Un Nouveau Malaise

Few comments.

Looking for a job is an annoying business.

Sitting in a park is more fun.


The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is worth a look.





I have run into several French speakers here in Hanoi, and so I have a new kind of headache from conversations in mixtures of three (instead of the typical two) languages. I like this kind of headache.

Playing with my camera at night is a sign that I don’t have enough to do.



Check out this book. Really good. Character definition reminds me of Steinbeck. I like Steinbeck a lot.


"Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity, and surrenders."

"Vietnam is a country of food, a country of skinny people obsessed with eating."

This is a long quote, but I found it way too amusing to resist. Just read it, don’t read into it. This is after the author’s family has migrated to America and is being baptized in the Church that sponsored them.
"I was thinking Grandpa Pham must be looking down on us and smashing his opium pot in fury. I told [my brothers] this meant all our sins were forgiven, but they were jumping up and down, yelling. We’re Americans! I was confused about the whole religion argument. I asked Auntie Dung why Americans go either up or down when they die, but Vietnamese go in a circle. We go up to the sky and stay there for awhile – like Grandpa Pham – to watch over our children, then come back down again for another go on earth. Auntie said you have to believe in one or the other, not both. I said, Huh? But what about this sin thing? Now that we’re Christians, can we really sin and all we have to do is pray for forgiveness and we’re forgiven just like that? Over and over? But if we were just Vietnamese, Mom said we collect our sins like stones in a bucket to be counted when we come full turn on earth again. Auntie said you have to pick one or the other, not both. I said I hope my bucket doesn’t get too full because I don’t want to be reincarnated as a pig and end up skewered on a spit. Auntie said, Don’t be stupid. Still, I felt very lucky to be baptized because it seemed a really good deal."