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Paul Christiansen is a Saigon-based writer and editor.
254 stories
Music & Arts
“When you write, you go inside yourself, when you paint, you go outside,” said poet and painter ng. anhan.
One of the most elegant means to observe the textured heft and untethered strength of otherwise-invisible wind — there is plenty one could say about the poetry of flying kites.
Dishcovery
Even during the summer, when the sun bares its teeth and snarls at passing clouds, one must eat. But lugging a belly stuffed with hot, heavy soup, rice and meat through days devoid of shade sounds horrible. So I often settle for lighter fare. Fruit, salads, cold noodles. One of my favorite items for supplying nutrients without overburdening the little thermal factory that is my metabolism is rice paper rolls.
Loạt Soạt
Born in Saigon in 1977, Tuan Phan and his parents left for America via boat in 1986. Remembering Water includes depictions of the voyage including lengthy stops in refugee camps followed by acclimation to a new country and culture. It articulates struggles of exile and assimilation similar to many other diaspora experiences, but his story is unique because Tuan returns to live in Saigon as an adult and encounters a place significantly different from his childhood recollections. The memoir concerns itself not just with the changing city and his relationship with it, but also with more illusive ideas regarding the fallibility of memory and if one can feel more at home in the past than the present.
In Plain Sight
Many of the images conjured by the word leprosy (bệnh phong) can be unsettling to some. Yet, the misunderstood disease exposes the capacity for human care and empathy. Quy Nhơn’s Quy Hoà leprosy village exhibits how communities can come together to lovingly help the less fortunate.
Vietnam
About 45 kilometers from downtown Quy Nhơn stands the Quang Trung Museum (Bảo tàng Quang Trung), one of Vietnam’s finest museums.
Vietnam Hẻm Gems
You’ve probably never had bánh khọt like this before.
In Plain Sight
Do you prefer a view of the beach or mountains?
Travel
Quy Nhơn residents mentioned Hàn Mặc Tử with great pride and reverence whenever I mentioned enjoying reading and writing poems.
Travel
What if memories were not collections of chemicals and electrical impulses stored in the fleshy recesses of a mind, but physical objects made of brick and stone?
Loạt Soạt
Of all 20 th -century Vietnamese authors whose works were translated into English, none have received more high-profile attention than Bảo Ninh for his wartime novel Nỗi buồn chiến tranh ( The Sorrow of War) . Commonly billed as an essential book to better understand the American war from the Vietnamese perspective, it has won numerous prestigious awards worldwide and been translated into twenty different languages.
Natural Selection
Everyone knows the mythological story of the Hoàn Kiếm turtle.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
Kimchi is not a common cơm tấm accouterment. The extra helping of chili pepper heat, palate-cleansing bitterness and cabbage leaf crunch doesn't taste out of place beside a fully loaded plate of broken rice, it’s just not a common feature of the southern staple. This is not so at Cà Phê Đỗ Phủ-Cơm Tấm Đại Hàn, where the story behind kimchi’s existence on the plate is more interesting than the meal itself.
Natural Selection
Of all my accomplishments in life, my greatest may be the creation of The Banana Line . This is a ranking tool, based on the belief that if all fruits were lined up from worst to best, taking into account taste, availability, price, consistency, portability, ease of consumption, versatility, etc., the banana would represent the exact middle; the precise median. The dragon fruit (thanh long) falls well, well below the banana line.
Loạt Soạt
Stories focusing on the natural world and humanity’s relationships with the environment existed before the term eco-literature became popular in the west in the 1970s, but since its coinage, writers and scholars have passionately debated different definitions for it along with arguments for its importance in various literary cannons.
Natural Selection
I’m not a fucking idiot — That’s what I thought while looking at the sign hung from the door of my hotel room in Đà Nẵng.
Culture
Saigon is filled with addresses you aren’t looking for, announcements not aimed at you and signs for businesses you have no plans to frequent. Sign street demands delving into the oft-ignored.
Culture
What gives one’s life meaning? For some, it’s faith, family or art. For Trần Văn Nam, it’s money, but not in the way you probably imagine.
Vietnam Hẻm Gems
The secret is the sauce. And the sauce is a secret. The owners of Đà Nẵng’s Bánh Xèo Bà Dưỡng refuse to reveal the recipe for the rich, meaty, and multi-faceted sauce that falls somewhere between hex colors #A07212 and #A0522D. It elevates a familiar bánh xèo into a meal that draws in enough guests to have essentially taken over an entire downtown hẻm.
Loạt Soạt
Turning a beloved but brief legend based on scant historical evidence into a page-turning novel is no easy task. But Phong Nguyen’s book Bronze Drum succeeds in depicting the upbringing and rebellious triumphs of Hai Bà Trưng as a gripping epic that hits conventional storytelling beats.
Loạt Soạt
Vĩnh, born in Hanoi to a Vietnamese mother who studied in the Soviet Union and teaches English in France, and an ethnically Chinese father raised in Hanoi but now working in Chợ Lớn, dreams of the day when China dominates the world and he can parachute into America-occupied Iraq with the Chinese army to create another Chinatown in Baghdad. Such culture and continent-spanning details suggest extravagant thrills and intrigues, but Thuận’s Chinatown reveals the monotony endured by the diasporic individuals.
Natural Selection
I’ve always hated cá sấu. Not because they’ve threatened my safety or had any real impact on my life whatsoever, but simply because they survived. When a meteor cratered into Earth 66 million years ago and sent sun-engulfing clouds of sizzling rock into the sky, alongside ferocious tidal waves and incessant firestorms, the planet lost some of my most beloved creatures.
Quãng 8
"Miền Tây sông nước tao ngắm cánh đồng xanh / Buổi sáng là thức dậy để đi cày mà làm ăn / Trên đời này thành công là siêng năng / Không có giống mấy thằng chó, có chút tiền rồi kiêu căng."