A Tunnel in Time

Europe’s choice is to surrender or die.

By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

Alastair Crook, a retired British diplomat, has stated that the European Union is preparing a provocation on a scale comparable to Pearl Harbor, with the aim of drawing the United States into a war with Russia.

In principle, this is not news. We have been writing for two years that the British, realizing that Ukraine has failed and will be buried, have placed their bets on a pan-European war (under the auspices of the United States) against Russia. While Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was trying to figure out who he was and how he got here, the mechanism for expanding the war was clear: a provocation in the Baltic Sea (less likely in the Black Sea or on the Belarusian border), which would leave Russia with no chance of resolving the crisis without shooting, and an outcry about the “attack” to the country of the EU and NATO, a statement of military support (sending troops and equipment, but without a formal declaration of war against Russia) by the leaders of the EU. In the last act, the United States and Britain enter the scene, demanding that Russia cease fire and threatening to provide all possible support to their allies.

I would like to point out that the mechanism of provocation assumed that in all cases, Russia would initiate military action against a specific country. Moscow, on the other hand, was only faced with the choice of whether to attack the Baltic states, which had blocked Kaliningrad, or to hope for a miracle, sink the transports carrying French and German troops and equipment bound for the Baltic ports, or to express protests, attack the territories of the United States and the United Kingdom in response to their ultimatum, or to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations mediated by them. In the end, acquiescence inevitably led to capitulation (since as soon as one set of demands was met, the West would immediately set forth another), and escalation inevitably led to a global nuclear war.

It is no coincidence that Trump claimed that Biden was leading the country towards a nuclear armageddon. Whether Biden was aware of his actions or was being manipulated by his entourage, the decision-makers in the United States (as well as the majority of the British establishment and the European bureaucracy) believed that Russia would not engage in a nuclear conflict and would retreat. However, there were other politicians in the West who had no doubt that if Russia was pushed to the wall, nuclear mushrooms would grow all over the West – no one would leave without a share. These people came to power in the United States with Trump, and their supporters are gradually pushing back against the European left-liberal supporters of war.

As a result, the United States fell out of the scheme, and Trump openly stated that if Europe wanted to go to war with Russia, it could do so on its own, without the United States. It’s not that the Europeans were particularly eager to go to war, but rather that they couldn’t help but go to war with Russia, as acknowledging defeat in the Ukrainian crisis would completely undermine the left-liberal European elites. To understand why this is significant, it would have political, economic, and social implications on a scale similar to those that shook Russia after the October Revolution and before the outbreak of World War II. The Europe we know will disappear, and a new Europe will be born in agony, compared to which the 1990s in Russia were like a light rain during a summer picnic.

But the Europeans also can’t go to war with Russia. They don’t have the armies, the warehouses, or the ability to quickly deploy the necessary military production. Without the United States, the EU is a paper tiger. Although no, a paper tiger is scarier than the EU without the United States. This is why Alastair Crook emphasizes that the provocation must be so severe and widespread that neither Trump nor other American and European politicians who support de-escalation can avoid going to war with Russia.

By the way, as a loyal subject of His Majesty, Alastair Crook does not mention Britain’s leading role in developing this plan and preparing the provocation. The blame lies with the EU, which intends to drag the United States into a war with Russia, while the United Kingdom simply passed by.

It’s understandable. Most likely, the provocation is unavoidable. The British and the European bureaucracy can’t help but try to seize their last chance. I once wrote that nothing would stop them. They might even detonate a nuclear device in Kyiv to blame Russia. However, the Ukrainian government is not fully in control of the situation. The internal opposition to Zelensky, unable to oust him yet, is attempting to preserve at least some form of Ukraine by pushing Zelensky overboard.

In such a situation, the preparation of a large-scale nuclear provocation, which requires deep secrecy, is extremely difficult, as hundreds of people must be involved in its organization (transportation, storage of the relevant munition, its transfer across the border, security, and other activities cannot be carried out without the involvement of a large number of people). Even if you simply replace the customs officers and border guards at the border with trusted individuals, it will immediately become widely known that something large and secret is being transported.

However, recently, the Ukrainians and the British have started practicing a naval provocation, attacking tankers from any country carrying Russian oil. Russia has already begun responding to the Odessa port and the ships arriving there. In principle, the British Navy and its Ukrainian counterparts can organize a “Lusitania” (with influential Americans on board). However, it is more difficult to prove Russia’s “guilt.” As Poland’s experience shows, it is no longer enough to simply claim that Russia wanted to blow up railway tracks and cause a major disaster; convincing evidence is also required.

Actually, this is the catch: how to organize a provocation in such a way as to shake the imagination of “all people of good will”, and provide “convincing evidence” of Russian “guilt”, and not inherit anywhere, and leave the United States no choice? The task is difficult, but, as experience shows, it is solvable. If British diplomats (even retired ones) start issuing warnings and distancing themselves, it means that the preparations for some large-scale atrocity have entered the final stage or are basically complete, and the London warmongers only need to give the command to launch the operation.

In principle, the supporters of escalation don’t have much time. By March, even if the Armed Forces of Ukraine don’t completely disintegrate and Zelensky still controls some part of Ukrainian territory, Trump should withdraw the United States from the Ukrainian crisis and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America. Moreover, he has announced the beginning of a military operation against Maduro in Venezuela in the near future. If the British and European bureaucrats let the United States out of the Ukrainian crisis and allow it to get involved in others, it will be impossible to bring it back. Washington cannot afford to run around the world like a mad rabbit, and it cannot handle two or three major crises in different parts of the world, either organizationally, resource-wise, logistically, or financially.

In the West, they like to coincide political actions with traditional holiday dates. This way, they are better remembered and evoke more emotions. We are just entering a period of holidays: Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Epiphany. In general, from mid-December to the end of January, almost any day is suitable for the organizers of provocations. All they need to do is manage and dare.

After February, although the danger will not disappear (it will not disappear until a final global settlement is reached), it will significantly decrease, and the further into 2026, the lower it will be.

Venezuela Sit Rep: the reason for the struggle

Verily, it is Victory or Martyrdom. 

Venezuelans have a “true sense of belonging to a project worth saving.. This is a project of collective self-emancipation. .. Those who are committed to the Bolivarian revolution assume themselves as subjects of transformation, not as victims. And this is something to be reckoned with.”

Video Description:
“I’m joined by Cira Pasqual Marquina, author and educator at the Pluriversidad Patria Grande and co-host with Chris Gilbert of the Marxist education program and podcast Escuela de Cuadros.
I ask her:

• how are Venezuelans seeing this buildup?
• What is the analysis of the regional context?
• Why is the US doing this now?
• What the Venezuelan revolution is really about
• And some speculations for the “day after” the US attack happens”

≈≈≈

Cira Pascual Marquina interviews at Venezuelanalysis.

The Imperialist Offensive is Nothing New for the Bolivarian Revolution’: A Conversation with Ana Maldonado

A Chavista organizer examines the US militarization of the Caribbean and the Bolivarian Revolution’s enduring resistance to imperial aggression.

In recent months, Washington has stepped up its military presence in the Caribbean, sending warships, aircraft, and even a nuclear submarine to waters near Venezuela amid extrajudicial attacks on fishing vessels. For many, this new phase of aggression is all too familiar — part of a decades-long campaign of hybrid warfare designed to undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty.

In this context, Cira Pascual Marquina spoke with Ana Maldonado, a sociologist, international relations coordinator for the Francisco de Miranda Front—a national Chavista movement—and member of the Venezuelan chapter of ALBA Movements. In this interview, Maldonado offers her perspective on how Venezuelans are experiencing the latest imperialist escalation, reflects on the country’s long resistance to hybrid war, and situates the current threat within the broader struggle for sovereignty in Latin America and the Caribbean.

How are the Venezuelan people experiencing this new imperialist escalation?

President Nicolás Maduro has said that in this scenario of maximum pressure, our response must be maximum preparation. At the same time, he has called on us to combine vigilance with calm, to continue our daily lives, and to defend the peace with social justice that has cost us so much to build and preserve.

You can see this clearly in the fact that, even amid the current military escalation, the new school year began normally across the country. More than 20,000 educational institutions opened their doors without disruption, and over six million children and youth returned to class, as they do every year around this time.

While we are indeed facing a serious threat of war, people are also carrying on with their everyday lives and that, in itself, is a victory, since the enemy seeks precisely to disrupt our life.

People abroad are often surprised to learn that daily routines here continue undisturbed and that Venezuelans are not living in a state of panic. How do you explain this?

This is far from our first encounter with imperialist aggression. The tactics may shift, but the strategy remains unchanged: hybrid warfare. For years, US imperialism and its allies have waged a relentless campaign against Venezuela, beginning in earnest in April 2002 with the coup d’état and the people’s heroic counteroffensive that restored democracy. That was followed by the oil sabotage, mercenary incursions, and global media campaigns against our democracy.

After Comandante Chávez passed in 2013, a new and sustained period of aggression began. Initially, they bet that we would fail to hold peaceful elections or that President Maduro would never be elected. The dominant narrative was “Maduro is not Chávez.” With that simplistic argument, they sought to demoralize the Chavista social base, implying that the Bolivarian project would not withstand the loss of the Comandante. Yet we won the elections and, even as we mourned Chávez, the project continued.

But the US and their local agents were determined not to let us go on with our revolution. In 2014, the opposition launched a violent campaign called “La Salida” [The Exit], led by Voluntad Popular and María Corina Machado, the same factions now openly calling for foreign intervention. The following year, the United States took another war-like step: Obama’s 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

That decree was followed by the 2016 economic strangulation, marked by deliberate shortages aimed at making everyday life unbearable. Ten years later, we remain under a blockade that has killed tens of thousands.

In 2017, the most extreme factions of the opposition returned to the streets with fascist violence, committing atrocities such as the burning alive of a young Black man, Orlando Figuera, targeted simply for looking like a Chavista. More than 100 people were killed during this period of intensified fascist terror.

President Maduro responded by calling for a National Constituent Assembly, once again raising the banner of peace and democracy in the face of fascist violence. People from all sectors, including residents of middle-class neighborhoods whose polling centers had been attacked, were able to vote in peace at the Poliedro de Caracas.

Since then, we’ve lived through multiple phases of hybrid war: Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation as “interim president” in 2019 and the “Battle of the Bridges,” when the opposition attempted to stage a false-flag operation on the Colombian border under the guise of a humanitarian aid effort. That was followed by massive blackouts that left the country in darkness for days and the 2020 Operation Gideon, recently further exposed in a Max Blumenthal interview with its US organizer, Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret.

None of these were isolated incidents: they are coordinated fronts in a sustained hybrid war combining political, psychological, economic, and military aggression.

Yet, in each of these moments, the government and the organized pueblo have responded effectively. During the 2019 electrical sabotage, for example, communities mobilized to ensure access to water and basic needs, while Operation Gideon was defeated by the same fisherfolk who are now being attacked in the Southern Caribbean.

So, to return to your original question: yes, people are alert because the threat is real, but we are also seasoned and organized. We know we are capable of defending the Revolution with unity and discipline. We are in a phase of maximum preparation, with millions voluntarily enrolling in the militia and preparing for the defense of the Patria [homeland].

Indeed, people are not only enlisting in the Bolivarian Militia but also preparing collectively. You’ve given us a historical account of the attacks faced by the Bolivarian Revolution over the past 25 years. But as we know, the current military buildup in the Caribbean is not only against Venezuela: it is an attack on the continent. How do you understand its broader implications?

The imperialist onslaught on the Caribbean is nothing new. Haiti, still punished today for its revolution more than two centuries ago, remains under siege. Now, armed gangs tied to the Dominican Republic are also involved. Puerto Rico continues to endure capitalist dispossession, with five million Puerto Ricans now living in the US while barely three million remain on the island. All the while, revolutionary Cuba has faced a brutal blockade for many decades.

However, the recent imperialist military buildup should deeply concern the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, since it signals a shift in Washington’s military policy. Around 10,000 US troops are currently stationed in the Caribbean, mainly in Puerto Rico, to say nothing of the destroyers, nuclear submarine, and air force deployments.

They are not there only to threaten Venezuela; this is the revival of the Monroe Doctrine. As Trump once said, “Why pay for Venezuelan oil, if we can just take it?” That’s how they think about the resources of the continent.

When it comes to Venezuela, beyond seizing our resources, the US also aims to strip away our sovereignty and destroy the example that we represent. If our project succeeds, it will inspire the entire continent. From Canada to Patagonia, people are struggling for liberation, and the Bolivarian Revolution represents a living example of how that can be done.

Attacking Venezuela serves two purposes: to loot our resources and to extinguish the example of participatory democracy. Since 2021, Venezuela has experienced renewed economic growth and the strengthening of its communes and popular power.

That is precisely what Washington wants to halt: they fear that the peoples of Latin America, and even within the United States, will draw inspiration from our experience.

Why the military escalation at this particular moment?

Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” is itself an admission of decline. The US is no longer what it once was, and its elites are desperate to recover lost ground. Yet even within those elites, fractures abound between the neoconservatives, the Zionist zealots, and the MAGA bloc. Their internal contradictions often produce erratic foreign policy decisions.

However, on one point they all agree: war is profitable. The military-industrial complex remains central to sustaining the US economy. So even amid domestic tensions, there is a bipartisan consensus around war as business.

Before the recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels, President Maduro warned that they might attempt to recreate a Gulf of Tonkin incident, because their hunger for war is insatiable. He was right: this aggression is ultimately driven by the economic imperative of feeding the war machine. In a post-Cold War world, it survives through perpetual “hot wars”—and what better front than Venezuela, which is rich in resources and defiant of imperial domination?

Let’s close with Chávez. He declared the Bolivarian Revolution anti-imperialist in 2004, but in truth, it always had a sovereign and anti-imperialist character. Could you reflect on Chávez’s anti-imperialism?

Indeed. The formal declaration came during a historic rally at the Botanical Garden in 2004, but the Revolution was Bolivarian from the start, and Bolívar himself was profoundly anti-imperialist. He warned that the United States seemed “destined by Providence to plague the Americas with misery in the name of liberty.” That same spirit lives in our revolution since day one.

Chávez revived Bolívar’s anti-imperialist legacy as early as 1977, when he created the People’s Army for the Liberation of Venezuela, whose founding document enshrined Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism as guiding principles. Later, in The Blue Book [1991], he outlined the vision of sovereignty and dignity that still guides us. President Maduro calls that text a “historical compass” pointing us steadfastly, no matter how much we have to maneuver, toward our strategic goal: the defense of sovereignty and the rejection of imperial domination.

For us, being anti-imperialist means not only refusing to surrender our resources, but also defending our identity, our dignity, and our very being. The empire’s elites belong nowhere; they want the world to belong to them. We, by contrast, define ourselves by belonging to a land, to a pueblo, and to a history.

That is why even symbolic aggressions, such as the attempt to erase “Bolivarian” from the Republic’s name during the 2002 coup, or mocking us as “venecos” in an attempt to erase our identity, are part of the war.

Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism are also deeply rooted in your organization, the Frente Francisco de Miranda. Can you tell us about it? 

Indeed. In 2003, Fidel and Chávez founded the Frente Francisco de Miranda as a movement of Bolivarian, anti-imperialist social workers. However, anti-imperialism isn’t limited to my organization; it’s in the bloodstream of millions of Venezuelans who have resisted International Monetary Fund impositions since 1989 and continue defending the Bolivarian project today.

To be Chavista is to be anti-imperialist. Chávez was the first Latin American president to recognize Palestine, to support the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and to speak of our historical debt to Haiti. His backing of these and other liberation struggles was not just a matter of words but also about material support. He also linked the defense of Haiti to a history that, for him, didn’t begin with Pétion and Dessalines, but with Hatuey, the first known hero of an anti-colonial Caribbean rebellion.

That is our Chávez—the anti-imperialist Chávez—whose legacy continues to guide us!

≈≈≈

Cira Pascual Marquina is a Political Science professor at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas. She is also co‐producer and co‐host (with Chris Gilbert) of the Marxist education program Escuela de Cuadros. She is actively engaged with grassroots organizations in Venezuela and abroad, and is dedicated, both as a militant and as an investigator, to communal initiatives.

Slices of Nepal, #4

“The whisper turns out to be a touch. We are all so bereft of friends and companions, especially those among us who have lots of ‘friends.’”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Lalitpur, 10/25/25

Rather Not Be in New Youk! — Oct 26, 2025.

Going from Phonsavan to Luang Prabang, I sat next to an Italian lady on the mini bus. Bumping along on narrow roads with many switchbacks was exhausting. “Now, I’ve seen all of the mountains in Laos!” she blurted near the end. I’ve already told you about Coredo, the owner of Dok Mai Lao Trattoria in Pakse. If I stay anywhere enough, I’ll hear Italian on the streets. At Kathmandu, I just met Marco. His town of Cesenatico, population 15,000, I had never heard of. The closest I got was Bologna. Marco, on the hand, had never heard of Certaldo, where I spent two years.

We did joke about Prato. “Is it 100% Chinese now?” I asked.

“Yes, it is!”

“That’s amazing! It’s a historical place. Dante wrote about it. Empoli, too, must be filled with Chinese.”

Since the tourists who come to Cesenatico for its beaches are nearly all Italian, there isn’t even a fish and chip joint for drunken Brits. Not even the dubiously named Sloppy Joe’s serves it.

I’ve heard people complain about American, British, Israeli, Chinese and Indian tourists, but never a bad word about Italians, or Japanese. In Vũng Tàu, the many Russians are quiet, family orientated folks who never cause problems. Power English, owned by an Australian, won’t hire them, however. He’s bought into the Putin as the new Hitler propaganda.

Lalitpur, 10/25/25

Chinese are very visible in Kathmandu. Amrit Street, in particular, is lined with Chinese restaurants. They’re spilling into Laos and Cambodia, too. Around Thamel and Paryatan, Africans are often seen. Nepal Coffee Hub is their favorite spot. In only its fifth season, the Nepal Super League has seven teams. Each has African players. They come from Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are also black players from France and the UK. With Nepal ranked 180 out of 211 nations, how long before a non Nepali-speaking foreigner is naturalized? Everybody else is doing it. Vietnam’s star striker, Nguyễn Xuân Sơn, is a black Brazilian born as Rafaelson Fernandes. You think his mama calls him Sơn or Rafaelson?

“Ma, I’m Sơn now! Stop speaking Portuguese to me!”

As Hitler points out in Mein Kampf, citizenship in modern times is no longer a question of blood, but bureaucracy.

Yesterday on Mahankal in Boudha, I saw an interesting poster, “YOU NEED A CHANGE? GET A NEW HAIRCUT.” Predictably, all four models were white. Who would want to become some dark skinned, malnourished Dalit?

Since the late 14^th century, the Pode have been in charge of sweeping Kathmandu streets. Even today, most are Pode. Many, though, have moved up into the world, primarily through education. Though poorly paid, sweepers I’ve seen weren’t underfed. One I photographed yesterday was positively chubby. Her red T-shirt read, “TENDER EMBRACE / Affection / LOVELY.” Since most adult Pode can’t even read Nepalese, she probably just liked its two hearts and a ribbon. They live in Dhalko, which I’ve roamed through often. It is not a slum.

Lalitpur, 10/25/25

One can also remake oneself by wearing high heels and mini skirts. An elagant and gorgeous young lady I saw at Thamel and Paryatan had some writing tattooed boldly across her pale décolletage. Strolling back and forth, she didn’t seem happy. More comfortable was a squatting chick in a red vinyl jacket and leopard print pants in too thin a fabric for that weather. Like me, she was drinking a chai from a streetside vendor.

There were three Nepalese men, clutching each other. The best and most confident looking was in the middle. The other two looked nervous, if not scared. They were out of their element. More loaded and usually beefier, foreigners commanded more attention. Defeated natives could head home to clutch drive themselves.

They are so unlike their American sisters. In Camden, I would run into Amanda. Each time, I was surprised she was still alive. Once, I gave her money for a bus ticket to her aunt. Of course, Amanda used it to buy heroin. Seeing her writhing on the sidewalk another time, I had to give her $20 just to ease her obvious suffering. In a filthy lot behind an abandoned, boarded up house, she injected, but not before taking a piss. She already smelled like shit, I swear. Smacked, she smiled immediately, then wandered away singing. It was cute. “See you later, Amanda!” Her prematurely wrinkled belly bore stab wounds from some youth who was just bored. They do that to Camden whores.

Stories like that don’t make sense to Nepalese, or Vietnamese. In Lalitpur yesterday, there was young man taking a selfie with his phone. He wore a T-shirt with the Manhattan skyline. “NEW YOUK,” it said.

No thanks, I’d rather be here, Vung Tau, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Busan or even Manila, though the last has a shocking number of filthy homeless, like many American cities. Among East Asians, Filipinos are most Americanized.

Soon, I won’t see 4 Square again. If Sumitra is here when I show up around 6:30AM, there’s the same repetitive hymn to Ganesh on the TV. It’s like Ravel’s Bolero without the jizzy climax. The only variations are the slightly different choruses. Cheerfully, it bounces along. Every so often, there’s an eight bar flute interjection. Even decades from now, I will likely hear this in a dream.

It’s already a dream, Kathmandu, and it’s not over yet. Thank you! Now, I will run outside, simply because I’m allowed.

Kathmandu, 10/26/25

Dog Whisperer at Fire Café — Oct 27, 2025.

Yesterday on Amrit, I noticed a coffee shop that seemed old fashioned, but not in that spiffed up retro way meant for snobs. Modest and quaint, it would have fit on any American Main Street. Its presence in Kathmandu was certainly usual. I walked in.

It suspect it’s a converted tavern. On high stools at the bar, three people were staring at phones, though one, a beefy older Oriental, was also chatting with two men at a table. The tiny waitress wore a red shirt, blue pants and Converse canvas sneakers. Her hair was much shorter than any woman’s just outside. The barista had on an “Australia” T-shirt and jeans. Only the cook and dishwasher was dressed like a Nepalese. My black coffee was too strong to be an Americano. Almost an espresso, it was still served in a mug. You’d never see that in Italy. I imagine Nepalese come to Chikusa to be transported, I don’t know, to Ohio or Nebraska?

I’ve proudly become the dog whisperer of Kathmandu! If there’s a dog cemetery here, I want to be in it. Sitting at Café de Fire, I have two dogs at my feet. Sniffing me out, they’ve come in from outside, and I’m five yards from the door. Suddenly, a man approaches my booth to chase them out. Gently kicking them, he whispers, “Pejo! Pejo!” Get the fuck out, then, is my first Nepalese word!

Kathmandu, 10/26/25

In Philly, I drank at bars not just in my neighborhood, the Italian Market, but in Point Breeze, Bella Vista, Kensington, Devil’s Pocket, Port Richmond, Olney and many more. Each bar was a different universe. I got to know a bunch pretty well. In Norristown, I was almost beaten up by three guys, one white and two black. Though I was loud and momentarily obnoxious, I didn’t deserve such a welcome. Plus, three against one?!

Though I had become very comfortable writing at KTM Burger and 4 Square, I’ve also strayed into many other Kathmandu cafés. Yesterday was my first time at Fire. Walking in, I was greeted by a middle-aged drunk who shouted, “Sifu! Sifu!” That’s Cantonese for “master,” mostly of kung fu. Those Norristown assholes were lucky cops showed up to save them from this sifu. I did escape into a store to avoid a trip to the emergency room.

Don’t tell me you don’t know shit about Nepalese indie rock?! Swar rules! No hymns to Ganesh here. On the screen is a bearded guy, a laborer, courting a sweet country girl. Sitting side by side in idyllic settings, they smile shyly at each other. One day, she disappears, leaving only a note behind. Running onto a dirt road, he finds her riding away in a tuk tuk. Though I can’t understand a damn word, I can see that she’s dressed like a bride, with a golden septum piercing dangling. Draped in white and gold, she’s radiant. Collapsing, bearded motherfucker has tears streaming down his dark face. It’s a timeless plot. In Vietnam, too, there are all these poems, songs or just stories about losing your girl through marriage arranged by her parents. They don’t want your sorry, three-bucks-a-day ass, man!

Though untouchables were traditionally tasked with singing and dancing, all the singers and musicians on Fire’s screen are just too cool looking, with perfect outfits and hair. All these country chicks are also too clean. There is realism in depictions of wet markets and dark, impoverished dwellings. There’s also violence, including, just now, an implied rape. There can never be too much realism.

One of the dogs has returned. Stray ones are fed here. What they lack is love. Only in cheesy songs do humans admit to craving the same. The very word is uncool. We all know who are the coolest people on earth. Even cool, though, has become uncool. There, assholism is now coolest.

Kathmandu, 10/26/25

On the screen, there’s another couple gently courting. Sitting on a pristine hill to stare at mythical, perfectly shot mountains without trekkers and their tons of garbage, they hold hands. Now, she’s on a bus, looking devastated. Moving from village to city is also a universal theme. With opportunities come separations, often from yourself even. She cries. Everybody cries on Nepalese music videos, at least in Indie ones, with their gentle, melancholic melodies.

Demanding touch, these dogs often nudge their head, insistently even, against your leg or hand. As I’ve said, they don’t look at your face. Though demonic enough to these dogs, we have hands.

On the way here, I passed Lulu Lunch Bar. On its lit sign was a white chick holding a goblet of red wine. On her blonde hair was a straw boater hat. She tilted her head just right. Further on was Palace Dance Bar, with another white babe, this one with a Union Jack bikini top over her boobies. With Nepal landlocked, most folks here can only dream of the ocean. Even without near naked white chicks, it must be paradise.

Leaving my dog friend, I will go have a hot chai in the semi dark. For 21 cents, I will buy it from a colorfully wrapped crone. What a quaint, old fashioned word, just like grocery in America. Once, it evoked smiles instead of pain.

Kathmandu, 10/27/25

Change to Die For — Oct 27, 2025.

Life is a battle royale with eight billion hysterical bipeds punching, kicking, clawing, nunchucking, mugging, seducing, hair pulling, fucking, mostly badly, gladhanding and grifting each other. One by one, they die. Some can prolong their stay in this mayhem by ducking or squatting below the fray. Hoisted way above from cradle to grave, the luckiest can shit on everyone at the bottom. In a smugly blighted country, millions think that’s hilarious as they wipe royal diarrhea from their upturned faces.

No matter how many times I’m reincarnated, my Mariners will never make it to the World Series, my Sonics will never reappear and I will never be printed again, not even on toilet paper. Left alone, I will become so pure and focused, dog wisdom will seep from each pore. I won’t even have to bark.

By any measurement, most of us are losers or, to put it more politely, unchosen. I dedicated my first book, Fake House, to the unchosen. Just more proof I was born a Nazi or at least a white nationalist.

In Kathmandu, there are large signs outside highschools with recent graduates. Each is listed in order, with their grade point average displayed. The 47 boys and girls at Amrit Boarding School begins with Rajanish Khanal, with his awesome 3.96, then ends, most miserably, with Samikshya Baniya, with her toilet bowl dwelling 2.89. The shittiest, though, aren’t even on here. They simply failed.

Samikshya is the prettiest. Perhaps she couldn’t study because she was so attractive? I know the feeling. Dogs won’t leave me alone.

Again at 4 Square, I just ran outside to catch a man pushing his old, beat up bicycle loaded with plastic basins, soap dishes, utensil holders, dustpans and soccer balls. Attached to his handlebar was a blaring speaker. Just as in Vietnam, few hawkers hawk any more. Lullabies, too, are mostly dead. Most babies would rather listen to “Johny, Johny, Yes Papa” or “Baby Shark.” Though composed in India and South Korea, they are in English. Everything local is diminished. The plasticware peddler had a professorial demeanor. Nearly everything could have been.

Just now, I joked with Vimal about going into one of those no name eateries to ask for an apple pie or enchilada! Laughing, Vimal explained that those green curtains are traditional. Now, they can come in more colors. Since eating out was considered ostentatious, they hid those inside.

Kathmandu, 10/27/25

During last month’s protest, Lalipur’s Ullens School, walkable from here, was burnt. This is not entirely shocking when you realize its monthly fee for high school kids, $300, is roughly thrice a common laborer’s wage. As for lunch, “The food committee finalizes school menus, and meals are prepared in our modern kitchen by trained staff under the direction of a professional chef.” No dark rooms behind green curtains there.

Yesterday, Vimal made me an excellent lunch of buffalo stew, curried potatoes and basmati rice. Slices of cucumber and carrot added much needed coolness. I didn’t even pay $3. Just now, I asked Vimal to make me whatever. As a traveling foreigner, I’m already privileged, I fully understand. When I told Mrs. Seven I was flying to Nepal, a country she had never heard of, she asked if I would buy my ticket at the airport?

You do what you must with what you have.

My flight back to Saigon has been delayed by more than nine hours, with that extra time in Guangzhou. Since it will be night, who knows if it’s worth it to head into town?

Just flying is a privilege, now winding down.

Online, there are all these videos of enraged passengers, mostly Americans. Each aspect of their society is breaking down. After Trump’s $300 million ballroom is completed, they’ll be free to glimpse it, all lit up, from a quarter mile away, at least. Unlike Nepalese, they will only burn their neighborhoods down.

It’s all good, actually. Washington Post on 10/25/25, “The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.”

The White House, too, must change, “Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness.” As a Third Worlder happily stuck in the Third World, who am I to argue, so evolve away! Change is good. You’re the change you’ve been dying for.

10/25/25 (L): Lalitpur ; (R): Kathmandu

New Babel — Oct 28, 2025.

Those five or six people who bought my Blood of Soap may, or may not, remember its first story, “Prisoner with a Dictionary.” In it, a fool tries to teach himself a new language by studying a dictionary, the only book he has. Many pages are missing, however, for he has to wipe himself, after all. Keeping his ass somewhat clean is much more important and urgent than feeding his brain, and he’s not even doing that, unless you consider any mental exertion, no matter how idiotic or wrong headed, useful.

Since I can’t possibly be more stupid than one of my characters, today I confidently picked up Dor Bahadur Bista’s Fatalism and Development: Nepal’s Struggle for Modernization. Already, I’m halfway through, as proven by a most convincing photograph. This wasn’t easy, I tell you, since I had to guess at every word. I wasn’t even sure those squiggly lines were words.

My immediate mastery of Nepalese made me think of a prisoner, described, I’m pretty sure, by Primo Levi. Since I read If This Is Man at least three decades ago, I can’t recall all the details. Levi’s fool read books in languages he didn’t know. Trapped in a concentration camp, this brainy idiot was surrounded by those whose languages he couldn’t quite understand, or at all. To overcome his despair, he studied these relics, symbols or icons of civilization. Maybe there’s no such fool in This Is Man.

Those Jews from across Europe were forced to build a carbide tower whose top were “rarely visible in the fog.” Levi, “Its bricks were called Ziegel, briques, tegula, cegli, kamenny, mattom, teglak, and they were cemented by hate; hate and discord, like the Tower of Babel, and it is this that we call it: Babelturm, Bobelturm; and in it we hate the insane dream of grandeur of our masters, their contempt for God and men, for us men.”

Towers of Babel are attempts at globalism, no? The United Nations and World Economic Forum are Towers of Babel, and so is English. Marxism, too, obviously.

All the gods must be enraged at Uncle Sam, Klaus Schwab, George Soros, Bill Gates or whoever else is trying to be god. Notice how white they are! That’s why humanity is blessedly divided into Vietnamese, Chinese, Nepalese and South Africans, etc, with each group fragmented much further.

Starting this article at KTM Burger, I sat within earshot of a Brit and an Italian. Speaking English, they were talking quite comfortably about the political situation in each other’s country. How many Americans can name Mexico’s president or Canada’s prime minister? Even before the European Union, it’s no big deal for any Italian to have visited adjacent France, Switzerland and Austria, or Spain, too, with its language similar enough, he could figure out shop signs and menus. Despite this relative cosmopolitanism, he was well aware of how distinctive Italians were. They have fought against all their neighbors many times, and each other, too. Florence, Pisa and Siena used to war among themselves, and they’re all in Tuscany.

The Italian at KTM Burger was a retired doctor. In his caravan, British for “trailer,” he spent months in North Africa. He gushed over the sweetness of Moroccans. After Nepal, he will head to Sikkim. Though belonging to India, it’s ethnically distinctive. With periodic unrest, foreigners need a permit to enter. Assam, too, is Oriental. Assamese I met in Bengaluru and Chennai were delighted to see me. Beaming, each blurted, “We look the same!”

To a Pennsylvania crowd in 2024, Trump said of Biden, “Did you ever hear Shakespeare? He was ‘hail and hearty and well met,’ but he wasn’t a smart person.” The Donald didn’t just mess up “hail-fellow-well-met,” it sounds like he’s declaring Shakespeare stupid.

This year in London, Trump intoned, “A fifth of all of humanity speaks, writes, thinks and prays in the language born on these isles and perfected in the pages of Shakespeare and Dickens, Tolkien and Lewis, Orwell and Kipling—incredible people, unbelievable people like we have rarely seen before and probably won’t see again.” A fifth is 1.6 billion. Only 373 million on earth are native English speakers. Those who speak or write a passable English, like the Italians, Nepalese or Brazilian I’ve met in Kathmandu, don’t think or pray in it, Donald. They do so in their mother’s tongue. What do you expect, though, from a man who mentions Tolkien in the same sentence with Shakespeare and Orwell? It’s a safe bet he’s read none of them. Trump’s stupidity and crassness reflect at least his supporters’.

Halfway through this article, I paused to say goodbye to Vimal. He’s leaving for India this morning, so won’t be at 4 Square when I show up in about an hour. As a Teli Gangauta, Vimal was in the middle among castes. In the US, he’s dark enough to pass as a black American.

In Tennessee 30 years ago, I found myself in a nearly all-white county. An old lady explained, “We do have a doctor. He’s not really black, he’s something!” The guy was Indian. I have an uncle who worked as a doctor in a rural, all-white Texas town in the late 70’s. In a US that was much kinder and sweeter, they treated him fine. Leave it to Beaver, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy were on TV. From planet Ork, Mork had to be an illegal alien. He’s played by Robin Williams, who committed suicide at age 63 in 2014. Those days are over.

As Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam, Williams goofed most memorably, “What is a protective dike? Is that a large woman standing by the river saying, ‘Don’t go near there!’ […] Don’t go down to the river! Stay aware from there!” Those days are certainly over.

Kathmandu (L): 10/27/25 ; (R): 10/25/25

So full of shit and themselves, stupid people are painfully unfunny.

Tossed into a Communist concentration camp, Hà Thúc Sinh was beaten up by an interrogator who insisted he was a spy. The proof was all the books this ARVN had published before the Fall of Saigon.

“If you’re not CIA, you must be CIB!”

The thug didn’t mean it as a joke. Recounting it years later, only Hà Thúc Sinh and his readers laughed.

Levi, “The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the manner of living here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning. No one has time here, no one has patience, no one listens to you; we latest arrivals instinctively collect in the corners, against the walls, afraid of being beaten.”

This world has always been a perpetual Babel. To avoid being beaten or killed, it’s best you understand all shouts, threats, orders or hints. As just guests passing through, travelers are much indulged, especially if they speak good English. It’s an empowering, nearly magical, language. Tomorrow morning, it may be Mandarin. Already, it has 990 million native speakers. Hindi and Spanish, too, have more native babblers than English.

As for listening to your own language, spoken by those who look exactly like you, few, now, have the patience. More are becoming atomized and deranged. Grubbing and scrounging beneath burning towers, we’ll enter a New Babel.

Now, I’ll go back to Fatalism and Development. Can’t say I agree with all of Bista’s conclusions.

Kathmandu, 10/28/25

Cursed Red Ogres With Kissing Toes — Oct 29, 2025.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be flying over China. I haven’t made up my mind whether to explore Guangzhou a bit. By the time I’m sprung from the airport, it’d be at least 8PM, so 9 when I get downtown, assuming everything goes swimmingly. I’m already exhausted, and stumbling.

Several more times, I nearly fell down. My sandals are too loose, with its soles too smooth. They provide almost no traction. Going barefoot nearly always in Vung Tau, I didn’t notice. I’m no longer adapted to footwear, simple as that. Over two weeks in Nepal, I’ve only seen two similar savages. One a girl of about 2, the other a whore with the arm of some drunken Korean around her neck.

It’s cold and drizzly today. Walking to 4 Square at 4PM, I recited out loud lines from “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock.” Reading it at 18, I thought this poem ridiculous. Its self-pity made me laugh.

Careful to not fall into the gutter or get whacked by a swerving Royal Enfield motorbike, I moaned most earnestly,

“I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I’ve heard the mermaids singing each to each. I do not think they’re singing to me.”

This morning I spaced out over two hot chais at the Shree Gha Vihar, my favorite spot in Kathmandu. The bigger Boudha Stupa has many more shops, restaurants and tourists. Shree Gha Vihar is quiet, though magnificent enough with its Tibetan temple and Tibetan monastery. There’s always a blue tub of water set out for the swarming pigeons. A four story high school and a Mongolian restaurant face this square.

Here, people string up five or six hot peppers over a lemon to ward off evil spirits. As I pondered one such display, an old beggar came up, so I gave him some money, not much. Since his English was rather good, we chattered. Deciding he’d make a great guide for the next hour or so, I invited him to breakfast. Mutual exploitation is fair trade.

Kathmandu, 10/28/25

Fading out, I had to stop, so it’s 2:49AM on the morning of my (final) departure. Walking to Fire, I took my sandals off, to let my semian toes breathe and, more importantly, grip the gravel. Conquering Vietnam in 204BC, the Chinese named it the Jiaozhi Commandery. Zheng Xuan (127-200AD) explains jiaozhi [交趾] as having your toes turned towards each other. They’re nearly kissing. It’s like playing footsie with yourself, but involuntarily. Soon as you sit down, your toes go at it. This exegesis is mine, of course, not the honorable Zheng Xuan’s. Even today, Vietnamese have no problems believing their ancestors had feet funkier than monkey’s. The Chinese also called us 赤鬼. 赤 is just red, but 鬼 is either ghost, devil or ogre. As an adjective, it means cursed. Vietnamese, then, were cursed red ogres with kissing toes. We still are. If you have a problem with that, I’ll go Philly on you, motherfucker! Compared to us, New Yorkers are acrylic painting faggots who must stare at cardamom buns all day long. They can’t even afford them. Tastykake rules!

Walking in, I thought I heard Rod Stewart, but it’s just some Nepalese guy with a prominent mole on his face. Before I lose all threads to this narrative, my life and the state of the world, let’s return to that beggar.

Since we were already outside one of those nameless eateries with just a curtain, I suggested we enter. Inside, there were three chubby women sitting at a table facing the entrance, preparing food. Two other adults were busy in the background. It’s a tiny space. You’d expect them to be startled at seeing me, not the other guy, but they looked at him with shock or annoyance. After some words, we walked out. No one smiled. Something was wrong.

Three minutes later, we reached a similar eatery. Though people were already chowing away, we got a similar reception, as caused by my instant buddy. Leading us out, this stern looking dude wanted to steer us to another eatery, perhaps one that served untouchables? Red ogres with kissing toes would also be welcome. Philly fuckheads, too. Nothing could go wrong.

Ignoring our tout, I said, “Let’s go this way instead. I know of places.” Didn’t I say I felt at home here? Everybody in Kathmandu already knows me, man, and I’m going through libraries in Nepalese. I have entire books memorized. Soon enough, I’ll write some. Soon, we reached this green curtained dump, a place so low-class, no one had ever been refused, I was convinced. Still, our bhado or bhikhari wouldn’t walk in. You’ve got to be kidding me. Were we destined to fine dine inside a bus station toilet?

Most reluctantly, we entered Temal Khaja Ghar. Though dumpy enough, it had a name, plus 17 photos of dishes and drinks on its sign. Beneath each was a name in English. Again, the owner and cook glared at Bhado, let’s just call him that. Still, he allowed us to sit down. Seething in his dark, tiny kitchen, visible through a window, he cooked our thukpa. Again, Pico Iyer wouldn’t touch such shit, nor would V.S. Naipaul. In Bengaluru, I sat next to a westernized Brahman at lunch. Though I asked many questions about her life, she showed zero interest in me. My teeth alone indicated I was low class. It didn’t matter we were featured writers at the same literary festival. I was just lucky this tense, stiffly buggered chick didn’t espy my kissing toes.

With amusement, I told Saroj at 4 Square about that morning’s incidents. When I showed him a photo of Bhado, Saroj immediately blurted, “He’s Indian!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, one hundred percent.”

“So they hated him because he was an Indian beggar?”

“Of course.”

A barista no older than 25 chimed in, “We have many Indian beggars here.”

Kathmandu, 10/28/25

From India, Nepal receives cheap goods and produce which it can’t compete against. During the just completed Tihar festival, all those marigolds had to be imported from India, even though Nepal has better weather for growing such flowers.

Going to Saroj’s shop to buy snacks for the regulars at Coffee Seven in Vũng Tàu, I noticed just about everything packaged was made in India. Yak cheese, a Himalayan delicacy, was locally made. It’s a bit like gouda.

Naipaul on cheese, “It was a delicacy in India. Imports were restricted, and the Indians had not yet learned how to make cheese, just as they had not yet learned how to bleach newsprint.” Uppity enough? It’s from his An Area of Darkness, published in 1964.

In Alexandria, Naipaul was so annoyed by its Oriental chaos, he retreated to his Greek freighter two days early. He preferred his cabin to the baffling and invigorating life outside.

The further East you go, the more misshapen the humanity, according to Naipaul, “The physique of Europe had melted away first into that of Africa and then, through Semitic Arabia, into Aryan Asia. Men had been diminished and deformed; they begged and whined.”

Belonging enough, I will now walk outside in happiness and gratitude. Like you all, I’m nearly out of here.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Nepal, #3

“Suddenly, there were more cars, fewer shops, little foot traffic and no history. The car, television and, now, cellphone make being nowhere not just possible, but desirable.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Kathmandu, 10/22/25

Could Have Been, Can Be and Will Be Much Worse — Oct 22, 2025.

Should have rung one of those bells five or six times for divine protection! At least it happened near the end. Today, I walked many miles without having the faintest idea where I was going. Done this countless times in too many cities. You must trek through the most boring or, hell, even deadliest parts to understand any place. If all you see of Philly are Center City, Old City, Society Hill, University City and the Italian Market, you have no idea what locals must go through.

Having experienced spectacular temples, awe inspiring stupas, exhilarating street markets, quaint courtyards and tiny, picturesque shops, today I got a numbing taste of Kathmandu’s newer quarters. Suddenly, there were more cars, fewer shops, little foot traffic and no history. If not for those colorful mandalas on sidewalks and Nepalese scripts on some signs, I was hardly in Nepal. Wandering around such a neighborhood in Busan years ago, I nearly thought I was in California! The car, television and, now, cellphone make being nowhere not just possible, but desirable.

On one street, there were all these job placement agencies for Japan. One large sign had a three-tiered pagoda and a sweetly smiling babe in a kimono. Similar teases exist in Vietnam. Sent to Japan, you might never see such a chick. Still, a monthly salary of 250,000 rupees ($1,775) is inducement enough. In Kathmandu, a college graduate makes just $213 a month. For a general laborer, it’s $103. Renting a basic room in town is already $50. With wages so low, it’s even more incredible there are so many smiles, and so few crimes.

Employed at 4 Square, one 17-year-old must walk three hours daily, six days a week. Sometimes, he gets a ride on a motorbike. He can’t even afford a bicycle.

With English classes expensive, few can learn. Those who do try to work abroad.

I didn’t even know I was just north of Thamel. Seeing two goats outside a butcher’s shop was encouraging, though. Just above them through an open window were mostly defleshed skulls of their kind, plus a young female of my kind, smiling. Until it’s our turn to be decapitated, everything is hilarious, or at least interesting. Soon after, I saw my first temple in maybe an hour.

Kathmandu, 10/22/25

As hope returned, I suddenly pitched forward. On the ground, I looked back to see one of my cheap sandals flung many yards behind me.

“Sir, are you OK?”

“I’m fine! It could have been worse.”

“You scraped your knee!”

“I’m OK. Hey, you sound American!”

“I am.”

“Where are you from?”

“Utah.”

“I used to live in Philadelphia.”

“I actually live here! I’ve been here for 13 years.” She’s a white woman around 55-years-old.

“How do you like it?”

“I love it!”

“Do you have family here?”

“I’m my entire family!” She spread her arms out, palms up.

“Now, I know why I fell down.” I was getting mystical. “I fell down so I could meet you, an American, with your interesting story!”

“You’re such a nice man. You fell down because you were trying to get out of my way.”

I’m not sure I did that. I do try to walk on the traffic side when seeing a woman. Here as in Vietnam, people often stray onto streets. Today, I stepped into a gutter. Out of politeness, I gave her a wide berth, perhaps. It could have been much worse. There was some dark blood on my left big toe, but no real pain. In ruined Beirut, I stepped into a broken grate. My leg could have been sliced open.

Sitting in 4 Square at 2:15PM, I’ve been hearing for half an hour loud banging on drums and cymbals from youths on passing trucks, or just marching by. It’s the fourth day of Tihar. Tomorrow, maybe they’ll shoot rockets into hotel room windows. I must be ready for anything.

With no clear boundaries between spectators and participants, this is nearly a carnival. Before it got cleaned up, with its finale moved indoors, Philly’s Mummer Parade was also carnivalesque. Rulers prefer parades. You’re not supposed to do anything but watch. One nation even has “free speech zones” where the ignored are caged.

The best jobs here are government sinecures, as dispensed by a higher-up relative. Running your own business is also an attractive option, but there are so many of all kinds already. On this limited planet, mouths are still multiplying, so wars, riots, lootings and famines are baked in. Even among mild and dignified Nepalese, there’s trouble ahead. For now, they will still dress up, smile brightly and celebrate.

Today, Vimal has on a Celtics jersey, number 5. That’s Kevin Garnett. Looking for cheap apartments in Boston, Vimal was steered to Roxbury, but one quick look told him it was deadly, “I’d rather sleep at the train station.” As a teen, Malcolm X lived in Roxbury. Did you know that “Hold it, brother!” were Malcolm X’s last words?

Now, two girls no older than twelve are chanting, with one holding a bamboo tray with a burning incense stick jutting from a banana, marigold petals, a colorful piece of paper with magical writing and a sort of donut, but thinner and larger. They’re trick or treating, basically. Having given money to so many kids already, the barista ignores them, so they move on, perfectly cheerful.

Still fat enough despite everything, I, too, will move on.

Sacred Stones, Dogs, Mud and Even Men — Oct 23, 2025.

All that racket yesterday was also to celebrate the Newari New Year, Mha Puja (self worship) and Gai Puja (cow worship). Ratopati informs us, “The cow is revered as mata or mother by Hindus […] Modern science has also proved that indigenous breeds of cows absorb the energy from the sun and the moon in their hump which is transmitted through milk to humans.”

Only indigenous breeds, mind you. Hump on that for a while. Three days ago was Kukur Tihar, or Festival of Dogs. Surely, I qualify. Must come back next year to be honored, with a bindi, at least. To expect a marigold garland is already vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Shit, man, I’m getting my religions confused.

Petting that old black dog at KTM Burger, I couldn’t help but think of Nọng and Milk Cow back in Vũng Tàu. They’re washed with human shampoo by Mrs. Seven at least twice a week, then blasted with a hair dryer. I’ve warned her about parching their skin, but do you think anyone listens to anyone? We’d rather die stubbornly stupid and proud.

Speaking Vietnamese to KTM Burger’s dog, I murmured, “So pitiful! You’ve never been washed!” On his forehead, there was a red trace from the bindi applied days ago, during the Festival of Dogs, of course. Once a year, this filthy beast is dabbed with kumkum powder. That’s what it’s called, I swear.

Last week was Jazzmandu. My hipster days over, I wouldn’t have checked it out anyway. Once, I sat in bars to listen to Wynton Marsalis and Mickey Roker. I also caught Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Art Pepper, Charlie Rouse, Johnny Hodges, Benny Goodman and, most memorably, the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Lester Bowie was evil! Last time I gushed over jazz, a moron jumped in to protest, “What about great white music?”

White worship of Jewjerked Trump is too appropriate for a society too stupid, degenerate and ignorant to honor its own heritage or recognize what’s best about itself. They’re worshipping a rapist of white children as purveyed by a Jew! Just as bad, they’re fine with his destruction of the Heartland. Anti-Trumpers can’t wait to vote in another Jewjerked puppet.

Not even Germany is so hopeless. It still has enough cultural relics to remind Germans of who they are, and of their greatness. Nepal, too.

Americans are mostly indifferent. Twice, they voted in a culture wrecker.

Erecting his vanity project, Trump Tower, this philistine moron ordered the razing of the Bonwit Teller Building, an Art Deco masterpiece. At least René Chambellan’s bas reliefs and Otto J. Teegan’s entrance grille could be saved, it was hoped. After promising them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Trump simply destroyed them.

Teegan, “It’s odd that a person like Trump, who is spending $80 million or $100 million on this building, should squirm that it might cost as much as $32,000 to take down those panels.” It’s not odd at all. Destruction is how this eternally insecure fool flexes his power. Trumpers seethe at uppity, coastal liberal words like Art Deco, masterpieces or just “art,” so yes, tear it all down.

But what about great white music? Whiggers like Forgiato Blow and Stoney Dudebro are certainly carrying the torch. Dangling his noose, literally, is JJ Lawhorn. Sucking hardest, though, must be Kid Rock. As a yellow outsider, I can’t keep up with so much greatness. You tell me.

Spending two years in Certaldo, particularly its medieval section, I felt, viscerally, each day, the importance of cultural depths, and I’m feeling the same in Kathmandu, except for yesterday, when I strayed into its more modern, thus sterile, neighborhoods. The worst architectural school ever was the International Style, with offshoots like Brutalism or Soviet Modernism just as nasty. Art that isn’t rooted in the local displaces the soul. This is irrelevant if you don’t think art matters at all.

In 2018, the Met returned to Nepal a 10th century standing Buddha and a 12th century stele. In 1996, Britain repatriated 19 artifacts. Thousands of masterpieces were also looted by whites from India, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Cambodia, etc. At least they never bombed Nepal. In Palestine, Jews have long used white bombs to destroy even churches, including some of the oldest ever built. MAGA Christians don’t give a fuck. They have freakish pastors like Paula White-Cain to fulfill their spiritual needs.

Those with means can also fly to the Jewjizzed Holy Land. Kevin Barrett, “In a bold move to resuscitate its genocide-battered tourism industry, Israel’s Ministry of Tourism announced a new initiative this week: ‘Get Baptized In Jewish Spit.’ The project aims at bringing American Christians to Israel so they can be rapturously soaked in the only fluid that’s holier than holy water: pure, fresh, kosher, locally-sourced 100% organic Jewish saliva.” That Satanic outrage will end soon.

Here a week, I haven’t even tried to reach Lalitpur, not five miles away. Hot chai, dirty dogs, radiant smiles and calming squares are more than enough. That’s because I’m bathed in collective memories, echoes and ghosts. Here ancient stones are so alive, they’re smeared with food.

Kathmandu, 10/23/25

Worried Looking Girl with Bills and Green Glow Worm — Oct 23, 2025.

On the fifth day of Tihar, you’re supposed to go home and have lunch with your family, so nearly all stores and restaurants were closed. Though those Chinese joints on Amrit and Jyatha were open, I just didn’t feel like wok fried dishes, yellow noodles or braised chicken skeleton. After a nap, I decided Bueno Burrito would be a great choice. Walking there, I thought about how quintessentially American is Tex-Mex, as is the Mission burrito, born in San Francisco. Jazz, too, is the best of the USA, and no narrowly defined black or white music.

At 4:30PM, Bueno was still closed, so I bought a short story collection by Anjan Adiga, a Nepalese-American writer. I want to write an American writer born in Nepal, but there’s no bio in Leech. Sitting on steps outside shuttered stores, I read. After just a few pages, I could tell Adiga is excellent.

Without his heritage, plus emotional and intellectual investment over many years, I’m just groping, obviously, but travel writing is like a drunken incel being shoved into a whorehouse. As long as he doesn’t run out immediately in terror, we have stories.

With almost nothing open, I decided to try Zaika Biryani Center on Gangalal. Entering a tiny, skanky room on the second floor, I shared a table with two guys. One was the only other foreigner. Not only that, he spoke a fluent American English. We chattered.

Fifty-nine-years old, Marcos is a Brazilian who’s been just about everywhere. This is his third time in Nepal. He’s also spent four months in Vietnam over two visits. We talked about Đà Lạt, Nha Trang and Vũng Tàu. His first time here was in 2005. Nepal was much poorer then, Marcos told me.

“That’s good to hear, so the country has improved.”

“All of Asia has gotten richer,” he chuckled.

As for the USA, where Marcos spent many years, we agree Trump is collapsing its economy on purpose. One motive, obviously, is for his oligarch buddies to buy up all the farm land from MAGA peasants. Those who haven’t committed suicide, that is. Survivors can keep their red hats. Trump and his pals are also raking it in through market manipulations. Then there’s his bitcoin racket. It’s too funny, really.

We laughed over Trump’s 40 billion dollar gift to Argentina, and over China buying soybeans from Brazil instead of the USA. We discussed the growing power of BRICS. Marcos knows what’s up.

Kathmandu, 10/23/25

My chicken biryani was only so-so, but at only $1.78, I can’t complain. It came with one boiled egg, and there was a pitcher at the table. Without cups, you’re supposed to just pour the cold water into your mouth, with the spout not even an inch from that unclean aperture. Though not quite correct, it sounds better than hole or orifice, God forbid.

Though Marcos had vowed just one week ago to never drink alcohol again, I said he must try the excellent Gorkha Beer. Perversely, he admitted to being fond of bia hơi. Brewed overnight by whoever felt like, it became popular in northern Vietnam during the worst years of Communism. Though without kick or character, it’s still being served.

Wandering around, I stumbled onto a Czech restaurant, and a Chinese owned hotel called Vienna!

In an Adiga story, “High Heels,” a young woman has reinvented herself by finishing high school against her mom’s wish, moving from her village to Kathmandu, getting a job at a bank, dabbing herself with Lakme Elegant perfume and wearing red high heels. Most radically, she has become a Christian. Nine pages in, her mentor, Father Matthew, is already betraying impure motives. She, though, has the hots for Binod, a handsome and confident coworker. On their first date, he admits to finding Christian women “bold.”

With six more days here, I have plenty of time to finish this story, or the whole book even, but when traveling, one should spend as much time as possible reading streets, landscapes, bodies and faces.

Just typing this, I’m not doing that, but that’s the paradox of trying to capture reality. Writing, you’re no longer living. Converting all this richness into words, I’m reducing, if not caricaturing, everything. Each second is modified, enriched, complicated or contradicted by the next.

Today, I photographed a small girl in a vermilion top with a neon green glow worm. Holding some bills, she looked worried. Behind her was a man and a boy, each with a disposable surgical mask, of the type made ubiquitous during the Covid hysteria. Why weren’t they caned for not keeping a social distance? Deprived of oxygen, their modest IQs approached zero. Their muffled conversation sputtered one syllable at a time, punctuated by pauses minutes long. Since a photograph is already a translation, I’m translating a translation.

Don’t curse me, though, for shrinking so much into so little, for a postage sized Kathmandu is still better than nothing.

Kathmandu, 10/24/25

No Plunging, Scoop, Halter or Sweetheart Necklines — Oct 24, 2025.

It didn’t take long, did it? Halfway through their first lunch date, Binod said to Sarita, “I have a lot of respect for you, for how far you’ve come in life.”

On the way back, they had to duck into an old temple to escape a heavy rain. Suddenly, this young Christian woman was trapped in a dark, “dismal place,” with even “the stench of uncollected garbage” wafting from an adjacent alley. The only other presence was a statue of Kali, that frightful blue faced goddess with her four arms, red tongue, sword and garland of decapitated heads. Still, Sarita felt safe.

Adiga describes her delusions:

In him there was a hidden capacity to care, she knew it. 
She wished she could take him to church. 
They would kneel and pray together. 
She was now completely sure that the church was the guiding force he needed to turn his life around.

Besides being a spoiled only son, Binod was a lost soul, a sinner. She was destined to save him. He interrupted her noble musing by putting his hands on her shoulders. Sarita’s wet cleavage made her irresistible. This detail indicated, further, her Western orientation. We already knew by her red high heels and tube of Fair and Lovely. Always in her purse, it made her whiter, though never white enough.

Before Sarita knew it, they were kissing, then his hand somehow slipped beneath her bra to squeeze her naked breast. Ignoring her protest, he kept going, but at least they didn’t copulate. In shock, Sarita asked to be dropped off before reaching the bank.

Clearly annoyed at being thwarted, Binod sneered, “Your mole is disgusting.” Patiently seducing her many days before, Binod said it looked like “a tiny juicy grape.” Even her mom thought it resembled a tumor. Sarita fancied it nearly a nipple. This mark of shame became her naked turn on, she desperately hoped. Binod spat at that notion. Born elsewhere, Sarita could just remove it.

Kathmandu, 10/24/25

I’ll read the rest later. Looking up, I see three young men. One wears a baseball cap with “MARQUETTE.” I’m sure he doesn’t know what it means. One is listening to his phone. With porn banned, there’s not much to look at. The last, in a hoodie and jean jacket, is staring at revelers just outside KTM Burger.

At another table is a black man focused on his magical screen. Perhaps 30, he’s alone. Besides TikTok recorded laughter, I can also hear extended dialogues in English. Unlike others, he didn’t go to the counter upon entering, but only ordered a can of Carlsberg and a chicken kathi roll when approached, finally, by an employee after about 20 minutes.

Elsewhere, more young men stare at phones. I’m sure all of them wouldn’t mind a bold, westernized woman, even without otherworldly cleavage throbbing or bobbing. It’s cool enough for a jacket or hoodie. In my short sleeved áo bà ba, I must ignore the weather.

One tallish man with long hair has a girlfriend. He’s wearing a fluffy white and gray fleece hoodie over a shockingly red long shirt, however. Even Sarita wouldn’t try to save this guy, much less a true Western woman. Of course, it’s presumptuous to think he’d even want one, just to see, taste and smell what it’s like, you know. I must disagree with Alberta Hunter. You can certainly tell the difference after dark.

Displaced, you can be so wrong even when you’re dressed perfectly. A female, though, is always welcome, if only for a hit and run. If willing to spend, even the most repulsive can get off. A five minute stroll down Pattaya’s Soi 6 will amply prove this. It’s bad enough in Vũng Tàu.

Quality of whores varies so much, though, with the richer, more prestigious countries offering the worst. Worse than selling one’s body for half an hour or an hour to endless creeps is to be chained to one. Melania often looks disgusted. Ivana wrote about being raped. Once permanent residency is gained, millions book.

In “High Heels,” silver-haired Father Matthew is creepy enough. Fleeing from Binod, Sarita took a taxi to Saint Mary’s Church. It didn’t sound like her ordeal was over.

Finishing this at 4 Square, my right leg went dead, so I hobble outside. At 10:15AM, it’s sunny and warm, with, as usual, a constant stream of pedestrians. There’s not a cleavage in sight. No plunging, scoop, halter or sweetheart necklines. One dips just enough to show collar bones. That’s it.

Around 4AM, I passed four drunken youths, including one woman. Pissed at somebody, she flipped the bird, the first I’ve seen in eight days, and I’m out constantly. Though dressed casually in the American style, she showed no cleavage either.

As a Kami, Sarita was elated to discover she could read the same bible as anybody else. There are 1.5 million of her kind in Nepal. Though caste-based discrimination was abolished in 1963, you can’t mold or regulate anyone’s heart.

10/25/25 (L): Kathmandu ; (R): Lalitpur

Why Not Hitler Fashion? — Oct 26, 2025.

A regular at 4 Square is Saroj, a shop owner in his late 40’s. Though his brother has lived in Boston for 20 years, Saroj hasn’t been able to visit him. Applying for a visa recently, he was rejected. Saroj worked eight years in India, so speaks good Engish, and he has traveled to Hong Kong and Bangkok. An avid bicyclist, he’s also in great shape, so looks every bit a successful and well fed middle class person. Still, Trump won’t let him in. After three months, Saroj will try again.

When told of my time in the USA and Europe, Saroj looked startled for a second. I was just sharing my experiences of NYC, London and Paris, to say those places aren’t like in the movies or popular imagination. “Everywhere I go, I want to see the regular neighborhoods, you know, the more boring ones, because that’s how normal people live.”

This was my response to a visit to the Buddha Stupa. Saroj hadn’t just insisted I see it, but phoned a motorbike guy to get me there. More interesting for me, though, were all the blasé streets I saw on the way. After that stupa, which was indeed spectacular, I had a better time checking out the area. There was Ramsterdam Café, “where hippies meet.” That fabled Kathmandu isn’t just mostly gone, it was hardly there in the first place.

Freak Street and Dharma Path, where Pico Iyer hung out, is as alien to most Nepalese as Phạm Ngũ Lão and Bùi Viện to Vietnamese. That Saigon pocket with its whores, pimps, weird cuisines and bars is known as Phố Tây, or Western Streets.

Even now, most residents of Kathmandu would find this passage incomprehensible:

I had the best enchilada of my life on Freak Street, and the chocolates in the stores seemed to have been sent special delivery from the heavens. As for the pies for which Nepal was famous, they exceeded even their reputation. Soon I established my own sacramental ritual: disappearing several times each day into the dark entrances of cafés—not just Mom’s Health Food Restaurant and Aunt Jane’s, but also Tibetan, Chinese and stateless restaurants—in order to devour extraordinary apple pies, almond layer pies, orange cakes, fruit cakes, lemon pies and more apple pies.

It’s telling that Iyer never mentions momos, choila, khaja, thukpa, sekuwa or even dal bhat, Nepal’s national dish. That’s what most people eat here, man, not lemon or apple pie! They have never heard of them, or enchiladas! Most wouldn’t dare walk into Mom’s Health Food Restaurant. Its name alone sounds expensive.

(L): Busan, 3/29/20 ; (R): Taiping, Malaysia on 7/19/19

The cheapest eateries here are dark, tiny places without a name. You enter through a curtain. Most have no English menus. Yesterday in Lilitpur, I noticed a barefoot girl about three flinging dirt outside Mo:Mo Cha and Stick Food Café. She had on a dirty pale pink top with two smiling cats. Catching me eyeing her daughter, this large woman came out, but not to chase me with a stick or knife. Smiling, she urged her kid to say hello. Her cheerfulness invited me in. If there was no menu, I would just ask to see what she had. I had done this in various countries. Point and you shall receive.

There was a menu, just one, with “Momo Magic and Stick Delights!” on the cover. Its plastic lamination was peeling off. Its wire binding was all awry. Without knowing what “Buff Khaja Set” was, I ordered it anyway. It turned out to be a buffalo stew, choila, with curried potato, peanuts, chickpeas, pickled vegetables and crunchy rice flakes, chiura. The last was most surprising. This delicious meal cost me just 170 rupees, or $1.21.

Arriving in Lilitpur, I emailed my buddy, Jonathan, “You shamed me into going to Patan, motherfucker! You think I give a shit about temples!!! I must admit, though, this place is orgasmically spectacular. Makes me even more ashamed to be Vietnamese. Just kill me now.” Tone is everything. That’s how friends talk. I used to do the same with Giang, whom I had known for more than four decades. After three Jewjabs, he seemed to change. His voting again for Trump hardened Giang further. Suddenly, I could no longer goof around with this guy.

Walking back to Kathmandu, I got seriously lost. Without a map or cellphone, I ended up in Kalanki, then Bafal. It didn’t help that I was lugging my bag with a camera and laptop, both heavy, and, most likely, I kept wandering in circles. I crossed streets and creeks that looked awfully familiar. This misadventure allowed me to enter a nearly dead mall, pass a bus depot with clearly rural folks waiting to go home, ramshackle dwellings abutting swanky developments and, mostly astoundingly, Hitler Fashion!

All I saw were jeans, hoodies, T-shirts and sneakers, typical American styled casual wear. Do Nepalese consider eternally adolescent Americans as Nazis?

Though swastikas are common in the East, this was just weird. Without my phone, I couldn’t speed dial my rabbi or the Anti-Defamation League. In Kukes, Albania, I had run into Bar and Restaurant Nazi, but that’s just the owner’s name, pronounced as Nor Zee.

(L): Skopje, North Macedonia on 9/26/20 ; (R): Vung Tau, 9/8/24

This morning, I read about a 33-year-old, Kenneth Morgan, who had entered Cutter’s Pub, an Athens, Georgia bar popular with college kids. Dressed as an SS officer, complete with a red armband with its black swastika on a white circle, Morgan was clearly asking for trouble. Immediately, he was cursed, then chased out by a crowd. When Grace Lang tried to yank off his armband, Morgan whacked her with his beer mug, breaking her nose. She relayed her account to The Red and Black, which aren’t just Nazi colors but those of the University of Georgia. Of course, many if not most of those outside the South and Midwest think those folks are Nazis anyway.

Though Mao and Stalin killed many more, Hitler is considered uniquely evil. Even most deaths in concentration camps were from starvation, and related diseases, resulting from American and British bombings. At least a million Vietnamese died from the same. Near the end of World War II, Vietnamese ports and rail system were destroyed.

Detailed or nuanced understanding of anything is beyond most people, with American college students among the worst. A little learning is already dangerous. When it’s mostly bullshit, you’re fucked for life.

Here’s how Grace Lang describes herself at Linked, “I capture angles that are rarely seen and humanity that is often overlooked. My photos give the audience a chance to see with my eyes, granting them a vivid, deep connection with my work.” Seeing with her eyes, you will be exposed to hidden truths about humanity.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life, #11

I can’t think of any country more disunited. So appropriately, it’s ruled or at least fronted by a master divider. The self-adoring psycho is enjoying every second.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

MAGA Situation Report — Sep 08, 2025.

First off, I want to thank Ling Ding Dong for allowing me to come on here to counter, point by point, his endless bullshit. As a free subscriber to this asshole’s SubStack, I haven’t read most of his articles in full, but his name alone is enough of a clue. This motherfucker also lives in Communistic Vietnam, when he’s not panhandling in South Africa, India or Albania. He’s obviously too broke to travel to any First World or white country.

Rejected by America, he’s missing out on President Trump’s Golden Age. This explains his seething bitterness. This lost loser is too poor to fly back, not that we want him. Landing at Philadelphia International Airport, he’d be arrested within five seconds, then placed on the next flight to South Sudan, where he could mingle forever with other savages of color.

Just now, he’s gloating over the supposed collapse of Las Vegas. Foreign tourists are boycotting it, he claimed. Fact is, we don’t want Chinks, Japs, Gooks, Dotheads, Ragheads and Spics to ruin that beautiful city. Shit, man, we don’t need Frogs, Krauts and Puckheads either. Europeans are freeloaders and Canadians have stupidly refused to become our 51^st state. Shunning California, Florida, Arizona and Las Vegas, they’ll just freeze their nuts of.

More good news: Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, British Airways, Air Canada, Emirates and Qantas have all cut back flights to our beautiful country, thus making it even more gorgeous. Nothing is more breathtaking than empty streets with boarded up stores, such as we’ve seen for decades in Normal Rockwell type burgs across America. Soon enough, Las Vegas will look like Welch, West Virginia.

Having never flown, I didn’t even know there were more than ten airlines, but why, you ask, should we celebrate fewer British Airway flights? Doesn’t MAGA Land need many more white people? Each flight from London is packed with child raping dotheads, who the Brits call Asian groomers. No, thanks.

Any second now, Ling Ding Dong will announce Vietnam Airlines has stopped direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to San Francisco! Until a minute ago, I didn’t even know there were such outrages. Kenyan Obama must have greenlit that human trafficking pipeline!

Our country is already overrun by Viet Cong run nail salons and dogmeat pho joints. You can’t pay me to even sniff a fuckin’ bowl. What’s wrong with a $12 Bacon Quarter Pounder with Cheese Combo at some ghetto McDonald’s? Haven’t had one in a while, I must admit. We have a family of four. A hearty eater, my wife must have her $24 Classic Big Mac Pack. Two more bucks for a large Coke. Don’t even try to steal one of her fries. Can’t complain. More cushion for the pushin’, my daddy always said.

Having chased most of the yellow, brown and black tourists away, we must do a better job at keeping them out of our colleges. All the Chinese kids are spies anyway. With President Trump flipping off China for years, slitty eyed nerds are no longer so numerous at Ivy League schools, MIT or even Georgia Tech, so that’s a start. These schools have tried to replace them with Indians and even Nigerians, however. That’s seriously fucked up.

Since each Chinese student spent twice as much as an Indian, and thrice as a Nigerian, many more of these savages must be brought in to replace the Chinks!

Where are the white students?! There must be enough who can handle plasma physics, molecular biology, rapid prototyping, neuro science, ordinary differential equations, computational linear algebra, combinatorial analysis and advanced applied probability courses? I have no idea what any of those words means, not one! Gave me a fuckin’ headache just typing them. In 12^th grade, I did get a C- in geometry.

Under President Trump’s firm and erect leadership, this previously flaccid nation is finally ejaculating in the right direction. Don’t let pussies like Ling Ding Dong tell you otherwise. One last bit of good news: our corn, soybean and wheat farmers are all in deep shit. Thanks to ICE, their Spic laborers have disappeared, and those Chinks ain’t buying. This is fine, actually.

Like President Trump wisely pointed out, farm work is for black, brown and yellow peasants. Even fat face JD Vance knows this. Us whites have no business growing food or raising animals. With trillions flooding in from Trump’s tariffs, we can just cash our dividend checks.

Didn’t our greatest president ever say, “We’re going to become so rich, you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you—just watch!”

Freezing my white ass off in a used RV after losing my fuckin’ farm founded by my great, great, great grandfather, a passenger on the Mayflower, I’m watching away, daddy!

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (L): Coffee Seven on 8/25/25 ; (R): 9/4/25

Lovable Messes! — Sep 08, 2025.

Matthew Rossman is beyond nauseated by my Trump coverage. Having escaped North America, he doesn’t want to hear about that monster. A long time resident of Vietnam, Matthew worked for years in Saigon, and is now in Vung Tau. Typing at Cóc Cóc, I would see him ride by on his motorbike, sometimes with his teenaged daughter. I think she takes violin lessons, and is also in a badminton club.

Vietnamese kids in blue martial art uniforms are studying Vovinam. When still fighting in a boxing ring, MMA star Cung Le would use its signature scissor kick takedown.

Anyway, as a Canadian Matthew is especially disgusted by Trump. To spare him further pain, I will now talk about some Vung Tau characters. Since Matthew isn’t Vietnamese, his access to this culture must be limited. Though I’m not working in this economy, and can’t even ride a motorbike, I can dig out stories Matthew can’t. Plus, I’m a lurker. Even if I wasn’t a writer and photographer, I would still lurk.

For at least two weeks, Mrs. Seven has been obsessed with the K-pop singer Lisa. Since most YouTube videos on this Thai-born singer are in English, Mrs. Seven must sometimes ask me to translate a caption, such as, “Lisa’s sad and tearful moment back home.”

Seeing this 28-year-old chick crying on stage in Bangkok, I couldn’t help but blurt, “Look at her! She’s faking it!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Sixty-seven-year-old Mrs. Seven walked away, looking hurt. Her beloved Lisa can’t be a phony! Even her obviously fake nose must be real!

Other times, Mrs. Seven can be very tough. Yesterday, she decided one of her two dogs needed the hair around his asshole trimmed. Since Milk Cow had gone through this routine, he was cowering under a table. Holding her scissors, Mrs. Seven shouted for him to come out. As she clipped away, I observed, “You’re not even an inch from his balls! Click, click, click, click! He’s traumatized for life!” She thought it was hilarious.

I’ve already told you about Mrs. Seven cutting the tail off all her puppies and kittens, just after they’re born.

Just as important as hygiene is obedience. When her younger daughter was in the 12^th grade, she came home near midnight once, so was caned three times on her ass while lying face down in bed, sobbing. When her older daughter, already 21-years-old, came home in the morning after a night out, she was slapped, hard, three times at the door. When Mrs. Seven was told her husband was seen with some slut, she went looking for them with a barber’s razor. As an organist playing at restaurants and nightclubs where booze was served, he must have had many chances.

Telling me these stories, Mrs. Seven boasted, “I’ll knock you out, send you flying with a kick.” As a girl, she practiced her punches on her dad’s heavy bag. Even today, there’s a five-foot-long hard plastic pipe she keeps by the door, just in case there’s trouble.

This morning, Lisa was again mentioned. Mrs. Seven does concede K-pop stars are all sliced up and reconfigured, every single one of them but her Lisa. Like most people, she knows South Korea leads the world in plastic surgeries. To my surprise, she added, “But if you need to fix things down there, you must go to Thailand! They can cut if off and give you a hole. They can go the other way, too.”

“But it won’t work!” I retorted.

“Of course, it will work.”

I turned to Sơn the security guard, “How does Mrs. Seven know so much about this?”

He just grinned.

In five months, NaLi Beach’s lease will run out. Though Sơn could be assigned somewhere else, he will likely work for his son-in-law as a manager at a construction site. Sounds like a better gig. When Sơn showed up in Vung Tau in 1991, he didn’t even have a thousand đồng [three pennies]. His first job here was at a lumber mill. Though Sơn earned next to nothing, he somehow got married soon after to a woman not so destitute.

“How did you manage that, brother?”

“Technique,” he smiled.

“Did you hear that, Mrs. Seven?! Brother Sơn has technique!”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t tried.”

In just six hours, I will see those two again, plus Nọng, of course. She’s always ecstatic to see me. Sometimes this bitch disappears into the kitchen, way in the back, to lie quietly in a dark hovel. Like everyone, she’s more complex than we can imagine, so preoccupied, each of us, with our laughable, or lovable, if you will, mess.

(L): Manila, 4/19/25 ; (R): Vung Tau, 9/4/25

Nation of United Races?! — Sep 09, 2025.

In late 2019, I showed up in Vung Tau to stay for a month, then disappeared for 2 1/2 years. From mid 2022 until now, I’ve spent two more years here, so I’ve had a chance to see Vung Tau change. There are many more itinerant sellers of lottery tickets and recent rural transplants wandering around peddling food or dirt cheap items. Most alarmingly, some beggars have reappeared. From 1975 to 2000, there were so many. During that span, I spent nearly three years in Vietnam, with trips to very remote areas of both north and south, so I saw these beggars. I’m not speaking from statistics.

Last night at Cóc Cóc, I gave money to a woman in her mid 40’s. There’s something off about her. The young barista sensed this too.

This is the seventh month of the lunar calendar. In Southeast Asia, it’s calculated from the year of Buddha’s death, so we’re in 2568. (Basically, I’m living 543 years ahead of you.) This is when dead souls are allowed by Yanluo Wang, the ruler of hell or just the afterlife, to return to their old haunts. Setting up altars with food offered to these spirits, many businesses also give food to the living. This attracts scammers. Mrs. Seven, for example, saw a woman who kept changing blouses and hats so she could return to the same charity line as a different person. Another woman she knew went all over Vung Tau to collect food, then bragged about how much she got. This goes against the spirit of neighbors helping neighbors or the truly destitute.

Last night’s beggar complained the bills I gave her were too old. Overhearing this, the young barista suggested I stop giving her money again.

“Have you seen her before?” I asked.

“Just once.”

“She’s weird, but who knows? Maybe she’s really hungry.”

At Cóc Cóc recently, some guy was caught on camera stealing its plastic plant pot. I can’t imagine it selling for more than 10,000 đồng, or 38 cents. This is enough, though, to buy sticky rice with mung beans, lotus seeds, peanuts, gấc or even pork floss. Six years ago in Dak Lak, I would get shit faced with three other guys on just 10,000 đồng’s worth of moonshine. No longer sipping socially, I can’t recommend any rice wine that may kill you for next to nothing, but you can certainly feel fine after work for five or six days on just two bucks, or just 10,000 đồng a day. Turn off your TV, then, and scour your neighborhood for plant or flower pots, even huge, ornate ones. What’s the worst that can happen? Running from bullets is great exercise. Ding dong ditching is for kids.

“You don’t know how bad it was 25 years ago. You weren’t even born!”

“I wasn’t, uncle.” She smiled.

“Look at these.” I then showed her five photos on my laptop. “Just look carefully at each.”

She stared at people, including children, sleeping on sidewalks. One image had a pantless boy standing next to a woman in a beatup wheelchair.

“Where do you think this is?” I asked.

“Africa?”

“Africa?! Look at them! They look like us.”

To many Vietnamese, a Cambodian is black enough, so he’s just black. Those images, though, were of Manila. Sleeping on sidewalks for months or even years would darken your skin, too, so the barista thought she was looking at Africa. Ignoring their hair, eyes and lips, she only saw skin color. For millennia, we were conditioned to detect the smallest differences, for life and death might depend on it. Even before he could open his mouth, we could tell he wasn’t from our tribe. Even today, many Vietnamese will insist they can differentiate, by sight alone, a Mekong Delta native from a Red River one. Genetics, climate, food, history and culture must leave clues, often obvious.

Working at least 360 days a year, the barista hasn’t traveled anywhere, so you can’t really blame her for confusing a Southeast Asian nation for Africa. Africans rarely show up in Vung Tau. If he’s tall and well dressed enough, most Vietnamese would just call him a Westerner, ông Tây.

As a child, I still heard the USA referred to as Hiệp Chủng Quốc. Derived from the Japanese 合衆国, it’s supposed to be a translation of United States, but 衆 is clearly mass or crowd. Hiệp Chủng Quốc or 合衆国, then, is literally United Crowd Nation.

Smart asses will point out that 衆 is really chúng, and not chủng, which means race and not mass. What we have then, is a Japanese mistranslation further mistranslated, at least colloquially, by the South Vietnamese, perhaps willfully. Dimwit South Vietnamese like me imagined the United States as the Nation of United Races.

Speaking of race and crowds, South Korea just beat the US in soccer by 2 to zero in metro New York. At MetLife Stadium, South Korean fans far outnumbered US fans. It was the visiting Orientals who had home field advantage. For decades, this has also been true of Mexico vs. US on American soil. Who cares, you say, but the world cares more about soccer than just about anything else!

Roger Bennett, “South Korea, Bong Junho, BTS, New Jeans just turned the US men’s national team into Bibimbap!” Just a decade ago, so many Korean references strung together would have been impossible. There is indeed a cultural shift.

This game came right after that ICE raid in Georgia where over 300 South Koreans were arrested. Even when foreigners bring jobs to Americans, they’re treated like enemies.

On the same day in the same city, Trump was loudly booed at the US Open tennis final, and this blustery clown is a New Yorker! This June, Trump was also booed at the Kennedy Center, the nation’s premier space for the performing arts. He’s also despised in LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and just about every other American city. His only remaining supporters are the farmers he’s bankrupting and depressed blue collar types who think wearing a red hat will transform their lives.

I can’t think of any country more disunited than this Nation of United Races. As its economy collapses further, this seething hatred between Americans so divided by race, national origin, class or favorite TV station can only get much worse. So appropriately, it’s ruled or at least fronted by a master divider. The self-adoring psycho is enjoying every second.

Such absolute self-love leaves no room for affection or just basic awareness of anything else. Nothing means anything unless it serves him immediately. Fortunately, madness so pure and public doesn’t plague every nation.

(L): Chuck Workman’s Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990) ; (R): Mickey Rourke as Charles Bukowski in Barbet Schroeder’s Barfly (1987)

Post Siesta Thoughts on Global Cultural Collapse — Sep 10, 2025.

In hot countries, taking a nap in the afternoon is most natural, as is getting much done early in the morning, even before dawn, when it’s coolest.

Finished with an article by 10AM, I walked around a bit, cooked, ate, washed dishes, gathered news, thought about this and that, then fell asleep. Getting up much later than usual, I didn’t leave my room again until past 5PM. Just getting dressed, I thought about Chuck Workman’s Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, a film based on Raymond Carver’s short stories. These flicks I saw in theaters more than three decades ago. For some reasons, they made me think of Barfly, a 1987 film about Charles Bukowski I never saw, and Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. I did catch that in 1985. Still in college, I had a classmate, a black girl, who was a Mishima freak. Another girl, a Canadian, turned me on to Andrei Tarkovsky.

Walking to Cóc Cóc, I thought about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp’s 1986 short story, “Tướng về hưu.” In my translation as “The Retired General,” it was published in the American Poetry Review, then Crossing The River. Twenty-three years after publication, this Curbstone book has but nine reviews on Amazon. A JD Vance sideway fart generates more critical attention, including PhD dissertations.

With increasing excitement, but also rage, I thought about the Tennessee Williams stories made into movies, and of his drunken interview with David Frost in 1974. Despite all its problems, hypocrisy and violence, that was America’s Golden Age. Those plopped into Biden’s wokedom then MAGA’s cesspool have no ideas.

As led by the USA, our global cultural collapse occurred over decades. Within 24 hours of arriving in Hanoi in 1995, I had a heated discussion with strangers about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp at a random café. Granted, most of them were only familiar with his fiction through film versions, just as Americans could watch Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Baby Doll (1956), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Summer and Smoke (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) The Night of the Iguana (1964), and two versions of The Glass Menagerie (1950 and 1987). Now, most people would prefer a lethal injection over being stuck on a comfortable chair in an air conditioned room next to a tub of popcorn to endure over two hours of any film made from a serious work of literature. That’s infinitely worse than death by a thousand cuts!

Ashland, Oregon was famous for a Shakespeare Festival where MAGA types would pay to get their perfunctory dose of high culture. Once a lifetime ain’t so bad. It spared them from driving five hours to Portland just to sidestep Antifa freaks, either panhandling, bent over from heroin or dead from Fentanyl, lying weirdly on the sidewalk. Maybe those plays in incomprehensible English are still being staged? At least the costumes are cool. Getting fucked up beforehand also helps.

Before Warhol, there was Salvador Dali, but the Spaniard did paint. Warhol mass produced his art in studios he called, most tellingly, The Factory. Having assistants do most of his work allowed the artist to spend nearly all his time just looking cool. Warhol’s main task was self-promotion. With his magazine, Interview, Warhol also made money by turning whoever into superstars, at least for 15 minutes. Before dropping dead, Warhol lent lotsa shine to Jean Michel Basquiat. With his black face often white with coke, Basquiat actually died from smack at age 27. His Whitney retrospective in 1992 was mostly financed by Madonna! Basquiat was the last American artist to receive any sort of general recognition.

In fiction, Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991) hit the big screen in 2000. By then, movie theaters were barely hanging on. Denis Johnson’s excellent 1992 collection of short stories, Jesus’ Son, hardly made a splash as a film in 1999.

I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Raymond Carver, but he’s heavily promoted when I was just learning to write, so I read pretty much all his stories. I even endured fiction by his pusher, Gordon Lish. When Short Cuts came out, I immediately went to the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street to see it. What struck me then was how all the female stars had to be frontally nude at some point, so porn was used to sell literature. Hollywood as a sexist whorehouse couldn’t have been more naked. Only in 2017, though, was serial rapist Harvey Weinstein arrested.

(L): Bùi Cường as Chí Phèo in Phạm Văn Khoa’s Làng Vũ Đại ngày ấy (1982) ; (R): Ken Ogata as Mishima in Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Arriving at Cóc Cóc, I saw only one customer, a man in his 50’s I had talked to several times. Let’s call him Tuấn. After the army, Tuấn went to the Soviet Union to study, then work. This northerner has traveled a bit. Now he works at Vung Tau’s small airport. Helicopters to oil rigs and Côn Đảo take off from there.

Already frothed up, I started to rant about cultural collapse, including in Vietnam. I mentioned how in nearly three years in Vung Tau, I saw just one person with a serious book, a collection of Nam Cao short stories, how in Dak Lak, I quoted a Hồ Xuân Hương line, “Spread me to three points, there’s not enough skin,” only to have it not understood, much less recognized. It’s a vagina talking. I mentioned how a motorbike taxi guy had never heard of Nguyễn Du. He’s only Vietnam’s greatest poet, with schools and streets named after him all over. In Phnom Penh, there’s even a Nguyen Du Aesthetics Plastic Surgery Center.

Sitting outside the Walt Whitman house in Camden, NJ one July 4^th, I talked to a panhandler who claimed he did odd jobs for “Mr. Whitman.” His grave in the same city is nearly as forlorn as Ivana Trump’s.

Understanding me perfectly, Tuấn agreed something must be done. He mentioned how cultured Putin sounded when interviewed by Tucker Carlson. We laughed at Trump’s illiteracy.

We discussed the Philippines. “They have a slave mentality,” Tuấn actually said. Their English proficiency is actually a mark of this. Minalonan born Carlos Bulosan’s best known work is America is in the Heart, written in English. Manila native Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters is about Manila, but in English. Their national hero José Rizal’s Noli Me Tángere is in Spanish. F. Sionil José wrote in English but had a Manila bookstore with a Spanish name, Solidaridad.

Of course, there’s also a Saigon chump who wrote about his native city in English. Worse, he has four books with America in the title, but massa, I was airlifted to Guam as a chide. Growing up on your bountiful and beauteous plantation, I gorged on Shirley Temple, Leave it to Beaver, Donny and Mary, Happy Days and The Gong Show. I wrote a fan letter to Slick Watts. Please don’t whip me, massa, though I gone bad!

“You know, I used to sit at Ca Dao.” The name means folk poetry. “The music played is from Saigon before 1975, plus some songs from Hanoi before 1954. Over half of their songs, though, are American, so what’s being evoked here? Almost none of their customers can understand a word, so they’re in there only to relive American occupied Saigon! Most Saigonese at the time had no interest in American culture, however. Only bargirls listened to American music, because they had to. Yes, there were a few bands influenced by American music, but most people ignored it. Growing up in Saigon before 1975, I didn’t even know what a hot dog or a pizza was, I never ate fried chicken, and my dad wasn’t poor! No one wore a hoodie. That’s for a much cooler climate. It’s so hot here!”

As Tuấn’s eyes glazed over, I waved at the stores in front of us, “Look at the English!” Actually, it’s much worse further on Ba Cu. “Our kids make all these mistakes,” in Vietnamese, I meant, “and their vocabulary has shrunk! Whenever I’m in the library, I’m the only one in there!”

I did shut up long enough to hear Tuấn talk about the importance of national pride, with respect and love for one’s culture a key component.

“What Vung Tau needs,” I ranted on, “is for its writers, painters and musicians to be recognized by people living here, and for them to write, paint and sing about being here.”

Though Tuấn agreed, I suspect he doubted it could ever happen. We’re too far gone.

In days, my three Vietnamese books will arrive in the mail. Each has a print run of 200, more than I need, but 100 would have cost only slightly less.

Emailing Saigon poet Lý Đợi, I said, “I don’t see how I can give so many books away. Those boxes will go into my coffin then,” not that I’ll have a coffin.

We’re not too far gone. Since respect for one’s language, history and land, for one’s nation, in short, is essential for having a meaningful life, it must be cultivated continuously. If eroded over centuries or raped away overnight, it must be recovered.

The second half of this piece was written the morning after, at Coffee Seven. At 5:36AM, the sun is up. This morning, the sky has a pale pink tint. Across the street, Morning Star Kindergarten’s gate is open, but no kid has arrived. In an alley, someone is sweeping.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life, #10

it’s all about sticking it to your political enemy even as your nation is imploded and you go bankrupt. Over a century of professional sports has conditioned the American mind for such fanaticism.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Images of America’s Golden Age — Sep 06, 2025.

The Smithsonian or any other major museum should mount a monster exhibition to chronicle how Trump is depicted, by himself, his admirers and his detractors. Never before has anyone exerted so much energy in crafting his own image. This, in turn, has provoked a fierce backlash, so there’s a dizzying array of Trump images online. Being virtual, they’ll disappear unless printed out then preserved. A thick coffee table book would do, too.

The White House’s TikTok account’s images of Trump are weird and provocative enough. Standing at a podium next to an unguardedly smiling young woman, Trump with his puckering mouth and scanning, leering eyes doesn’t spell wholesomeness, I don’t think.

There’s Trump, in a McDonald’s uniform, waving from a drive through window, Trump in a hard hat at a construction site, Trump looking very serious, even menacing, from the passenger seat of a heavy truck. All these images are meant to convey how down to earth and close to the working man is this silver spooned lover of virgin flesh and gold leafed cherubim. Jackie Parker comments, “I voted for this. Trump 2028 [bookended by two flags].” So a third term is in order. Screw the Constitution! Clanker has Trump laughing over a red map of the USA, “PLACES WHERE TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT AFTER ALL OF YOUR PROTESTING.”

At Amazon, there are all these “WOKE TEARS” or “LIBERAL TEARS” mugs for sale, so it’s all about sticking it to your political enemy even as your nation is imploded and you go bankrupt. Over a century of professional sports has conditioned the American mind for such fanaticism. Nothing feels better than backing your team, especially when it’s winning.

For just $19.99, you can get your MAGA grandpa a tumbler with Trump’s face, plus this mess, “YOU ARE A REALLY, REALLY GREAT GRANDPA. THE BEST, REALLY TERRIFIC. JUST FANTASTIC. OTHER GRANDPAS? LOSERS! TOTAL DISASTERS, EVERYONE AGREES [three stars] YOU ARE THE BEST [three stars] BELIEVE ME.” Trump’s bombastic style spreads.

His praises are generic and disingenuous. His insults are more creative yet prepubescent. They’re not even juvenile. Trump is reshaping American English. Mocking Trump, Gavin Newsom is outtrumping Trump.

In 1858, Lincoln debated Stephen A. Douglas seven times. Each lasted about three hours, in front of crowds averaging 13 thousand people. Of course, there were no microphones, so manly voices had to carry. With no YouTube videos to rewatch later, everyone had to pay closest attention. In November of 2024, Trump mimicked giving a microphone holder a blow job as his fans laughed and cheered. He’s praised the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis. Even gayer than Obama, he’s obsessed with interior decorating.

Most comments at TikTok are intensely negative, with many accompanied by a computer generated image. One shows Trump, Weinstein, Epstein, Bill Cosby and Diddy on “Mount Rapemore.” Another has Trump as “The Lying King.” An X-ray of his head shows a minuscule brain. On that preposterous banner at the US Department of Labor with Trump’s “big beautiful face,” Epstein is added. Behind this Satanic child rapist, then, lurks his Jewish pimp.

Meant to hype the Trump cult, the White House’s TikTok account has become a survey of how much he’s despised. The Mount Rapemore response has 1,930 likes, more than any other on that thread.

With everything a joke, it’s often hard to detect irony, but perhaps there’s none in a “MAGA DYNASTY” image showing Vance, Rubio and Hegseth as presidents after Trump.

Billions across the globe are astounded that Trump’s approval rating is still at 41%, as of 9/6/25 according to The Economist, hardly a left wing or liberal bastion. It’s a damning indictment of the American brain. At TikTok, there’s a fine image of five MAGA cultists licking Trump’s boots as he stands on stage. Obscured by his legs is the US flag.

Before I had published my first poem, story or article, I posed as an art critic. I published reviews at the now defunct New Art Examiner, out of Chicago. I curated a show, Toys and Incense, at Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art. I was critic in residence at Art in General in New York City.

Sitting ugly in Vung Tau, I await that urgent call from the Smithsonian, so I can start assembling that blockbuster show of Trump images. After DC, it will travel to New York, LA, Paris, London, Rome, Tokyo, Shanghai and Sydney. Jostling crowds will laugh their nuts off.

(L): Madison Zhao ; (R): International Kid

Flexing Fools — Sep 05, 2025.

Yesterday, I ran into Dzuy, that habitual liar. I met him just days after moving into DC HomeStay in January of 2024. A housepainter, Dzuy told me was a retired highschool teacher. The girlfriend he was staying with, he introduced as his wife. Working in Germany, she comes back for a couple months each year.

When Dzuy told me he had just returned from Germany, I said bullshit! “Let’s go for a cup of coffee,” I suggested, “so you can tell me all about Germany.”

As we sat at this leafy sidewalk joint on Nguyễn Tri Phương, Dzuy couldn’t say anything.

“You must have taken some photos in Germany?”

“Many!”

“So show me a few.”

Cornered, Dzuy put his phone away. Months ago, he said he had visited Cambodia. When asked, Dzuy couldn’t even name that town or city. Always boasting, Dzuy claims women look for him because he can last over an hour. I know who you’re thinking of, but unlike that frantic chest thumper, Dzuy doesn’t have 500 bucks to his name, and he’s not stinking up each room with his loaded diaper.

Having claimed Trump as thinker is more influential in Vietnam than Confucius, Laozi and maybe even Buddha, I must clarify. Confucius stresses temperance in action and modesty in speech, so the exact opposite of Trump’s behavior. In the Orient as elsewhere, boasting has become so easy thanks to the internet, but there’s a twist. Nearly always, yellow flexers flaunt how ultra Western they’ve become. There’s no Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism in any of this.

Consider, for example, just two famous Chinese influencers, Madison Zhao and International Kid. Their names alone say much. In appearance, too, they’re straining to be not Oriental. Madison’s hair, eyes, nose, lips and even skin are desperately Occidental, and she only wears the most expensive Western brands. International Kid is the same. To mostly swooning audiences, they crow nonstop.

Judge for yourself. Madison Zhao in a typical TikTok video:

Here’s a breakdown of all the money I made and spent in a day as a public company CEO and content creator. On this day, I started work at 8AM and worked for 16 hours. My hourly rate is $5,000 per hour, so I made $80,000 for my main job.

I mean, this is kind of ridiculous because I get paid the same rate even I work overtime, while everyone else in my company gets paid 1.5 times more. Can you believe that? But luckily, I made around $1.3 million from the stock market today, so it kind of offset my underpaid salary. Now, let’s talk about the money I made from my side hustles.

I made $719 from one video on TikTok and $1,587 from my course. My lunch was around $900 and my dinner was around $1,000 because that’s usually how much it costs when we dine out, even though it was the worst dinner I ever had in my life. Literally tastes like shit!

Then I went shopping and spent around $500,000 in the LV store. But here comes my biggest expense slash investment of the year. I ordered a $2.5 million Richard Mille Watch that only have 50 pieces in the world, but my shareholders paid for it, so the total for that was zero.

So I made $1,380,000 and I spent $502,000, which leaves me a positive $878,000 for the day.

Even worse, International Kid sounds like parody:

My name is Jay Ma, and I’m the richest international student at NYU. This is how we spend our break time between classes. I need to buy new gym clothes, so I went to shop on everyone’s favorite fitness brand, Celine.

I bought this nice track jacket, but they did not have the matching track pants in my size. Next, I need the new headphones, because the AirPod Max is too basic for me. How’s everybody supposed to know my music is more expensive than yours?

Snack time. I rent out the whole restaurant for me and my friend, to keep me as safe from the people with a low credit score, so I can enjoy a black caviar in peace. I go to Gentle Monster to buy new sunglasses, but there’s no time left to try them on, so I just asked them to ship it all to my penthouse at 432 Park Avenue.

Vung Tau, 9/4/25

At “my friend,” there’s a brief shot of a white girl. She never reappears. In Japan, there are host and hostess bars where fake boyfriends and girlfriends can be had. Fake families can also be rented in Japan. Having modernized much later, Chinese aren’t quite as lonely, but they’re catching up fast, I’m sure.

Last week, I sneaked into Salt Water in Vung Tau. Those preening girls I encountered were but silly hicks compared to Madison Zhao.

Of course, Vietnam also has internet flexers, including AI ones. E.M ƠI [roughly O.H. HONEY] promotes domestic fashion brand, Môi Điên [Crazy Lips]. From its English only website, “Môi Điên Studio was founded in the heart of Saigon, Vietnam in 2016 by Tom Trandt Minh Đạo—a Parsons graduate […]” Trần, or Chang in Chinese, is now vaguely Germanic. I’m sorry, but fick dich, Trandt!

Those who flex or worship flexers, then, are Trumpian in spirit. Luckily, most Vietnamese can only afford the cheapest T-shirts or pyjamas ridiculously emblazoned with Channel, Gucci or Dolce n Gabbana, etc.

Impotently, old heads mourn. This morning at Coffee Seven, I talked for the first time with an actual retired highschool teacher. We lamented the deterioration of our language, including comical misuses of common words. We also noticed the disappearance of eyes from boat prows and phoenix flowers from school yards. Also, fruit bearing trees are no longer planted at schools because wimpy, fried chicken fattened boys might fall climbing them. Hard to believe their forefathers defeated the Chinese, Mongols, French and Americans.

Boats needed eyes to scare away sea monsters, by the way. Viet fishermen also forbade all women, including their wives and daughters, from stepping on their vessels. With amusement, the teacher recalled when a famous actress, Thẩm Thúy Hằng, showed up in Vung Tau around 1960 for a photo shoot. Every local hick chased her from his boat, however.

“Some progress is necessary,” he concluded.

Soon enough, such appalling or amusing tales will be forgotten or whitewashed, here, there and everywhere.

Child Rape Privilege — Sep 06, 2025.

In 2008, a 76-year-old Saigon professor, Nguyễn Văn Ân, was put on trial for marrying a 15-year-old. Then as now, Vietnam’s age of marriage for a female is 18. Though this is often ignored among Highland tribes, this case occurred right in Vietnam’s biggest city. Of course, what made it sensational was their enormous age difference. Plus, the professor was fairly well known.

The old creep said he had taken her in a year earlier to be his housekeeper, and to keep him company. With her family so poor, this was also an act of charity, more or less. How could he be blamed if this peasant girl fell in love with such a towering Saigon intellectual who spoke several languages? It was she who suggested marriage, Ân claimed.

The girl’s mom had a different story. So destitute, she had agreed to sell her daughter to Ân for 50 million đồng, or less than $3,000, to be payable in two installments. After paying her 30 million, he returned the daughter, and refused to pay the rest, so he stiffed her, she declared with justifiable outrage. Both sides concurred this marriage was never consummated, since the professor’s crane no longer lifted, but what is sex, really?

Decades ago, I read Kawabata’s House of the Sleeping Beauties. In it, old men pay to sleep next to a drugged woman, so there’s no interaction. I don’t remember any description of fondling or molestation, though, you’d think, it has to happen. When the protagonist is assigned a different beauty on a visit, he balks by saying, “I’m not so promiscuous as that!” Something like that, I sold that book long ago.

With Ân so feeble, the court showed mercy by not jailing him, and the girl, it is said, betrayed no trauma. Returned to her village, she was training to be a makeup artist for brides.

This case reminded literate Vietnamese of Nguyễn Công Trứ (1778-1858). This poet, mandarin and general had 13 wives. The last was a 17-year-old he married at age 73. Clearly proud of this fact, he celebrated and even joked about it in a poem, “Marrying in Old Age.” Its best two lines:

Bride asks groom, How old are you?
Fifty years ago, I was just 23.

Its last line is still repeated in conversations, “The older the more pliable and long lasting!” Càng già càng dẻo càng dai! Most who do it has no idea it comes from this poem.

Like Ân’s bride, this unnamed 17-year-old had to be destitute, for why else would she want to be the 13^th wife of an old man?

Nguyễn Công Trứ died at age 80. Trump is 79. Melania is just 55, so 24 years younger. If alive, Trump’s first wife Ivana would be 76. Dead three years, she’s buried in a pitiful, minimal grave at a forgotten corner of Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, NJ. A typical Vietnamese peasant is interred with more dignity.

It’s horrible enough for any teenager to be in bed with someone old enough to be her grandfather. It’s much worse when she’s raped.

(R): Ivana Trump’s grave in Bedminster, NJ

Three weeks ago, I mentioned testimonies on 6/3/25 by Israeli girls raped and tortured by some of the most powerful men in that society, including members of the Knesset. On 9/3/25, victims of the Jewish pimp and blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein appeared in Washington DC to demand, finally, transparency into that evil network.

Though deeply involved, Trump declared this Epstein scandal was “a Democrat hoax that never ends.”

Victim Haley Robson countered, “It feels like you just want to explode inside because nobody again is understanding that this is a real situation. These women are real. We’re here in person.” This registered Republican has offered to meet Trump to hash everything out. I wouldn’t bet on it happening.

Another victim, Jena-Lisa Jones, said, “I’m a Republican. I voted for him. I voted for Trump. For him to say what he’s saying is beyond me. Because I put my hope in him, and he’s supposed to protect us. And for him to say that this is a joke…”

Victim Chauntae Davies, “Epstein surrounded himself, I’m sorry, with the most powerful leaders of our country and the world. He abused not only me but countless others, and everyone seemed to look away. The truth is, Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump.  It was his biggest brag, actually.”

Everywhere throughout time, old men near death have fantasized about sleeping with beauties decades younger, but most don’t act on it, especially with force. When they do, there should be severe consequences. The more corrupt or Satanic a society, the more they can get away with this. Trump just might. Many have.

Trumpocalypse Now! — Sep 07, 2025.

Before, Mrs. Seven opened around 4AM, with her first customer, nearly always, Mr. Sơn the security guard at NaLi Beach. He rarely arrived before 4:30, however. Since she had wifi, I started to show up as early as 3:10AM. Sitting in the dark on her only bench, I would read the news, do some research and think about that day’s article.

Sniffing my scent, one of her two dogs, Nọng, would go berserk inside Mrs. Seven’s bedroom. Having no choice but to get up earlier, she now opens around 3:30AM, just to serve me a 38-cent glass of black coffee, plus free hot tea. Some days, though, I may not arrive at all.

Sitting in a lit up Coffee Seven, Nọng would look anxiously down Lê Ngọc Hân Street. Behind her display case with its cigarettes, soft drinks and talismans, Mrs. Seven also waits.

Though I didn’t disappoint Nọng or Mrs. Seven this morning, I couldn’t get anything started, so left early.

“I’m still so sleepy.”

“So go home and sleep!”

Moseying home, I passed a baby girl in the cheapest stroller. As I smiled at her, her grandma said, “Behave yourself or grandpa will yell at you!” This was said in a gentle, playful way. The baby simply stared at me.

“Who’s so pretty? Who’s so well behaved?” To not alarm her, I only touched her shoulder lightly. The Vietnamese adjective for well behaved is ngoan.

“She’s very ngoan,” the old lady said. “Now greet grandpa!”

A child greeting an old person should fold her arms and bow slightly. This gesture is called ạ. As a kid, I did this all the time. It’s rarely seen these days. So ngoan, this baby ạ me properly.

“So pretty! So well behaved!” Smiling, I walked away. I had never seen them before, and may never see them again.

(R): Vung Tau, 9/7/25

Turning left on Thủ Khoa Huân, I noticed a snail in the road, so picked him up to place under a tree. He would have been crushed within an hour or two. Since it was only 6:25AM, cocky bastard thought he was immortal. Just days earlier, I had run into another snail on the same street. If the same one, he’s dumber than me.

Resisting the French, Thủ Khoa Huân was exiled to Cayenne, French Guiana, where he spent five years. Released, he resumed his guerilla activities, so was finally decapitated in 1875 at age 45. Vietnamese history is filled with such fearless nationalists.

Before leaving Coffee Seven, I did have a quick chat with that retired highschool teacher.

“What do you make of this?” I asked while showing him a Truth Social post by Donald Trump.

It flaunts this draft dodger in shades and a black cavalry hat with its crossed sabers. Behind him is the Chicago skyline, five Vietnam era helicopters and flames, suggesting war. “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” it says at the top, then “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the department of WAR.” Three cartoony choppers serve as exclamations. “Chipocalypse Now,” it says at the bottom.

Few Vietnamese have seen Apocalypse Now. Those who have would have laughed hysterically at Coppola’s declaration, “My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.” Based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and filmed in the Philippines, there’s no Vietnam in that flick, but don’t let any Vietnamese persuade you. Americans know best.

Though the retired teacher could read English, he couldn’t decipher any of the referents, so I had to explain, “There’s this famous film, Apocalypse Now. In it, there’s this famous line, ‘I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.’ It’s written by a Jew. Americans think it’s funny. Trump is using Vietnam War imagery to threaten an American city!”

We also talked briefly about Trump’s decision to kill 11 Venezuelan fishermen while claiming they’re drug traffickers. Nothing about it makes sense. Even if true, it’s illegal, but what do you expect from a child raping supporter of Jewish genocides?

Just now, Trump’s masked assholes also raided a Huyndai plant in Georgia. Most of those arrested were South Koreans. With short term visas, they only came to the USA to bring jobs to Americans, but whatever, man. Trump is pretty much at war against the entire world, including Americans. Even white tourists are staying away.

South Koreans are appalled at photos of their businessmen treated like gangbangers or drug dealers. Cheering MAGA cultists don’t realize their nation, under Trump, is committing suicide. They’ll find out soon enough.

Finishing this at Pato’s Bingsu, I’m surrounded by screaming children, running around. They’re just having a good time. At nearby Triangle Park, the ladies are dancing to upbeat music. The sights of people doing anything together always cheer me. Only those addicted to idiocy on tiny screens are depressing.

“Stop running around and stop screaming!” a woman says, but these kids can’t stop. Life is just too exciting. Of course it is, but only if you’re swimming in it. Knowing this, grandpa will now run outside.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks