Category: Vietnam
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Ho Chi Minh & Truman: Part II
Part II of my post from yesterday: http://wp.me/p25YFc-C8 – The second part of this post even talks about Tan Trao, the mountainous headquarters of the Viet Minh which is home to the glorious banyan tree which inspired my third novel, soon to be released. Ho took up the mantle of fighting for Indochinese independence by supporting…
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Ho Chi Minh & Truman: Part I
My new novel coming out in a couple weeks, “The Reach of the Banyan Tree”, is in no small part a by-product of my love for 20th century Vietnamese history. Unlike most Americans who study Vietnam, I became much more fascinated at the 1945 connections between the Americans and the Vietnamese rather than the Vietnam War…
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Happy Vietnamese New Year (and a reminder of Tet ’68)
Chuc mung nam moi! Happy ‘Tet’ everyone. January 31 marks the most important holiday of the year for the Vietnamese. Yes, yes. It’s the same as Chinese New Year, but no self-respecting person from Vietnam who speaks Vietnamese (like myself) would ever refer to it using the name of their northern neighbor. It’s ‘Tet’! For…
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Sit down, drink some tea.
“Sit down, drink some tea.” Never was there such a dreaded phrase if I had a list of tasks to complete, and it’s a phrase I never encounter any more. When I lived in Vietnam, completing ordinary, everyday tasks was sometimes a huge challenge. Getting something fixed or trying to find the right item to…
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Burger King in Hanoi: The End is Near
A friend posted a selfie outside the newly opened BK at Hanoi Noi Bai Airport. Globalization is complete. My Vietnam is dead. I arrived at Noi Bai Airport for the first time on a dark, stormy night in August 1994. My wife, 15 month old daughter, and I were picked up at the airport by…
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Human Experience of the Vietnam War: Full Essay
I had previously posted a portion of this essay about eight months ago. Here it is in its entirety. The only additional thing that I will mention is that the part about the B52 bombers creating craters that swallowed soldiers was exactly what inspired the poignant scene that Martin’s father tells him about ‘Nam in…
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Vietnamese General Giap: 1911-2013
The revolutionary general of the Viet Minh and the North Vietnamese communists died earlier today. (You can check out the slide show of his life on yahoo HERE!) He was the military mind and right hand man of Ho Chi Minh. He dressed in street clothes and a fedora, making an unassuming presence. But his presence…
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East -West Culture: Skin Color & Beauty
Perhaps you’ve seen this graphic spreading around the Internet recently. http://bsix12.com/east-meets-west/ Having lived nearly the last twenty years in Asia, I enjoyed seeing these depictions and understanding clearly the different world views, or better yet, value orientations which these graphics represent. A westerner moving to Asia could learn a lot just by studying and understanding…
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Crispy Vietnamese Noodles and a Memory
As you might know, I live in Penang, Malaysia. I used to live in Vietnam. Not much Vietnamese food in Penang, unfortunately, but plenty of other great cuisine. I was at my favorite hawker stalls the other day (for you locals, we call it “Lucky 99”) and my wife ordered a dish from a Chinese…
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A Simple Way to Compare and Understand Eastern and Western Culture
I was eating at some outdoor food stalls the other day – you know, the kind I can never get enough of – and we saw it, right outside the food stalls, a dad holding his son’s hand as the young boy peed into the rain gutter. Honestly, I don’t see this nearly as much…
Author Mark W Sasse 