Shortly after arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to study abroad for a semester I began to notice the plethora of men digging through garbage cans in parks to pull out bottles, cans, and other recyclable materials. Two months later, and my curiosity has only grown. For this reason I chose to write a […]
Get Your Weird On: Hanoi Edition
Members of society can become worked up over many different types of things, be it Americans about Ebola, Kurds about the Islamic State, or Vietnamese about their public space: and when the people become upset, governments usually intervene. The Vietnamese are an old people with many longstanding traditions and practices, their capital city, Hanoi, is […]
Trap Trap Trap Trap Trap
What the fuck is a Vietnam? According to Swedish academic, Victor Alneng, Vietnam is a lot of things. She is yesterday’s news, a tourist destination, a unique culture, but most importantly, “Vietnam is a country, not a war.” (Alneng, 462) After having been in Vietnam for 3 weeks studying abroad, I can agree that Vietnam […]
Vietnam’s Got 99 Problems And The People Are One
On Sunday, September 7th at 6:15am in the small island District Hoa Ninh in the city of Vihn Long, Vietnam I had a very interesting conversation with a man named Ong Vy. I had awoken to a cool breeze generated by a rusty fan blowing air upon my face beneath a mosquito net. There’s something […]
Marketing in the Marketplace
While one should have more than two interactions before fully judging a complex system, I am fully comfortable making the decree that Vietnamese marketplaces are crazier than navigating Bon lines during Admitted Students Weekend. On Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 I joined 12 other Lewis & Clark students, one Lewis & Clark professor, and a Vietnamese […]
Cruising through Vietnam
Cities in Asia As an American, I’ve learned to love my elbowroom. The rolling golden hills and spacious California suburbs are what I call home. Yet soon I will be moving to Asia, which “is the largest region, with 30% of the global landmass and 60% of the world’s population… with 42% of its population […]