn't?
Linh
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom (1 mile north) left me open-jawed.All that chiseling felt superhuman to me.Definetely not Kansas anymore.
Linh, have you had a tetanus shot in the last five years? Concerned about your foot, and possible repercussions. And, why are there poor Vietnamese living in Cambodia? My knowledge of Indochina is about thirty years out of date. Thinking of Cambodia, it’s encouraging and reassuring that those people still exist, despite the genocidal Khmer Rouge. In college, (again, thirty years ago), I thought that Vietnam deserved credit for invading Cambodia and wiping out that regime, but I had no skin in that game. I was a feckless American smart ass college student. I also thought it was interesting how the various conflicts between Vietnam and its neighbors (after 1975) showed how the Domino theory (touted by a Democratic administration) and the perception of a United Communist Bloc was utter crap.
Hi Benedict Tiberius Cato,
Cambodia has just 17 million people, Vietnam has 100 million, so Vietnamese are still spilling over into Cambodia. I see a stronger presence than just 4 1/2 years ago, with more businesses clearly identified as Vietnamese, and more Vietnamese heard on the streets. There is even a Vietnamese hospital here, Cho Ray Phnom Penh.
A third of Vietnam was once Cambodia, so Saigon, Can Tho, Soc Trang, Tra Vinh and Phu Quoc, etc., stand on territory formerly Cambodia. Cambodians remember this. This is not unlike the presence of San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson, Los Angeles and San Francisco, etc., on Mexican land, but in the American case, the Spanish names even remain.
Along the border, Vietnamese go over to lose money in Cambodian casinos. These businesses employ many Vietnamese to serve Viet patrons. Weird crimes resulting from unpayable gambling debts have sometimes occured, with Vietnamese locked up by Cambodian gangs until money from Vietnam could be sent.
Saddest are the Vietnamese who return to Vietnam without papers. Since no Vietnamese city or town wants to absorb them, they live desperately on the margin of society. They are also accused of being Cambodian illegal immigrants! That is, they're accused of not being Vietnamese at all!
Linh
More SE Asian fun facts: Thailand has a population of 70 million, and it’s neighbor Laos has only a population of 7 million. While Thailand is twice as big it has ten times the population. Bangkok has big tall legitimate skyscrapers, on the other hand, I don’t think Laos has a single building over four stories tall. Once known as the most bombed country on the planet, it was left alone to isolate after the abuse. And if you go there as I have make sure you watch your step. Sometimes nothing happens by accident.
So it's demographics, economics, and globalism. And waxing and waning of the ethnic peoples and their empires. The Vagaries of History. I learned a long time ago that there was an overlooked historic irony, that the Spanish/Mexican rulers of the 18th and 19th centuries could never properly populate their Norte Americano provinces, for various reasons, which I thought were mostly climate and demographic, and they invited the "Americans" in. Recently I learned that the main reason during the late 1700s thru early 1800s, for inviting the "Anglos" and "Germans" in to what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas, was because Mexico City feared the Comanche! They invited in the "white" migrants so they could have a buffer against the marauding Comanche. Even the Apache and Navajo feared the Comanche. If you have ever seen the John Ford film The Searchers, that is the background to that story.
Hi Benedict Tiberius Cato,
During French rule, many Vietnamese were also brought into Cambodia and Laos. Many Vietnamese were chased back into Vietnam in 1974, during the Vietnam War, then Vietnam invaded in 1978. Many stayed, with others leaving behind half Vietnamese children.
Linh
Always so happy to see you in my inbox. I am thoroughly enjoying your book Love Like Hate. Saw in the dedication you mentioned a wife. No longer married, I guess. Do you have kids?
Linh
Biden doesn't know if he's in Cambodia or Colombia lol
Bill
We've talked about PP many times, but Sharky's on 136 is one of the most depressing places on Earth. Go for a drink and to gawk :)
Oh wait, it moved to 130. Things must be looking up for them!