Monthly Archives: March, 2017
OUT OF THE MARGINS :: Disappearing Saigon
It had rained hard for hours, and now the monsoon accumulation gushed through the streets and sidewalks of District 1. I was caught in the downpour while riding my motorbike through the boulevards of Saigon, wide lanes relatively devoid of traffic on this wet working day.
Eric Nguyen Reviews Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith’s ‘The Land South of the Clouds’
diaCRITIC Eric Nguyen reviews The Land South of the Clouds, Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith’s newest fiction novel.Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith returns to familiar territory in...
Multicultural, Progressive, Totalitarian Vietnam
I last saw Vietnam in 2001. Back then, Saigon had no American fast food joints save a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Long-term foreign residents were few, and mostly confined to the Phạm Ngũ Lão area. Now in Saigon, there are 20 KFCs, eight Burger Kings and six McDonald’s, with one across the street from where I used to lived, five miles from downtown.