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Saigon in da house! Vietnam news are notoriously censored so most newspapers suck (hello, ten pages of optimistic local economy news and AP blurbs). I got most of my Vietnam-related bookmarks at work so I will add more on Monday, but here are two sources: Viet Nam News The Word (HCMC) and The Word (Hanoi)
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Jun 15, 2012 14:52
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ReindeerF posted:(send fresh beer from Hanoi plz thx)! gently caress the North, it's all about the Mekong, baby! Those Hanoi people speak funny and eat dog! I kid, I kid
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Jun 15, 2012 15:28
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Notahippie posted:Also, while eating breakfast with some Indonesian friends of mine in a tent in the weekend market in Jogja, a wandering Indonesian rockabilly group set up and performed Buddy Holly songs at us. So there's that. Was the lead singer also playing double bass? Because if so, I saw them play at the Asmara bar. I really loved Jogja and I will probably have to go back there to train people in a couple of months. Compared to Saigon where I live, there is so much more diversity. In Vietnam, 95% of the guys look the same (pants and polo shirt) but over there in Indonesia it was really heterogenous. Also, I loved hearing the muezzin call every few hours. 
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Jun 16, 2012 11:03
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I just finished reading The Quiet American (Graham Greene) and it's a good fiction set during the Indochina war, just before the Americans involved (which the author kind of predicted, so precisely that he was under surveillance by US intelligence agencies for the rest of his life).
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Jun 26, 2012 15:57
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Wow, didn't hear about these protests until checking this thread, didn't notice anything on Sunday and I was criss-crossing HCMC. I cannot imagine Vietnamese protesting, it must have been so awkward. Granted, it was about nationalistic pride and not complaining about some social issue but still.
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Jul 9, 2012 10:05
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Keep us posted, that stuff's really interesting.
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Nov 14, 2012 15:45
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Way to go, Philippines! This will be very good news if the bill gets to pass in the end.
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Dec 18, 2012 03:57
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Argue posted:I also don't like that all businesses started here (and land, I think) must be partially owned by a Filipino. Is this the case in America? Same here in Vietnam. In a way it's a form of protectionism that might help not having all their resources stolen by foreign companies but it makes it very hard for expats to open a business. Either you marry a Vietnamese or just enter a 51%/49% partnership with a local, leading to a lot of foreigners getting shafted and robbed of their business.
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Dec 21, 2012 04:36
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Modus Operandi posted:Mass purging of the Chinese population was a big thing in Vietnam too and it's pretty much a majority Buddhist country. Most of the Vietnamese in the U.S. are southern Vietnamese and of ethnic Chinese descent. I think they finally ethnically cleansed most of their ethnic Chinese that used to live in Saigon. There are still many, many people of Chinese descent in Saigon. Many people at work have one or two Chinese parents. The Chinese district gets bigger every year (though of course not entirely populated by Chinese). I don't know if you have more info about this ethnic cleansing but I have never heard of it myself. The general sentiment here about China seems to be mild annoyance. The younger generation looks up to Japan, South Korea and Singapore culturally and economically. They know China is powerful and makes tons of things used all around but I don't see or hear any China fanboys. Maybe more in the North where they are closer, I don't know about Hanoi.
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Jan 25, 2013 14:45
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I'm flying to malaysia in two hours. 
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Mar 8, 2013 05:35
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Vietnam is supposed to block Facebook and a few specific blogs from anti-commie exiled Viets. I've never had problems going on FB though. And obviously, the thousands of teens prostituting themselves on Facebook don't have problem accessing it either. It's the scandal of the moment, after it was discovered that a lot of normal girls sell their services through FB, to make extra pocket money and of course the fine Tuoi Tre newspaper even goes on to tell everybody what to search for in order to find hookers or porn on FB.
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May 22, 2013 03:45
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Longanimitas posted:That's some pretty lovely journalism. Christ, are those articles news or advertisements? It's terrible, every morning I load up Tuoi Tre and checks for stupid articles and share them with friends. Every now and then, they will have a small piece of investigative journalism (undercover work on corruption, prostitution or gambling rings) but most of the time, it's hilarious poo poo like this: The mysterious contraceptive leaf: fact or fiction? quote:During a night in a deep forest in Huong Hoa District in Quang Tri, bordering Laos, Tuoi Tre journalists had a drinking party by a cooking fire in a house on stilts with the village patriarch named Ho Pay. After getting high on liquor, visitors began talking about the special leaf.
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May 22, 2013 05:45
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I see a lot of girls wearing lingerie, or at least sexy models, in advertising in Saigon. But then again, the vast majority of young women in the streets were very short shorts/skirts and tank tops/tight t-shirts all the time. Driving around downtown HCMC for 10 minutes is a non-stop "Woah, this girl. And this girl. Look at those legs. And her." I've never been to Hanoi - I assumed it was the same thing (when the weather is hot) but I guess not, they must be more affected by China's conservatism on this issue. The south is more influenced by western culture and fashion I guess. Also, another great example of excellent Tuoi Tre investigative journalism: Men caught prostituting themselves to women.
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May 22, 2013 07:54
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Play posted:Hey man! I'm moving to Vietnam in July and I've got a few questions if you don't mind. I guess some of these questions would be better in the Ask/Tell SE Asia Megathread, it's a more laid back chat between expats and goons planning trips than political discussion. I will be moving out of the country on either July 16 or August 16, after 2 years in Saigon. So if we you want to meet (if the dates match), let's take it to that other thread. The firewall is a joke. I'm torrenting non-stop, that's not a problem. Porn production in Vietnam is illegal but consumption is not - just briefly checking the proxy logs at my office shows a generalized porn use (at work!) As far as I know, the only people who have been arrested because of the internet were bloggers going "too far" in criticizing the Party. About internet itself, a standard good ADSL package is pretty cheap (hell, I get unlimited 3G dataplan for like $2/month) though I don't have details as the 4 apartments in my building share a single connection (included in the rent). I usually download popular torrents at 7-800Kb/sec on average, to give an example. Play posted:Is there a decent english language press in Vietnam, Saigon in particular? I assume it must be censored? It is. People mostly ignore the Politics part of the news, as they are mostly self-congratulating bits ("New $50M deal signed with Sweden", "Rice production up by 15% in First Quarter", etc.) so the news are not that interesting. The most "respected" English news sources here are Thanh Nien, VietnamNet, Viet Nam News and Tuoi Tre, which I liked many times on this page already. Everybody knows they censor anything critical about the Party but I believe most of the actual censorship is on TV: they heavily edit out the tiniest nip slip or love scene and a lot of gory violent scenes. It makes watching, say, Games of Thrones a weird experience. Play posted:do you find them generally to be decent/friendly? Spending a year there am I likely to form strong friendships with locals, assuming I am a friendly person? In general, yes they are friendly. I would say it depends on which context you meet them - touts and anybody selling something in the tourist areas will see any foreigner as walking wallet. Work colleagues, people not trying to rip off tourists and pretty much everybody else will be smiling and polite and interested in practicing their English. Woman will be either super direct (you make eye contact and they give you their phone number) or completely mortified with shyness. You will be able to make friends with locals but the problem sometimes can be the culture gap. Most Vietnamese I know, after a few hours of talking, I don't know what else to talk about. They listen to MTV music, watch the generic Hollywood action movies, don't read much, don't know anything about the world (except the US, Japan, Korea), philosophy, politics, history, etc. I obviously generalize and I do consider myself a bit of a pedant intellectual, but I have barely 2 good Vietnamese friends with whom I can have frank conversations without having to dumb down everything. Play posted:I tried to read about about party politics in Vietnam but I couldn't really make any sense of it. Do oligarchs hold the real power or are they actually serious about their communism? I really don't know much about it. My colleagues and other random locals I have talk to all seem to either hate, despise or just don't care about the Party and politics in general. The current stagnant state of oligarchs/military controlling the key positions for years, giving good jobs to their kids or buddies and all that has made a lot of people just stop caring. I have never felt threatened here but it is advised to thread lightly when talking about anything political here.
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May 22, 2013 11:22
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Blogger arrested in Vietnam because she was handing out copies of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Apparently, she has a history: quote:Quynh has been held by authorities several times in the past for “abuse of democratic freedoms and infringing on the national benefit” after writing damning blog posts concerning China's intervention in Vietnam. ABUSE OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOM!
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May 23, 2013 20:41
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So, Vietnamese are going pogrom style in retaliation for that China vessel that fired a water cannon at a Vietnamese ship. 10 Taiwanese factories in Vietnam set afire during protests Mass protests in many cities Over 600 rioters detained by the police There are also rumors of China sending a missile frigate and fighter jets to guard that "illegal" oil rig. The ASEAN so far hasn't said much about all this. This is all getting quite interesting.
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May 14, 2014 14:12
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Smeef posted:Also, it's only a matter of time before Vietnamese fishermen find a way to steal undersea oiling materials and sell them for scrap while Chinese oil companies wonder how thousands of meters of drill rods disappeared without them getting kick backs. Bonus if they sell the scrap back to China. But yeah, this is totally what will happen.
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May 14, 2014 17:09
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I've lived and worked in Saigon for two years and I haven't met anybody with respect for the government or the party, at work or otherwise. Young people assume the government is corrupt and don't care about communism, they want new iPhones and Hollywood and K-Pop. They are very proud of their nation and everything but I think you're right, most people (I generalize of course - and I was in the south, in a big city, Hanoi or the countryside might be more pro-government) just don't seem to care and want to live their lives as normal modern people.
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May 17, 2014 04:25
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Chantilly Say posted:Here's the arrest warrant (not translated) and description of the guy they're looking for now. Wow, he looks like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:07
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