South Koreans support Agent Orange victims. A group of South Korean veterans, who suffer from the effects of Agent Orange or dioxin after serving in the American war in Viet Nam, have returned to the country to support Vietnamese victims of the defoliant. In addition to signing the petition for the lawsuit against US manufacturers […]
Three days ago the elderly gentleman from the house across from ours passed away. This means that for the past three days, family members and close friends have been maintaining a 24 hour vigil sitting outside the house in the hem. At night we have been lulled to sleep by the quiet hum of voices […]
Huynh, T.V. Kim is a 28 year old Vietnamese lady who lives with her mother in the Mekong Delta region near the town of Can Tho. Today I met Kim for the first time because my blood is compatible with hers and without it she may have died. You see Kim has what is called […]
When I rode the Vespa out into Nguyen Dinh Chieu St yesterday to go to work, it didn’t take me long to realise that something was not quite right. The Vespa was handling in a very sloppy fashion due to the fact that the rear tyre was partially deflated. Fortunately, in this city that is […]
I guess that for any person living in a country that is foreign to them, certain frustrations must arise from time to time that cannot be easily resolved. This is mostly to due to language difficulties and completely different ways of approaching a situation. Many many such frustrating incidents have happened to us since coming […]
The death in Paris of the renowned thinker Jacques Derrida last Friday the 8th brings to an end a generation of French thinkers from the 1960’s and will further serve to exacerbate the points that Riding makes in this timely article. As societies dumb down and reality shows take over, facile pundits now overrule true […]
It was a great relief to leave the humidity and pollution of HCMC and travel to Da Lat in the Central Highlands 1,500 metres above sea level. Being able to walk in the forest, hear birds and animals and wear a jacket for protection from the cold was sensational. Da Lat is a city that […]
For the latter part of the last semester I have been suffering from a dose of laryngitis and my voice has been crackly and almost on the verge of disappearing at times. This is problematic when you are teaching, but symptomatic of the profession I guess. Yesterday I traipsed myself off the doctor who recommended […]
Last Saturday was the Australian Rules Football Grand Final played at the MCG in Melbourne. We planned to have a quiet day watching the game live on television at Cafe Latin, but their satellite connection was down. Instead, we opted for the more expensive and opulent all you could eat and drink Grand Final buffet […]
I’ve added a new album to the Image Gallery. It features motorbikes or other two wheeled vehicles that I see getting around this country. There are some classics around and as I capture them I will add them to the album. Click on the thumbnail to go directly to the motorbike album.
Hmmm… definitely a good deterrent this… September 21, 2004 Tuesday 3:39 AM GMT A Vietnamese woman has been sentenced to death for attempting to traffic heroin to Taiwan, a court official said Tuesday. Nguyen Anh Minh, 36, was arrested on July 29 last year at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport while trying […]
I have been meaning to post these updated philosophical discussions for some time now, and finally I have done it. The Index page is here Or go directly: Stoics added a vital ingredient to our understanding of selfhood. What Heidegger Means by Being-in-the-World. A discussion in relation to the 'Discourse Ethics' of Jurgen Habermas. How […]
Tom recognises my return to the Hoa Binh (Peace Village) and relates an interesting but sad tale about the effects of Agent Orange on the workers who loaded and sent the deadly dioxin from Gulfport, Mississippi to Vietnam. When will the effects of this chemical ever end? The sad answer is - perhaps never. Agent […]
This comes under the category of “It could only happen here”. This afternoon I walked to end of my Hem to our friendly neighbourhood travel agent to book a couple of return tickets to Da Lat for the weekend. It was 1.00pm and I had been busy marking exam papers at home and I was […]
I visited the children at the Peace Village this morning with Simon and Phuong and it has prompted me to include this article in my Weblog. Simon is in charge of RMIT Melbourne’s overseas programs and has been up here on a fact finding mission. Phuong lives close by to our house in Vo Van […]
Today is the anniversary of the death of Ho Chi Minh in 1969 and is a public holiday in Vietnam. It has been proclaimed to be National Day. When I arrived home from work yesterday, every house in our Hem was sporting a Vietnamese flag (click on thumbnail for a larger image), except ours of […]
