Walking Corpse Running Meat!

[Vung Tau, 8/21/25]

There’s a useful and amusing Chinese phrase, 行尸走肉. Pronounced as shing shi zoo roo, it means, literally, walking corpse running meat. This can also be applied to nations. Rotting, it still struts.

With my flesh only slightly putrefied, I tickle my maggot burrowed and fly specked brain this morning since it’s the death anniversary of Mrs. Seven’s husband. Later, his musician friends will gather to sing and play his favorite songs. Saigon Beer will flow. Her younger daughter, Mi Mi, arrived last night from Bình Dương, 80 miles away, where she’s working at a beauty salon.

Just now, a neighborhood loser, Vinh, dropped by. A staggering corpse, he still thinks he has a chance with Mi Mi. Unemployed and untraveled, the 29-year-old still suckles his dying mama’s dry titties, so to speak. Mi Mi has worked all over Vietnam, as far north as Pleiku. She has had a steady boyfriend for seven years. Repeatedly, she has turned down his marriage proposal. Still pretty, she doesn’t lack suitors, and she’s making her own cash. She’s seen friends burdened with kids in marriages already sour.