Connexion
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:
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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!
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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.
“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 14th 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
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“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
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