Oh Shart!

[Vung Tau, 2/5/26]

Billionaire leader of the free world’s shit stinks less. This explains why Trump still has ass kissers. Just days ago, I learnt a new verb, shart. Standing behind her bossman, a cabinet member’s face contorted as Trump sharted unexpectedly. Bitch should have known. Instead of his face on Mount Rushmore, Trump’s most enduring legacy will be this neologism.

Tết is near. Fifty one years after the end of the Vietnam War, songs about South Vietnamese soldiers not able to come home for Tết, or perhaps ever, are still heard. They are relevant to all places and times. We’re sent on impossible missions to die alone. NVA soldiers, too, were in the same predicament, but such songs weren’t allowed in the North.

As the last man in Vũng Tàu to dress like a Vietnamese, I’m a freak. Yesterday outside Coffee House, notice the English name, a man joked, “You’re going to get arrested.”

“For what?”

“For dressing like that.” I was also barefoot.

“What’s wrong with this?”

“Nothing, but they’ll arrest you anyway.” We laughed. “Actually, why is your shirt black and your pants white.”

“I don’t know. My grandpa dressed just like this.” In 1975, just before I left Saigon, he said, “Let them all run. You stay here with grandpa.”