A few days ago, my roommate and I were riding along the Saigon River on a wide and immaculately paved highway in District 1. The road had two separate lanes; one was for cars and the other for motorbikes, and the traffic lights were configured to account for both types of vehicles. The sides of […]
Ancestor Worship and Governance in Vietnam
My time in Vietnam has opened up a new world of ideas and this has lead my to ask many different questions to how a society can run. I have been most keenly aware of the tensions that seem to be running through society that do not seem to be challenged or questioned by people […]
Short Term Gains for Long Term Strains
Here is a link to my observational post “Short Term Gains for Long Term Strains” regarding the consequences of rapid industrialization on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.
All is Fair in Love and Exercise: Hoan Kiem Park, Hanoi
Before the advent of the Internet, societal consciousness was generated in physical public spaces: on the streets, in cafes, on buses, or in parks. These hubs of human contact were, and in many ways still are, essential for the dissemination of information, for the formation of relationships outside of the home, and occasionally for spreading […]
Making Sense of the Saigon Heat: How the Vietnamese Do Hot Dogs and Basketball
The Saigon Heat is Vietnam’s team in the ASEAN basketball league and they are currently down 0-2 in a best of five playoff series with the Kuala Lumpur Dragons of Malaysia. I had seen a couple of their regular season games on TV but I was still very curious as to what a professional basketball […]
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 […]
The Joy of Sects: The Role of the Churches in Vietnam
Traveling through Hue, I visited a church that became a shelter during the Tet Offensive. Among countless others, Nha Ca was present in the church throughout the massacre. Nha Ca was one of the fortunate ones who survived this tragedy. She did not move on from this experience, but instead chose to retell this story […]
Parks and Recreation: The Individuation of Expression
On my walk through Hoan Kiem Park I began to people watch. I noticed that many people were exercising. This does not seem out of place on the surface. It is a public park, people work out there. But then I began to watch them closer. Their exercising practices seemed incredibly peculiar. I would not […]
Vietnam War, Brought to you by Disney: The Problems of Commodifying War
When I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, I was warned about what to expect. This still does not prepare for what I was about to see. The Cu Chi Tunnels did its best to clean itself from the war and make it into fun for the whole family. There were features that made sense […]
Land Use and Iriaichi: Recognizing Change and Comparing Cultures
The past 10 days were spent in a rural Japanese village on the northern side of Mt. Fuji. We lived in a nearly 200-year-old farmhouse and spent the evenings swimming in nearby Lake Sai, one of the region’s famous five lakes. During our time there we conducted a research project at a number of sites […]