Consider these photos:
In the first, we see a smiling white woman in a white dress, flanked by two dark females, recognizably Asiatic. Topless, one is flat chested, while the other has the merest suggestions of breasts, yet they’re identified as “Phneung young women.” The fully dressed one is Mimi Palgen-Maisonneuve, a French woman who lived in Cambodia in the 1950’s and 60’s. This photos circa 1952 provides a striking contrast between civility and relative barbarity.
In the second, there are two Lao women with shoulder poles, carrying produce for sale. One wears a conical hat. In the background, though, there’s a Coca Cola truck, and there are many other clues to tell us it’s an image from the 21st century. One woman has a denim shoulder bag. The other wears elephant pants, of the type popular with tourists, as well as phony Balenciaga flip flops. Taken just yesterday, it’s a snapshot of rural, “backward” people adapting to contemporary culture, as dictated mostly by the West.
The third image is a screenshot of a Berlin fashion show in July of 2023. Staged by Namilia, it features many near nude models flaunting crucified Jesuses on their flesh, including over their bare buttocks. A mouth breathing land whale sporting nerdy glasses has black and white crucifixes taped to her nipples. One who’s sinisterly cloaked has “YOU CANT ENTER HEAVEN UNLESS JESUS ENTERS YOU” over her torso. Except for a slim crucifix, she’s naked in the back. In the image shown, we can see a fashionable audience gathered in a cutting-edge Western metropolis. So hip, it’s beyond barbaric.
At Namilia’s website, a nylon Turbo Dickini is just $75, so you, too, can boast black penises over your breasts. Super hot, Namilia is the creation of the Chinese Nan Li and the German Emilia Pfohl, two alumni of London’s Royal College of Art. They’re inspired by the queer party scene, they’ve declared. To catch up with the ultra-cool West, Laos have a long way to go.
Sadly, they may never get there. Writing this at Subinh Hotel, I just heard a muzak version of “Yesterday Once More,” and now, “The Sound of Silence” is playing. Laos don’t understand cheese is long dead! Of course, most don’t know the lyrics. Incorrigible cheeseballs, they just like gentle, soothing music.
Only the most ambitious Paksians dream of migrating to the West. Arriving in Laos just a decade ago, Tuấn has a Lao wife and 10-month-old son. Just 30-years-old, he owns a popular café at a choice location, yet he’s scheming of moving to Boston. There, he can work in a restaurant for distant relatives, he claimed.
“I hear you can make $4,000 a month.”
“Don’t count on it,” I countered, “and you’ll work your ass off. It’s not like here. My father owned restaurants, so I know. Americans work very hard.”
Smiling slightly, he appeared doubtful, so I continued, “I worked in my father’s kitchen and hated it. Almost everyone in there was Mexican, and they could outwork anyone. They can outwork Vietnamese, whites, blacks, whoever. The dishwasher wore a weightlifting belt because he had to lift all these heavy loads. You don’t know!”
To get $4,000 a month, I’ll deal with it, he was probably thinking, but he won’t get a chance, because no restaurant owner will hire such a slightly built, laid back guy. I wouldn’t.
“Worst, you can come back here,” I said. Tuấn has this lifeboat.
Though his 3839 Cafe is supposed to open six days a week, it’s often closed unexpectedly. “If I drank too much the night before, I close,” he shrugged.
“The worst thing about living in the US is the social isolation, and this affects everyone. Whites, too. Even if you get $4,000 a month, and has more room in your house, what are you going to do with it? Run through your empty rooms? Not that you’ll have it. Rent is so expensive there. Even this conversation we’re having, talking all this time, that’s almost impossible in the US.”
When it comes to America, the chasm between myth and reality is best exemplified by how blacks are depicted in the media, and how they actually exist. It’s a sick joke.
In music videos, they’re routinely seen driving a Bentley, Ferrari or Lamborghini, tossing big bills around like garbage and lounging by the pool with plenty of twerking babes, but in real life, they’re at the bottom of the economic ladder. Least educated and skilled, they dwell in deadly ghettos where buses barely run and no pricey car can last one night on the street without being broken into or stripped, but foreigners don’t see any of this, nor do hypocritical whites with a Black Lives Matter sticker or T-shirt.
As for black crime, it’s routinely twisted by the Jewjacked media into a white cop problem, so it’s gotten much worse. Shoplifting used to mean a single thief stuffing a can of tuna down his pants. Now, it’s twenty “youths” openly raiding a store in full view. Though not all are black, their prevalence can’t be missed.
Los Angeles Daily News on 8/12/23, “Shoppers at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park were in for quite a shock when dozens of thieves ransacked the Nordstrom inside the mall on Saturday, Aug. 12, smashing displays and stealing an estimated $60,000- $100,000 worth of merchandise, authorities said.”
Such incidents have become so common, American stores are forced into locking up merchandises or even installing fog machines. Many have simply shut down.
Ignorant, people like Tuấn dream on. To improve their chance of slipping into the US, they travel to as many countries as possible. Tuấn has been to Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. South Korea is next. If he can go to an affluent country and come back, it’s proof he’s not a desperate immigrant.
One Paksian who’s not fantasizing about the West is the owner of Liên Hương, where I had lunch yesterday.
Fighting two years as an ARVN, Liên lost a leg, yet still managed to get married. Moving to Pakse when it was super primitive, they struggled to start a business, then his wife died in a car accident. When one of his kids moaned about not going to school, Liên said it was more important to not starve to death.
This day, we talked about one of his trips to Vietnam. On a tour with other Catholics, Liên visited some caves and climbed a mountain, the last sheer torture. Chatting with Liên, I could hear Saigon idioms from before 1975, si ba chao, học xì dầu or hết xí quách. As language evolves, men fade into the past.
If Liên was younger, perhaps he’d also dream of Boston, Seattle or San Jose, but the man is tired, and at peace. He’s seen more than enough drama. All his children have turned out well, and his grandchildren are going to school.
Still in the American orbit, they’re studying English. His five-year-old granddaughter has just learnt the word, “dinosaur.”
No blubbery tranny in fright wig and grotesque makeup has shown up to drag these primitive kids into the present, however.
[Mother and daughter waiting to give alms to monks in Pakse on 8/13/23]
[Pakse, 8/13/23]
[Vietnamese in Pakse, 8/15/23]
Meanwhile, some miserable guy making $4K a month in Boston is dreaming of moving to southeast Asia and living the simple life.
The myth of the nation where "the streets are paved with gold" dies hard. The Chinese who came in the mid-19th century to build the railroads called it Gold Mountain. Now the legend has lagged the reality for most.
The funny thing is that the guy might actually make $4K/month in Boston or NYC, but not only will he work till exhaustion, as you say, but at that level of income, he won't be able to live much of a life in those places. That level of income goes pretty far in Smallville USA, and many would be grateful to have it, but you won't even be able to afford morning coffee in NYC.
Thanks to my Taiwanese wife, I have met many, many Chinese and Taiwanese families over the decades of our marriage. An amazingly high percentage of those people gravitated to the restaurant business to seek their "fortunes," or more correctly, their livelihoods. I've noticed over the years that more of them make decent money by buying and selling restaurants than by running them or working in them. I knew a few who would pick up a place for a song, get it running well, then sell it for a handsome profit to less capable new owners who worked their butts off only to watch it slowly fail.
More commonly for those "lucky" enough to be owners, a restaurant ends up providing a meager living that requires the entire family to pitch in if they want to keep it going. And they are there 6 or 7 days a week for 12+ hours, kids included (when they are not going to school). I have known at least two such families personally; both ran their places for years with a heartbreaking amount of effort, unable to afford any paid employees even after brutally cutting corners, only to finally have to throw in the towel nevertheless. One might say that they did not own the restaurant--it owned THEM.
Those who can't or are not inclined to own often end up working at one of these places. We met the Malaysian Chinese couple that became our best friends over 30 years ago when I was working in southern Maryland, where the husband was working in a restaurant. Long hours, and they and their two little girls were living in a group setting with several other restaurant workers in a condo belonging to the restaurant owner. It was a smoke-filled and depressing arrangement, definitely not the place to raise healthy children. When I changed jobs and got ready to move to Portland, Oregon (which back then was still a delightful city), at my wife's suggestion they pulled up stakes and made the move with us.
We loaded their stuff (not much, as you can imagine) in the front of the Ryder truck I rented for our own things, and they found an apartment of their own and a job there. The husband found work as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant; it was a 45 minute drive each way, and he worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for over 30 years, and although the pay was adequate, it certainly wasn't princely.
Fortunately, this story has a much happier ending, Despite a pretty low income, they managed to buy their own home after a few year, and not only paid it off, but also now have a paid-off rental to boot. Their daughters grew up well, one ended up going to college and getting a master's degree. They are now retired like us, and doing well. I doubt if many Americans could have accomplished what they have on so little.