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Paul Christiansen is a Saigon-based writer and editor.
254 stories
Loạt Soạt
“I just can’t get the voices out my head,” Andrew Lam explains of his writing process.
If one needs further proof of cats' superiority to humans, one simply needs to consider their response to Saigon's perpetually stalled public transportation plans.
In Plain Sight
By (un)conventional standards, Saigon’s Geological Museum may warrant a score of 1.3/9, but if one considers it as a source of whimsy, it’s a solid 8.2/9.
Loạt Soạt
As American bombers roared over the horizon preparing to drop fire and misery, air raid sirens screeched and people throughout Hanoi scrambled to find safety.
Environment
Knotted gnarls of lush stems, leaves, vines; a verdant scrimmage of tangled plant matter kept afloat by buoyant bladders accented by pleats of pink petals that resemble the skirts of ballerinas trapped inside music boxes: the water hyacinth.
Postcards
Soft lights illuminate Saigon's dark alleys and streets the way holiday cheer brightens the lamentations for another year passing.
Loạt Soạt
“Read what you don’t know because if you can already imagine it, then you can already imagine it; but if you can’t, then open up something that reveals a world you can’t imagine and then suddenly you’re like, 'oh wow.'”
Music & Arts
Notes leap and prance out of bamboo flute the way a cricket prances between stalks of grass.
Postcards
Folk wisdom offers a unique way to achieve aquatic efficiency.
Sports
How lucrative is being a professional basketball player in Vietnam? T o help make ends meet, “some work at fast-food restaurants,” admits Ho Chi Minh City Wings small forward Nguyen Ky Quan.
![[Short Story] 'Deviate' by Tran Thi NgH](https://media.urbanistnetwork.com/saigoneer/article-images/2019/Aug/4/Deviate0b.jpg)
Literature
The interplay between lust and creativity, origins of capricious desires and the relationship between art and artist: 'Deviate,' by Vietnamese-writer Tran Thi NgH explores a multitude of themes and subjects with strikingly original language reliant on familiar idioms, inventive phrasings and obscure terms from science and anatomy. Originally published in Vietnamese in the collection Ac Tinh , we translated it into English with the help of the author. It includes her original paintings as well. Read in full below:
Postcards
The name "Turtle Lake" has more mythic origins than merely suggesting the presence of aquatic reptiles.
Literature
The interplay between lust and creativity, origins of capricious desires and the relationship between art and artist: 'Deviate,' by Vietnamese-writer Tran Thi NgH explores a multitude of themes and subjects with strikingly original language reliant on familiar idioms, inventive phrasings and obscure terms from science and anatomy. Originally published in Vietnamese in the collection Ac Tinh , we translated it into English with the help of the author. It includes her original paintings as well. Read in full below:
Postcards
The monsoon season's heavy clouds carry a chaos of conflictions.
Food Culture
The craft beer craze that originated in the west has arrived in Vietnam in full force , but the trend of incorporating the beverage into local food recipes hasn’t yet followed.
![[Photos] The Ghostliness That Inspired the Fine Arts Museum's Haunting Rumors](https://media.urbanistnetwork.com/saigoneer/article-images/2019/June/25/03b.jpg)
Music & Arts
Do humans invent ghost stories to compensate for our inability to come to terms with the brutal, capricious nature of death, or do we spend significant energy suppressing the truth of the supernatural while, despite our best efforts, tales of the paranormal continue to seep out?
Saigon Hẻm Gems
Contemporary coffee culture in Saigon is largely one of extremes. On one end, enthusiasts at trendy shops source, grow, roast and meticulously prepare some of the finest beans in the world, and on the other, humble carts serve cheap cups on hectic street corners. And in between? Cà Phê Tám Hường. The tiny stand situated in a shaded spot on Nguyen Du Street serves coffee fit for a connoisseur at pavement prices.
Postcards
While the rainy season's flooded streets, soaked satchels and delayed appointments can make one curse its arrival, sometimes when the torrent hits the neon storefronts just so, it becomes a source of inspiration.
Loạt Soạt
Children can “hear the music and see the colors of letters on a page — magic portals to a wilderness without fixed meanings… all adults see are the neat rows of black lines, the building blocks of definitions,” according to the narrator in Ticket to Childhood . Nguyen Nhat Anh's book reminds readers how wonderful it was to see the world with such an imaginative vision.
Society
With a devious grin on her face, Hau snatched the oversized plush pillow resembling a tree trunk from my hands, exclaiming, “Mine! And third steal so no one can take it away.”
Postcards
Navigating traffic with absurdly overburdened motorbikes comes as second nature to Saigoneers.
Literature
A lion cub’s tussling, teething and roughhousing represent not simply play for play’s sake, but instead, training for a life of stalking, pouncing and throat-gashing; and so it might be with the poems in Duy Doan’s book, 'We Play a Game.' Whether relying on Vietnamese’s linguistic intricacies or the detailing of soccer matches and boxing bouts, the games presented are not mere recreation but reflections of the complicated, brutal, beautiful facets of the human condition.
Loạt Soạt
A lion cub’s tussling, teething and roughhousing represents not simply play for play’s sake, but instead, training for a life of stalking, pouncing and throat-gashing; and so it might be with the poems in Duy Doan’s book, 'We Play a Game.' Whether relying on Vietnamese’s linguistic intricacies or the detailing of soccer matches and boxing bouts, the games presented are not mere recreation but reflections of the complicated, brutal, beautiful facets of the human condition.
Postcards
Before bombs and boobie traps, guerilla offenses and ambushes, Vietnam had another means of driving invaders out.