This was the advice my roommate Adam gave me before I ever arrived. And he was right. Trying to peg down what it 'means' to be Vietnamese right now is like trying to stop raindrops.
The median age for this entire country is 25. These kids weren't here for the war. Born and bred capitalists of the post-Đổi mới era, they stay out late, drink their coffee black and drive their motorbikes fast. They bought their phones on credit.
Their parents watch on, with sound mangos-and-rubbertree advice in a world where it's untested, and who want their kids to come home early, safe behind the gate, and get married. And the government sits in crisp red cabinets, shuffling the boundaries of the law like army ants in the rain. And the old women bow their conical hats to gaze into baskets of rambutan, and the old men sit with their beers in plastic chairs, laughing.
The airwaves are tense with the charge of so many new ideas that it's anyone's guess which or when they will gravitate, crystalize and snap into reality.
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1 comment:
wow. wordsmith. what what. i was there 5 years ago, and can imagine that so much has changed. then, i had the feeling that vietnam was just waking up, and nows it seems to be wide awake and buzzing with a double shot of capitalist optimism...
drink as much sugar cane juice as you can, and little mangos on sticks.. yum yum
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