HANOI (AFP) - - Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Tuesday proposed a reshuffle to promote two younger ministers with strong economic credentials in a move seen as bolstering his drive for economic reform.

Dung also wants to name around 10 new ministers and streamline the communist administration by merging 26 ministries and equivalent agencies into 22, the government said on its website.

Dung, a 57-year-old southerner, asked the national assembly to ratify his proposals by Thursday, including promoting Education Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan, 54, and Industry Minister Hoang Trung Hai, 47, to deputy premier-level.

The prime minister said he wants the two men — both relatively young English speakers with strong economic backgrounds — to provide continuity by serving two five-year terms, the online VNExpress reported.

They would join three incumbent deputy prime ministers — Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem, Truong Vinh Trong and Nguyen Sinh Hung — who are all over 60 years old.

The key ministers of public security and defence, Le Hong Anh and Phung Quang Thanh respectively, would also retain their posts.

Dung, however, asked the legislature to approve other changes, including appointing or shifting new ministers to run the labour, justice, health and environment portfolios, and changing the governor of the State Bank.

Foreign observers said promoting the two ministers with economic backgrounds — Nhan spent some time at Harvard — to become deputy premiers reflected changing priorities in economically booming Vietnam, a country that this year joined the World Trade Organisation.

“These two deputy prime ministers, with economic backgrounds, will have an impact on maintaining the path of socio-economic development,” said one foreign diplomat who asked not to be named.

Vietnam’s economy expanded nearly 8.2 percent last year, second in East Asia only to China. The government has pledged that economic growth in Vietnam will continue strongly for the 2010-2015 period.

Even if nominated deputy prime minister, Nhan should also stay on as education minister, whereas Hai would hand over his job as industry minister to Vu Huy Hoang, currently party secretary of northern Lang Son province bordering China.

The 493 members of the national assembly on Tuesday also approved Dung’s proposal to reduce the size of his government, from 26 to 22 ministries and ministry-level agencies.

HANOI (AFP) - - Vietnam’s women’s union plans to set up 40 information centres to teach prospective brides about the risks of overseas marriages arranged via illegal match-makers, state media said Saturday.

Concern over the practice of Vietnamese women, most from poor backgrounds, wedding wealthy foreigners through illegal brokers heightened after the death of one bride in the home of her South Korean husband.

She was found with 18 broken ribs earlier this month. Police arrested her husband.

Excerpts from a letter kept by the woman, a former rice farmer and factory worker, describing her sadness and loneliness in South Korea were published across the Vietnamese media.

The communist state’s women’s association plans to set up the information and legal advice centres countrywide at a cost of 3.5 million dollars, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

The project — to be run with the Vietnam Culture and Women’s Centre in South Korea — is expected to support nine similar existing facilities and serve about 15,000 women over the next five years, VNA reported.

Vietnam has become a popular destination for bachelors from South Korea and other Asian countries searching for wives, often on week-long arranged trips that include medical checkups, visa procedures and speedy honeymoons.

The commercial match-making operations have stirred anger amid reports of potential brides being paraded and humiliated before their suitors, and of isolation and abuse suffered by many women in their new home countries.

The head of a parliamentary committee for social issues, Truong Thi Mai, said Vietnam should consider changing rules on foreign marriage.

According to the South Korean National Statistical Office, the number of Vietnamese brides in South Korea totalled over 10,000 last year, up 74 percent from the previous year, with most married to farmers and fishermen.

In South Korea, thousands of agencies now offer marriage tours to China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, often subsidised by rural authorities battling declining populations.

The international marriage market has been fuelled by a preference for sons in parts of Asia, exacerbated by sex-screening technology for pregnant women, with has left proportionally more bachelors fighting over fewer women.

Another cool sunset, so now you can see how the sun is moving comparing with other photos!

Undersea Cable Thieves Slow Vietnam’s Internet Access

Listen: .Mp3 of the report

Vietnamese Internet users are experiencing slower service after thieves stole part of the one of the country’s main fiber-optic transmission cables from the sea floor and sold it for scrap. If one more cable is cut, experts say, Vietnam could lose almost all of its telecommunications capacity. Matt Steinglass reports from Hanoi.

Traders monitor share prices at Securities Trading Center in Ho Chin Minh city, 20 December 2006
Traders monitor share prices at Securities Trading Center in Ho Chin Minh city, 20 December 2006
According to Vietnamese press reports, the country’s military signed a contract last August with several companies to salvage undersea copper cable left over by the former government of South Vietnam, which fell to North Vietnamese communist forces in 1975.

The contractors, or someone else, apparently went on to “salvage” at lot more than that.

Lam Quoc Cuong, deputy director of the Vietnamese telecom company VTI, says a stretch measuring at least 11 kilometers of the operational fiber-optic cable serving present-day Vietnam is missing.

Cuong says the line was initially cut in March, and Vietnamese police are continuing to catch people selling illegally salvaged cable.

Last week, police in the southern coastal town of Vung Tau said they had captured four boats carrying a total of 100 tons of salvaged fiber-optic cable. The boats allegedly belonged to one man, a Vung Tau resident.

But VTI said the fiber-optic cable seized in Vung Tau does not match VTI’s own cable, and must have come from some other line.

Police have not determined who initially cut the operational cable, or how they discovered its location. VTI’s Cuong says finding the cable would have been difficult for the thieves.

He says the cable runs through different locations and at different depths. He says thieves might have found the cable by accident, while raising an anchor.

VTI says fixing the cable will cost $2.6 million, and take almost three months. Experts say if VTI’s second undersea cable were cut, Vietnam could lose 82 percent of its telecommunications capacity.

What to say about that, let me show you what i know of the world in just a few sentences, because you have no idea in what trouble we all are, vietnamese, americans, finnish, russians, chinese, germans, frenchies, rosbeef british, and so on…

What do you know about Conspiracies?
First, what is a conspiracy? Google says:

# a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
# a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot)
# a group of conspirators banded together to achieve some harmful or illegal purpose

Now you’re going to ask me, what kind of conspiracies? So let’s just look at the world for a few seconds, we’re polluting the planet for our own survival, we have that desire of competition, greed of money and we all want to be so called ” happy ” and ” enjoy life ” etc… That is for me the perfect matrix fairy tale in the world, that people loves to think about. World is not meant to be fun, well at least Earth is not meant to be fun, cause the designers of the system we live in are earthlings and they made this world a HELL. Life is supposed to be fun, but not on Earth.

There’s people that seeks to use you, to abuse you, to manipulate you and all your friends and family for specific reasons such as money, power, control. You are not a spiritual being, you’re an investement made by bankers around the world, if you’re alive today it’s because of banks, if there’s so many people on this planet, first it’s because god allowed us to be that many, but also for money purpose. A family that’s poor will tend to have a lot of offsprings in order to bring in MONEY. Which is EVIL. Of course people will tell me it’s not like that, those very people that says the world is pink it’s all great there’s no troubles are brainwashed mind control sorts of guys, they are part of hte system, just like in the Matrix when Morpheus trains Neo, at one moment he tells him that (about the people in the matrix, the world): ” They are everyone, and no one, they are the gate keepers, if you’re not one of us, you’re one of them (agent) “, and this is damn right. In the Matrix movie, Neo fights not to save the entire world, but he dies so that THOSE that wants to be saved could have the choice of getting out of the matrix, it’s not about saving everyone, it’s about unificating those that wants to be saved, it’s too late to convince people that there’s something wrong in the world.

World’s bankers, secret societies, governments, political movements, wants a New World Order, they want a one world government, one world army, and a population with microchip connected to a global computer, money will not exist anymore in the future (does it actually exists, did you know that 85% of the world’s transactions are cashless?), and money will appear under the form of credit (digits on a computer’s monitor), you don’t have gold or silver, you got paper that are worth nothing, if the economy collapse, your currency collapse and then what do you do? What happens if there’s no more electricity everywhere due to a big solar storm for instance huh?? Would be catastrophic, imagine just the possibilities!

They (those people that controls us and seeks to destroy all that’s beautiful on the earth) wants to reduce the population of the world to 2/3. They want no more than 1 billion people in the world, and they will reduce the world’s population with the help of race-targeted-bacteries, with nukes, with wars, with power shutting down, with floods, with all sorts of despicable techniques, they have the power to because we allowed them to be so.

You have NO IDEA in the world where we’re heading to, you have no idea what you’re doing. You just get money, you don’t think of the future at all, you just keep living and “have fun” and “enjoy” all your life till you’re doomed. If that’s what you want fine! We’re free. I have several advices to you, invest in gold, learn how to survive, if you’re an american citizen: NEVER GIVE UP YOUR FIREARMS, read and learn about the things you never cared about, READ, STUDY, do your homework, study about secret societies, prescott bush, how did adolf hitler and the communist got money, learn who financed the wars and for what purpose, and you’ll find out that this world that you think is like this or that, is definitely not the way you think it is…

This is just a poor article on what’s going on, i don’t plan on telling you more about it on this web site, this web sit e is about Vietnam (Carebear land for now).

As an external viewer of your old blog, i can say that your experiences around the world and especially in Vietnam are insightful, they are true and your true experiences, i think that’s a shame to have deleted your blog, that is why i took the obligation to post it back, this is not your idea this is mine. The world needs to know what you have to say, your old blog can be found in the Way Back Machine website for your old URL.

I didn’t read it all YET. But be sure that i’ll read it, your blog is about just before i come in Vietnam back in April 2004, may be we saw each other and didn’t pay attention, not sure who knows.

For those that don’t understand what’s going on here, the category, Toi la Nguoi, comes from an old blog that it’s owner deleted for family reasons, and i took the opportunity to post its archive (whats left of it, i’m sure there’s more than just that) on this website, i know Blog About Vietnam can be hateful, but consider Toi la Nguoi not part of that websites, it’s not my words, its the words of somebody else, someone who has more intelligence than i do, so don’t compare his work to mine cause mine sucks.

Again, this is some great blog that you had my friend, shame you had to delete it, if you feel that i shouldn’t have posted it back here just drop a comment and i’ll delete it all.

Now scroll down and read his stories, that are human and real.

hi everyone.

for those who know what this website used to be, you’ll notice that the online journal has been removed. unfortunately someone within my extended family has been relaying things he’s read, in a very distorted fashion, to other members of my family. nothing bad came of this but i had to remove the online journal to prevent further leaks. older generation Vietnamese-Americans, particularly my parents, may not understand the experience. least of all an experience that can be easily misinterpreted.

i guess this could be a last chance at one final update. since arriving back in America i’ve settled back into what you would call a normal life, dotted with the occasional crazy moments. i miss Vietnam immensely and hope to return someday, even if only for vacation. not a day goes by that i don’t think about all that had happened, the people i met, all that intensity that life has up its sleeve in a place called Vietnam. looking back, that one year and four months spent in Vietnam was the most incredible journey of my life. but it’s time to move on, do the next thing that needs to be done. i hold hope that there will be more (mis)adventures, other amazing people to meet, and chances for stories down the line, regardless of where i’m at. i know i’ll be back in Saigon the first chance I get, though. i’m really sorry i couldn’t keep the blog online as an archive for you all, most of all for myself.

see you all on the flip side.

7/2/05

midnight sun [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 2:41pm
i rush out of the company on my motorbike, screaming metal to pass the time and faces i’ve come to know. going to drink, to forget, to talk about the stupid things i’ve done for the day with one of the few friends i have here. i’ve found suprising comfort in the way i’ve been living for the past few months. no regard for self, i have nothing to my name and when you have nothing life becomes a ferocious rush of experiences. i’ve topped almost everyone in the manner of driving, breaking 60km/hr even on the normal roads now. like someone daring you to do something, you feel like you’ve got to one-up them, beat them at their own game, show that you will not bow down. i live so fast i’m not sure i can keep up with myself anymore.

at the bia hoi, an outside gathering of metal tables and plastic chairs created for the sole purpose of drinking, i sit with three Americans as white as day, among a smattering of Vietnamese people as brown as night. we drop back beers, me occasionally breaking from the conversation to look around at the people i’m so closely connected to, yet so distant from. i was born in the States, had very similiar upbringings to the three Americans sitting around me, yet i feel as if i am an imposter. i should be sitting with the crew of 4 to my right, spending all their salary on beer and cigarettes and the unmentionables.

near us, the silver sounds of a beat-up guitar wafts to my ears and jolts me upright. i look around and see a group of older middle-aged men, a few with guitars. they’ve all got leather skin worn out by the sun, some with scars and minor malformities to accent the rough life they’ve had. the one man that’s singing has a long raspy sweet voice, pushed forward with immense energy by the force of his emotion. he sings a song i know, and my eyes murmur the words along with the lyrics. Trinh Cong Son, a true poet in his time, wrote this song and it haunts me everytime i hear it. the man strums hard and his eyes close, the other men around him sitting and watching, nodding their heads, followers to the great musical icon that is this poor street man. they are all worn down, wearing old clothes and could pass as your average motorbike driver. beer in cheap glass mugs all around, they sit and watch the musical visionary bring his emotions out. there is a sadness in the voice so overwhelming that my heart wells up, my body too limp and too tired anymore to respond. the sadness he sings isn’t just for himself.. it’s for the men surrounding the table, for the people at this small local sidewalk bar, for saigon and the deepness of this country. i want to scream out, shout and sing along, but i cant because i am stuck in my own existence as an outsider pretending to be in the know. i want to take my sadness and release it like this man, let the words and beautiful melody bring it to a place where it is deepened and heightened, become something beautiful, worth something more than just feelings of emptiness. i watch the man’s face, molding into different expressions of pain and loss and love. the bottoms of his eyes are wet and glisten. he is crying.

throughout the night different street denizens approach our table, as they approach all tables, asking us to buy, buy, buy. quick-witted kids with bare feet and unwashed hair hock lottery tickets. one starts hitting my back with a semi-clenched fist, smacking with the noise of a massage. the kids pound peoples backs with a light hammering motion, a quick back massage to get them to buy. they look around, down the street, and in other directions as they ploy their trade. because they’ve seen it all. you’re just another face in a line of faces that will mean nothing to them but a chance at another meal. attractive girls in white and blue outfits come by with a new-brand of cigarettes, trying to sell the promotion that gets you a free lighter if you buy a pack. old women pushing 80 waddle over, dirty walking sticks in hand, with open mouthfuls of black and missing teeth to beg you to buy some lottery tickets.

“please sonny, please buy some for me, i beg of you…” she says in a raspy voice, her eyes yellowed on the sides and beautiful face formed with a thousand wrinkles and a million sorrows. i hand out the money in my pocket, a bit at a time to everyone until everything is gone. i do it in such a way as to make it look like a sale, so the others don’t catch on and rush over. kids with flowers, lottery tickets, men with flashing toys, a man with no feet who drags himself by on a piece of wood.

“hey can you tell your friend his cell phone is hanging out his pocket?” the man without feet says. “if i had wanted to i could have easily taken it. tell him about it, he is a westerner and i cant speak his language, if i point at it he might hit me.” he moves off and i tell my friend. another old woman creeps up to me and begs, please, please buy some lottery tickets for me, in a small and weak voice, so weak that i am lost in it. i tell her i’ll take one ticket and take out 5 times the amount, putting it into her small hands. i tell her to keep it and she smiles, whispering in that soft voice, oh thankyou sonny oh thank you bless you boy, bless you. she pats my shoulders and strokes the back of my head, squeezing my arm hard because now she can eat for tonight. i feel a light sensation on the top of my head, and realize the old woman has kissed me. she shuffles off to another table and i want to break down, scream and flip the table and curse this fucking place and these fucking people and the entire fucking goddamned human race. but all i can do is sit, and incredously tell my friend across the table, “that old woman kissed me.”

a small wiry man sporting a flashy hat, red jacket and matching red pants appears out of nowhere and begins shouting in a wireless microphone. near the curb sits a motorbike with a large and beaten down sound system strapped to the back, seemingly defying all laws of physics. the sound comes out suprisingly strong and resonates with the power of a concert hall.

“hey wasn’t this the same guy that came here last time?” one of the americans asks.

i stare at the small man, who looks like a poor motorbike driver dressed in ridiculous pimp costume, shouting with a musical flair, offering songs and encouraging people to buy the “singer appreciation candy” that is being hocked by a young boy walking around. a man pedaling some goods stops by the curb and watches, as well as the street kids selling their wares. everyone watches this man as he breaks into a folk song, something from the countryside that i rarely ever hear in the city. he sings and his movements seem mimicked from a vietnamese pop video, his hands waving in the air and his brown face expressing the song’s emotions in exaggerated fasion. after a bit they leave on their motorbikes, bringing the ridiculously loud speaker set with them. i wonder where the cops are and how this is possibly legal. the guy pedaling goods by the curb moves off and the street kids get back to pushing their goods.

the night draws near and a small little girl comes up, pout on her street-wise face. she looks to be no more than 5, and upon asking i find out that she’s 8.

“cmon mister, buy these two packs of gum, cmon mister, buy.” she stands and pouts almost angrily, two packs of gum held in her tiny hands.

“it’s 1 oclock in the morning child! why arent you in bed?” i ask her.

eyes down and without looking at me, she replies, “i havent sold all my gum yet.”

the two packs she holds is, in all reality, not the last two packs she has to sell before she can go home. the oldest trick in the book, there are more packs stashed elsehwhere and they only sell two at a time, telling people it’s the last two they’ve got to sell before they can go home for the night. it’s a scam that’s commonly used to bring forth pity and increase the chances of a sale. her mother is most likely sitting somewhere nearby, watching her, ready with a slap if the little girl doesn’t sell the gum. i motion for her to come over and she walks over, still pouting and with eyes pointed down. her face is beautiful, something that would garner cheek pinches and face rubs from adoring adults. like the sun….

“how much for one pack of gum?” i ask her. she mumbles an answer and keeps shaking her head no when i offer 10,000 vnd for both packs, the going rate. i tell her we’ll buy her gum, if she promises to go home and sleep. she nods her head and takes the money, walking off. she’s not going home, and we all know it. i watch her walking off, disappearing among the chatting and drinking vietnamese at low metal tables and red plastic chairs. i try not to think about where the money i just gave the little girl will go. money for her parents, for food? gambling? alcohol and heroin? all possibilities in saigon. the man with the guitar has left, and upon passing notices me watching him. he looks at me and nods, and i nod back. he sits at another table and continues singing, with no exchange of money present. just a song for the night, to share the sadness with all present.

we get up to leave and by now the sidewalk is overflowing with vietnamese people. the local poor, the local rich, gangsters and prostitutes, everyone is out to pass another warm saigon night together, like one large family that knows no limits to its emotions. i want to sing, because i cannot take this sadness, this beautiful horror of a life.

just another song for the night….
Comments (0)

faithless [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 6:10pm
i watch my fingers shake while i hold the computer mouse and lift up my hands. they’re shaking, like they’ve been shaking for the past few months. i stare at them as if by focusing all my energy on the vibrations they’d stop. i fear the night, with the quiet solitude of empty space, and shuffling people. i just want to hear a voice, telling me things will be ok…. that there’s a purpose to all of this.

hanoi in a week, america in two. any roots i had when i left for VN have withered all away and more than the emptiness i fear the discovery that all places hold the same thing: nothing, like the washed away imprints of a storm, a song sung but forgotten. a week has ended and the songs have played themselves through. i wish i can forget…..
Comments (1)
thought steep [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 1:35am
i sit in my chair and fight sleep. 2 hours of sleep, some strange conversations, deja vu, and then shaking hands and meeting with people. where am i? i sit in my chair and fight sleep, filing through email after email. someone knocks lightly on the door of the office and walks in. the other people sitting at desks surrounding me don’t notice much. it’s common, people coming in and giving paperwork or asking about something. the voices come different with each person, different issues, different implications in the business. and then an angry email from management. just like so many other things in the world, people get offended because the truth is told. no one wants to hear the truth. it’s like a cold icicle that slides down the back of your shirt, when all you want is the closing warmth of disillusion.

i beg for the work day to end, because i can’t stand the jabbering that goes on behind and around me. people laugh, joke, flirt, release words that don’t mean anything and ultimately just lead back to themselves. one of the sales guys is hitting on the sales girl, making semi-baby voices and asking why she doesn’t talk to him, how come she talks to the technician instead of him. a secretary wearing an ao dai walks in and sits down, staring at the wall, and then leaves. i look out my window and see a tan wall concrete wall with a small opening carved square out of it. it looks like a painting, this one part of the wall.

the 5pm i beg for finally arrives and everything falls to the wayside. people trickle home. yet the emails keep coming, the people still seek my inexperienced opinions, and i am still at work. it never ends, the things you have to do..

me and short-stout had a falling out. to put it simply he said some shady things about to me to a girl, just to increase his chances of bagging her. totally unexpected, i am left reeling and wondering who the hell i can trust anymore in this world. everyone’s out for themselves.

i sit in the corner and my head begins to feel heavy. my eyes shut off and i pass out in a deep slumber. i wake up 2 hours later, my head on the desk. one of the cousins is chatting on yahoo, random banter to random people. i get up and walk out to a black saigon night and hail a cab, crawling into the backseat while telling the guy the address. got to do some errands. the cab’s a bit rundown, devoid of any light and giving off an earthy impression. with the soft insides of this moving cave, we rumble through the streets among a continual crowd of human beings on motorbikes. the taxi driver reaches down to somewhere near the radio and starts pressing some button. right away i pull myself to the middle of the seat and watch him carefully. in a country where you make your living by skimming off the top and taking where the takin’s good, taxi drivers are notorious for rigging their meters with special “jump starters”. clever setups allow the driver to increase the rate at which the meter runs, or even straight out add money to the fare.

“what are you pressing down there?” i ask him. he throws his head back for a moment before looking ahead.

“oh, that’s just the window control.. see.”

he proceeds to press the button and the windows go down. i’m not all that convinced and watch the meter like a mother watching a sick baby. no more than a minute into the ride the fare starts jumping. it’s rigged.

“hey.. what’s up with the meter,” i ask, “why’s it jumping like that?”

the man is quiet for a few seconds before replying, “it’s 7000 vnd per kilometer. that’s standard everywhere.”

i wait it out and within a minute the fare jumps up again. the taxi turns right, which i know is the wrong direction. the fare is now getting to be ridiculous for a 3 minute ride and i have to stop it, before we end up on the other side of town and the fare’s ridiculously out of control.

“alright, stop here.” i tell him. the guy pulls over.

“it’s 7000 vnd per kilometer.. it goes up like that.”

i don’t respond and reach into my pocket. while the car is stalled the guy presses the secret button and the fare magically jumps a few thousand dong. incredible. i pay him and tell him to give me back exact change. most people who just come to vietnam completely lose their cool when they find out they’ve been ripped off. i’ve pretty much gotten to understand why people do it, and consider it a game. if you don’t know how to play, you’re going to lose some money. it’s the law of equilibrium; you’ve got the money and they don’t. i pull on the door hand, the metal piece nearly falling off in its plastic base, and jump onto the sidewalk. a few motorbike drivers sit on their livelihoods on the corner amidst brown darkness, chatting next to a stand selling food. the stand is a small square of cheap tin metal, glass, and florescent lightbulb. a speck of struggle, diluted with the normalcy of the daily, and displayed for all to see. i see a Vina taxi, one of the two cab companies that doesn’t cheat you. the other is MaiLinh. it’s in decent shape and shiny. i hail it.

soon i’m at a towering 20-something story commercial center, a ritzy upperclass sidewalk cafe spilling foreigners, rich vietnamese, and prostitutes dressed to kill over the sidewalk under the massive square marble pillars. saigon is a cruel mistress because it understands the plurality of existence. haves and have nots, rich and poor, the beautiful and the ugly, they mix in this potent city teeming with the potential like air mixes with air. business, it’s going, money it’s coming, work it’s here to be taken, people, oh the sadness of reality. i can see the motorbike drivers slumped in their dustry jackets on the corners, watching the colorfully dressed elite dine in the warm muggy saigon air, being served by other people. the waitresses bustle from table to table, yes sir, yes mam, anything you want. this is where i must go sometimes for business, and tonight is no exception.

i walk into the bar near where i came to do business, considering a sterile dinner. a quick expensive dinner, because i need something quick and safe to fill up my stomach for tonight. i shuffle in and sneak a seat by the round bar, a few plain girls filling orders for fruit shakes and drinks and all sorts of odd foods for the picky diner moving around. the place is brightly lit, almost like a family restaurant. across from me i see two asian foreigners, throwing back some beers, and to the right an old back-country type American, cap pulled tight over his grey hair. i ask for the menu and order some forgettable dish. just something to get rid of the hunger, and i’ll be on my way thanks. i watch the girl behind the alcohol bar in the corner, laughing and throwing english phrases at people passing by. i stare at the American, because he’s staring at his drink. his hat covers his eyes and for some reason i think it’s a veteran. for awhile i sneak glances at him, watching him nurse his drink and look around as if he’s as lost as i am. in moments i catch him scowling at his drink, a fated and once-murderous silent cry at the brutality of the past, or perhaps the hopelessness of the present. the lips pull back to reveal old teeth and i can feel the hate and pain from here, the furor held back with something profoundly strong. the girl behind the bar says something in vietnamese, smiling mischievously, and the guy turns around and smiles. he’s old, with the wrinkles forming all around his mouth and eyes, but he’s still fit enough to kick my ass. he returns to staring at his drink, his apparent enemy, and resumes the existence of a ghost. this place is full of ghosts.

a jovial waiter breaks my train of thought with his laughter, pouring different mixtures of fruits into spotless glasses for customers somewhere off in the cafe-restaurant. the girls behind the counter laugh with him, playfully offering jokes and him responding just as playful, back and forth like cubs roughhousing with each other. even though they’re years older than me, i find it cute and can’t help but smile. the waiter’s accent is distinctly central, bringing stereotypes of abject poverty and indescribable hardship. what if the tourists and passerby travelers truly saw this country as its inhabitants saw it? would they still comfortably pass through with cliched compliments stuck to their lips? i can hear the smile in the man’s words and am grateful, that i can get something as subtly pure as this in such a sterile and lifeless place. but always, there is the truth of poverty, temporarily drowned out with these bright lights and pristine settings. this is death for me, this utter and confused version of comfort, and somehow, it is where most vietnamese want to end up.

i pay and leave, finish my business, and am back in a cab. quietly we move through crowds of people on motorbikes, children standing and sitting and holding on, wrinkled feet pumping rickshaw pedals, and modern-cut fashion for those that can afford it. we pass the Ben Thanh center, where advtertisements glare from billboards and building roofs. a large video screen running advertisements sits above it all, showcasing to everyone with eyes that vietnam is on its way to modernity, to prosperity and a good life for all. we move past the center and the people continue pouring about me, all the same because they speak the same language and think the same things. but what bothers me most is that they are not all the same. they can’t be, even though they all want to leave this country when i am the only fool thinking i can stay. they say people come to saigon for the work opportunities, and some get swept away in the seedy underlyings of the place. they are pulled into the dreams of the rich west, and suffer for their foolishness with the horrors of society. we pass one of the largest parks in saigon, where i’ve been told by the locals that the area is notorious for junkies and prostitutes. if you’ve got a stolen motorbike then this is the place to get it off your hands. you simply drive up and wait, and someone will come out and offer to take if off your hands for a low price. i’ve been told the couples, who are now lining next to each other on motorbikes, like fish in sardines no more than 2 feet apart from each other, are not completely couples. some of them are pimp and prostitute pairs, seeking their next John. i am told so many things that my head spins with the sadness sometimes, and it’s all so much worse because i’ve seen so many of it with my own eyes. poverty is a poem, and then you face it and live with it, and then it becomes horror.

i don’t have to ask myself whether i’m American or Vietnamese. the discourse comes naturally because i find myself switching between the two languages, a farce in both worlds. i understand enough to enter their world, but not enough to get out.

“do you want to stop here or do you want me to cross the street?” the drivers asks.

“can you cross the street and park to the side?” i reply in vietnamese. i say it like i belong to this place, but the tiredness of my voice betrays the fact that i am not, and never will be.
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people within people, the true face [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 6:20pm
when it struck me
that i’ve been waiting since birth
to find a love that would look and sound
like a movie
[…]
i want so badly to believe
that there is truth
that love is real
and i want life in every word
to the extent
that it’s absurd

a trendy indie-pop song, from a band my sister listens to. you want to express yourself but you can’t, so you look to chewed up lyrics. tired, so tired of everything.

but a smile’s worth a billion suns. give me more, says i, give me more.
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