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Paul Christiansen is a Saigon-based writer and editor.
254 stories
Loạt Soạt
Vietnam transitioned to a market economy like an old train lurching to life: momentous shakes and shudders, steam bursting out busted gaskets, disheveled cargo tumbling from luggage racks, sparks shooting off wheels screeching across warped rails and a whistle ripping into the placid sky.
Natural Selection
I won’t bury the lede. If you are wandering Vietnam’s jungles and suddenly get a whiff of an odor that transports you to the entrance of a CineStar movie theatre, don’t ready yourself for another clichéd Marvel flick. Instead, look into the trees for a cầy mực (binturong).
Saigon Hẻm Gems
“We want to be artists; we want to be free. Now we are free,” says Nguyễn Hoàng Anh, co-founder of A Thăng Eatery.
Loạt Soạt
A book of poetry all about sao la?
Loạt Soạt
If you opened an American magazine, literary or otherwise, in the early 2000s and found any Vietnamese American byline, there’s a good chance it was Andrew Lam. The long-time journalist’s essays and short stories were amongst the first widely circulated in the US.
Vietnam
What does a mango flower look like?
Culture
" Oh it’s easy to go to the rubber and hard to return, / Men leave their corpses, women depart as ghosts."
Literature
If you were a book publisher and saw a sudden spike in sales for a book published years ago, how would you explain it?
Literature
“You told me not to look at you, it’s silly / Yet I want to gnaw you the way I gnaw bread ... the pack of ravenous dogs looked at me with night sea eyes / I wish they could gnaw me piece by piece.”
Natural Selection
The king cobra, or rắn hổ mang chúa in Vietnamese, has great personal branding. For proof, one need look no further than the recent flower display on Nguyễn Huệ celebrating the Year of the Snake: the largest, most impressive statue bore the telltale hood of a cobra.
Loạt Soạt
“If the rain could wash away everything, maybe we could all find peace. For the third generation after the war, what was left behind wasn’t anger or bitterness, but an enduring sorrow that echoed from the heart.”
Sports
The clink of cue sticks on eight-ball muffling the clank of whisky glass ice cubes and the slap of cards as boozehounds hide their addictions in the shadows of sport and hobby? Dense plumes of Bastos smoke obscuring illicit activities and immoral affairs? Are Saigon's pool halls the seedy dens of patriarchal indulgence their reputation and pop culture representations suggest?
Environment
How does a sand battery work?
Culture
From games to sweet treats to flowers to traditional attire, the nostalgic elements of Tết often tug people to the past. Saigoneer writers have reflected on the enticing, acidic aroma of once-legal firecracker smoke ; the versatility of tear-off calendar pages ; and hours laboring over handmade coconut candies , amongst other fond recollections. However, the holiday has no childhood connections or coming-of-age associations for me. Achieving personal relevance when I was nearly three decades into life, Tết instead offers me an opportunity to look ahead, ponder potential, and imagine what could be.
Saigon
When you get a new toy, it's only reasonable to take it out to play with as often as possible.
Vietnam
Dustbins, tree branches, advertising stands and tarps, leftover Christmas decorations, whatever pot, pan, ladle or utensil left unattended in the family kitchen, and at least one street vendor’s bánh khọt mold : whatever wasn’t bolted down got caught up in the wave of đi bão that filled Saigon’s streets last night.
Vietnam
They say you don’t buy a lottery ticket because you think you’ll win; you buy one so that you can fantasize about winning.
Travel
I never pass up an opportunity to reflect on chò nâu and its dipterocarp relative, cây sao. The massive trees that gracefully drag bare limbs upwards to unfurl canopies far above our heads were brought from their native highland terrains by the French in the 19 th century and grown in Thảo Cầm Viên Sài Gòn . From there, they were distributed throughout colonial developments, including Trà Vinh. Today, they not only provide shade and beauty but invite ruminations on legacies of nature's place in subjugation and self-determination.
In Plain Sight
Shallow shrub and fern roots tussle to send shoots, tendrils and stalks up and outwards, sprawling across uneven ground and grasping at patches of light. A musky, funky, fetid soil stink emanates from crooks, crevices, and holes ungoverned by grubs, spiders, snails, beetles, and flies. Flowers bloom in vibrant bursts of color amongst vines, the collapsing pulp of decomposing logs and uncompromising boulders; birds trill, cicadas whine, and the air offers its inexhaustible exhale of droplet-rich molecules. We live in the tropics. Often, we forget this. Tao Đàn Park allows us to remember.
Culture
Everyone should have a võng in their home.
Loạt Soạt
“Shame, rather than pride, can be the basis for national identity… individuals may be motivated to move their country in a desirable direction when national shame outweighs pride.”
Travel
People often think that art is distant and difficult to appreciate, but a garden is different; everyone knows how to admire a flower.