No Exploding Noodle Joints in Long Khánh

[Long Khánh, 3/13/25]

At 5:25AM, I’m sitting on the sidewalk outside Đôm Đốm [Firefly] Café. Its wifi address is Dom Dom Mourinho Fan Club. I remember his so-so run at Tottenham Hotspur. Even the best can be defeated, humiliated or fired. This legend was sacked.

Across the street is Tâm Đức [Virtuous Heart] Dental. As is standard across Vietnam, its sign has a white family smiling perfectly. Get your teeth fixed to become more white. Vietnamese used to lacquer theirs. Only dogs had white chompers. Norman Lewis came to Vietnam in 1950:

The fact is that teeth left in their natural, white state have always shocked Vietnamese susceptibilities by their resemblance to the fangs of animals. Until quite recently—and even now in some country districts—they were camouflaged with black enamel. One of the old Emperors, receiving in audience a European ambassador, is said to have exclaimed in ungovernable horror, ‘Who is this man with the teeth of a dog?’

Truemart’s large sign has three white kids. Drinking its barley milk might just turn your hair blonde and your eyes blue. The sign at Freelancer, a clothing store, does have a Vietnamese model, but she’s whiter than any native chick within a thousand miles. I’m in Long Khánh, a city of 150,000 with no foreign tourists. At Phụng Café yesterday, I was told by a cranky broad no one comes here, period.