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.’

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