Every day in another culture offers the frisson of adventure, even if it is merely based on the fact that I am out of my own. Every day there are such a host of peculiar and unusual things going on the heart and mind are continually refreshed with that sense of wonder we too easily…
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Vietnam is endlessly fascinating. Because it is Vietnam of course. But mainly because its people are polite, energetic, entrepreneurial, curious, engaging and well, just Vietnamese. They are charged up about building their country and raising their standard of living in the pell mell pursuit of the West. Fortunately they are not completely corrupted by that…
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With Australians having been intimately involved in the Vietnam War there was a certain hesitancy, a cringe even, on arriving in a place that had once been a battlefield and many of the folk around us considered enemies. Vietnamese have no such cringe. They are out there running just as hard and as fast as…
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If you stop for very long [in down town Ho Chi Minh City(formerly Saigon)] – say two or three minutes – chances are good that you will be tapped on the shoulder by someone wanting to practise their English. This has now happened on the steps of the Opera House, on the banks of the…
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Funny how random things can spark random thoughts. The picture of Spud standing in the rain in Martin Place sparked thoughts over the last couple of days about a good friend I used to serve with. He was an Airfield Defence Guard. For those of us serving in relative comfort in the Air Force he…
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A remarkably evocative clip. Sung by Quynh Anh, an expat Vietnamese living in Europe. Having been to Vietnam I found it an evocative piece of video and music. All the more so for their disastrous past and their passion for the present. The English words contain none of the magic of the lyric French, or…
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Yesterday the Australian Prime Minister of Australia laid a wreath at the site of the Long Tan battlefield in southern Vietnam. It is rightly famous for the Australian infantry who beat off more than 2000 enemy. There are criticisms by Australian veterans about how this battle was forgotten, nay even rebuffed by those in government…
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I have been asked about the reference to Cu Chi in the photo. Cu Chi (“coo chee”) is famous as the site for the tunnels built by the Vietnamese resistance, or Viet Cong, about 45 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Being this close to Saigon they were used to focus attacks into the…
642 total views, 43 views today
