![\"Da](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Da-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSince my time is tight and often interrupted, I will file these hit-and-run, guerrilla pieces. I\u2019m the only one in this roadside, wall-less and dirt-floored cafe. Walking here, I paused to pet my neighbor\u2019s cow, who\u2019s taken an extreme liking to me. Lovingly, she licked my hand and arm with her sandpaper tongue and even bit yours truly lightly, the frisky bitch. The wind blows. It\u2019s getting brisk in the Central Highlands.<\/h5>\nEa Kly has its charms, of which I\u2019ll discuss more soon, since I\u2019m marooned here, but today I want to talk about another hill town, Da Lat. It\u2019s one of the cleanest and most Catholic places in Vietnam, and perhaps the most stylish<\/a><\/span> and elegant<\/a><\/span>. Is there some causation here?<\/h5>\n![\"da](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/da-2-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>One of my uncles was a doctor in Da Lat, so I spent extended time there as a child, before 1975. This past week, I revisited this beauty. Strolling for miles up and down its hills, I was struck by the neatness of its houses, streets and alleys, and everyone, even the poorest<\/a><\/span>, tended to dress more carefully and consciously than elsewhere in Vietnam. In the always hot Mekong Delta, many people have never owned a pair of shoes, socks, gloves or a jacket, but in Da Lat, several layers of clothing are often necessary before you step outside. Heat encourages nudity and a more savage state. Naked all day long, Adam and Eve must have lived in Tonga or Hawaii. The colder the weather, the more decisions you\u2019ll have to make about your appearance, as in which scarf and knit hat should I wear this afternoon?<\/h5>\n![\"da3\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/da3-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>The weather, though, is but one factor in Da Lat\u2019s stylishness. The French built this town from scratch during World War I, when colonials needed a cool place to chillax but couldn\u2019t embark for home. Although there are only a few French villas<\/a> <\/span>or public buildings left, their architectural influences<\/a><\/span> show up all over, and not just overtly, as in the hip roofs, balustraded balconies, flower boxes beneath double casement windows or arched trellises<\/a><\/span> over gates, etc., but in the general understatedness of Da Lat\u2019s buildings<\/a><\/span>, its fine lines and angles, and nuanced proportion. In Saigon, the rich favor ostentatious gates in garish gold, but in Da Lat, you can still tell who\u2019s loaded without being screamed at by an obnoxious entrance.<\/h5>\nDefining the ideal existence, Vietnamese used to say, \u201cEat Chinese food, live in a French house, marry a Japanese wife.\u201d Online, there\u2019s a comment, \u201cThis saying only adds to the humiliation of the Vietnamese. We don\u2019t achieve anything, but only favor the foreign.\u201d<\/h5>\n![\"da4\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/da4-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>On the seven-hour car ride to Da Lat, I passed so many<\/a> churches<\/a><\/span>, all festive<\/a><\/span> with string lights, star lanterns, flags and nativity scenes, which were also displayed at many private businesses<\/a><\/span>. Gates and banners proclaimed<\/a><\/span>, \u201cJoy at God\u2019s Birth on Earth.\u201d Skeletal Christmas trees lined streets and Santa Clauses added cheers. It\u2019s a bit ironic, I thought, that in Communist, supposedly Godless and traditionally Buddhist Vietnam, there is a more overt and widespread celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth than in America.<\/h5>\nFrom 1975 until 2018, I definitely witnessed not just a progressive diminution of Christmas in America, but an increasing hostility to Christianity, from the sustained deification of a slut with a holy name, Madonna, to the much ballyhooed and remunerative Piss Christ, which is a photo of a crucifix dunk in the artist\u2019s yellowish red urine. One of Madonna\u2019s biggest hits, Like a Prayer, features a video of her dry-humping a black saint in a church. All the other blacks are celebratory, joyous and life-affirming, while all the whites, except for Madonna, are racist, evil and violent. But hey, there\u2019s no ideology behind any of this! It\u2019s just a healthy and organic evolution in thinking, and what the audience can\u2019t help but crave, if they have their heads screwed on straight.<\/h5>\n![\"da5\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/da5-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>I\u2019m wondering if Da Lat\u2019s relative cleanliness and orderliness can be attributed to its high number of Catholics, with their constant stress on personal responsibility and guilt, and their intimate awareness of their community<\/a><\/span>, through their parish<\/a><\/span>? At least once a week, Catholics pray with their immediate neighbors. By contrast, most Vietnamese who identify as Buddhists have an extremely nebulous, if not chaotic, religious life, for they study no sacred text and receive no religious instructions. In their homes, there is usually not even a statue of the Buddha, but only of a standing goddess, Kuan Yin, who is almost always referred to, most generically, as Mrs.<\/h5>\nA typical Vietnamese Buddhist\u2019s theology is a jumble of folk beliefs and superstitions, and I\u2019ll cite a familial example: when my mother-in-law got sick recently after a trip, she didn\u2019t blame it on something she ate, the long ride, the weather or her aging constitution, but the fact that she had gotten into a black car, \u201cI knew something was wrong when I saw that black car.\u201d I\u2019ve also seen her pray at a Cao Dai temple and a Hindu one. Granted, many Catholics also believe in heathen magic, as in a fear of the evil eye, but they\u2019re grounded, in theory at least, by the New Testament.<\/h5>\nIn early April of 1975, my uncle\u2019s family showed up in our Saigon home, for Da Lat had fallen. A few days later, a rogue South Vietnamese pilot bombed the Presidential Palace, just a quarter mile from my school, La San Taberd. Like all Catholic schools, it would soon be confiscated by the new regime.<\/h5>\nMy uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n![\"da6\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/da6-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/a>One of my uncles was a doctor in Da Lat, so I spent extended time there as a child, before 1975. This past week, I revisited this beauty. Strolling for miles up and down its hills, I was struck by the neatness of its houses, streets and alleys, and everyone, even the poorest<\/a><\/span>, tended to dress more carefully and consciously than elsewhere in Vietnam. In the always hot Mekong Delta, many people have never owned a pair of shoes, socks, gloves or a jacket, but in Da Lat, several layers of clothing are often necessary before you step outside. Heat encourages nudity and a more savage state. Naked all day long, Adam and Eve must have lived in Tonga or Hawaii. The colder the weather, the more decisions you\u2019ll have to make about your appearance, as in which scarf and knit hat should I wear this afternoon?<\/h5>\n<\/a>The weather, though, is but one factor in Da Lat\u2019s stylishness. The French built this town from scratch during World War I, when colonials needed a cool place to chillax but couldn\u2019t embark for home. Although there are only a few French villas<\/a> <\/span>or public buildings left, their architectural influences<\/a><\/span> show up all over, and not just overtly, as in the hip roofs, balustraded balconies, flower boxes beneath double casement windows or arched trellises<\/a><\/span> over gates, etc., but in the general understatedness of Da Lat\u2019s buildings<\/a><\/span>, its fine lines and angles, and nuanced proportion. In Saigon, the rich favor ostentatious gates in garish gold, but in Da Lat, you can still tell who\u2019s loaded without being screamed at by an obnoxious entrance.<\/h5>\nDefining the ideal existence, Vietnamese used to say, \u201cEat Chinese food, live in a French house, marry a Japanese wife.\u201d Online, there\u2019s a comment, \u201cThis saying only adds to the humiliation of the Vietnamese. We don\u2019t achieve anything, but only favor the foreign.\u201d<\/h5>\n<\/a>On the seven-hour car ride to Da Lat, I passed so many<\/a> churches<\/a><\/span>, all festive<\/a><\/span> with string lights, star lanterns, flags and nativity scenes, which were also displayed at many private businesses<\/a><\/span>. Gates and banners proclaimed<\/a><\/span>, \u201cJoy at God\u2019s Birth on Earth.\u201d Skeletal Christmas trees lined streets and Santa Clauses added cheers. It\u2019s a bit ironic, I thought, that in Communist, supposedly Godless and traditionally Buddhist Vietnam, there is a more overt and widespread celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth than in America.<\/h5>\nFrom 1975 until 2018, I definitely witnessed not just a progressive diminution of Christmas in America, but an increasing hostility to Christianity, from the sustained deification of a slut with a holy name, Madonna, to the much ballyhooed and remunerative Piss Christ, which is a photo of a crucifix dunk in the artist\u2019s yellowish red urine. One of Madonna\u2019s biggest hits, Like a Prayer, features a video of her dry-humping a black saint in a church. All the other blacks are celebratory, joyous and life-affirming, while all the whites, except for Madonna, are racist, evil and violent. But hey, there\u2019s no ideology behind any of this! It\u2019s just a healthy and organic evolution in thinking, and what the audience can\u2019t help but crave, if they have their heads screwed on straight.<\/h5>\n<\/a>I\u2019m wondering if Da Lat\u2019s relative cleanliness and orderliness can be attributed to its high number of Catholics, with their constant stress on personal responsibility and guilt, and their intimate awareness of their community<\/a><\/span>, through their parish<\/a><\/span>? At least once a week, Catholics pray with their immediate neighbors. By contrast, most Vietnamese who identify as Buddhists have an extremely nebulous, if not chaotic, religious life, for they study no sacred text and receive no religious instructions. In their homes, there is usually not even a statue of the Buddha, but only of a standing goddess, Kuan Yin, who is almost always referred to, most generically, as Mrs.<\/h5>\nA typical Vietnamese Buddhist\u2019s theology is a jumble of folk beliefs and superstitions, and I\u2019ll cite a familial example: when my mother-in-law got sick recently after a trip, she didn\u2019t blame it on something she ate, the long ride, the weather or her aging constitution, but the fact that she had gotten into a black car, \u201cI knew something was wrong when I saw that black car.\u201d I\u2019ve also seen her pray at a Cao Dai temple and a Hindu one. Granted, many Catholics also believe in heathen magic, as in a fear of the evil eye, but they\u2019re grounded, in theory at least, by the New Testament.<\/h5>\nIn early April of 1975, my uncle\u2019s family showed up in our Saigon home, for Da Lat had fallen. A few days later, a rogue South Vietnamese pilot bombed the Presidential Palace, just a quarter mile from my school, La San Taberd. Like all Catholic schools, it would soon be confiscated by the new regime.<\/h5>\nMy uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/a>The weather, though, is but one factor in Da Lat\u2019s stylishness. The French built this town from scratch during World War I, when colonials needed a cool place to chillax but couldn\u2019t embark for home. Although there are only a few French villas<\/a> <\/span>or public buildings left, their architectural influences<\/a><\/span> show up all over, and not just overtly, as in the hip roofs, balustraded balconies, flower boxes beneath double casement windows or arched trellises<\/a><\/span> over gates, etc., but in the general understatedness of Da Lat\u2019s buildings<\/a><\/span>, its fine lines and angles, and nuanced proportion. In Saigon, the rich favor ostentatious gates in garish gold, but in Da Lat, you can still tell who\u2019s loaded without being screamed at by an obnoxious entrance.<\/h5>\nDefining the ideal existence, Vietnamese used to say, \u201cEat Chinese food, live in a French house, marry a Japanese wife.\u201d Online, there\u2019s a comment, \u201cThis saying only adds to the humiliation of the Vietnamese. We don\u2019t achieve anything, but only favor the foreign.\u201d<\/h5>\n<\/a>On the seven-hour car ride to Da Lat, I passed so many<\/a> churches<\/a><\/span>, all festive<\/a><\/span> with string lights, star lanterns, flags and nativity scenes, which were also displayed at many private businesses<\/a><\/span>. Gates and banners proclaimed<\/a><\/span>, \u201cJoy at God\u2019s Birth on Earth.\u201d Skeletal Christmas trees lined streets and Santa Clauses added cheers. It\u2019s a bit ironic, I thought, that in Communist, supposedly Godless and traditionally Buddhist Vietnam, there is a more overt and widespread celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth than in America.<\/h5>\nFrom 1975 until 2018, I definitely witnessed not just a progressive diminution of Christmas in America, but an increasing hostility to Christianity, from the sustained deification of a slut with a holy name, Madonna, to the much ballyhooed and remunerative Piss Christ, which is a photo of a crucifix dunk in the artist\u2019s yellowish red urine. One of Madonna\u2019s biggest hits, Like a Prayer, features a video of her dry-humping a black saint in a church. All the other blacks are celebratory, joyous and life-affirming, while all the whites, except for Madonna, are racist, evil and violent. But hey, there\u2019s no ideology behind any of this! It\u2019s just a healthy and organic evolution in thinking, and what the audience can\u2019t help but crave, if they have their heads screwed on straight.<\/h5>\n<\/a>I\u2019m wondering if Da Lat\u2019s relative cleanliness and orderliness can be attributed to its high number of Catholics, with their constant stress on personal responsibility and guilt, and their intimate awareness of their community<\/a><\/span>, through their parish<\/a><\/span>? At least once a week, Catholics pray with their immediate neighbors. By contrast, most Vietnamese who identify as Buddhists have an extremely nebulous, if not chaotic, religious life, for they study no sacred text and receive no religious instructions. In their homes, there is usually not even a statue of the Buddha, but only of a standing goddess, Kuan Yin, who is almost always referred to, most generically, as Mrs.<\/h5>\nA typical Vietnamese Buddhist\u2019s theology is a jumble of folk beliefs and superstitions, and I\u2019ll cite a familial example: when my mother-in-law got sick recently after a trip, she didn\u2019t blame it on something she ate, the long ride, the weather or her aging constitution, but the fact that she had gotten into a black car, \u201cI knew something was wrong when I saw that black car.\u201d I\u2019ve also seen her pray at a Cao Dai temple and a Hindu one. Granted, many Catholics also believe in heathen magic, as in a fear of the evil eye, but they\u2019re grounded, in theory at least, by the New Testament.<\/h5>\nIn early April of 1975, my uncle\u2019s family showed up in our Saigon home, for Da Lat had fallen. A few days later, a rogue South Vietnamese pilot bombed the Presidential Palace, just a quarter mile from my school, La San Taberd. Like all Catholic schools, it would soon be confiscated by the new regime.<\/h5>\nMy uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/a>On the seven-hour car ride to Da Lat, I passed so many<\/a> churches<\/a><\/span>, all festive<\/a><\/span> with string lights, star lanterns, flags and nativity scenes, which were also displayed at many private businesses<\/a><\/span>. Gates and banners proclaimed<\/a><\/span>, \u201cJoy at God\u2019s Birth on Earth.\u201d Skeletal Christmas trees lined streets and Santa Clauses added cheers. It\u2019s a bit ironic, I thought, that in Communist, supposedly Godless and traditionally Buddhist Vietnam, there is a more overt and widespread celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth than in America.<\/h5>\nFrom 1975 until 2018, I definitely witnessed not just a progressive diminution of Christmas in America, but an increasing hostility to Christianity, from the sustained deification of a slut with a holy name, Madonna, to the much ballyhooed and remunerative Piss Christ, which is a photo of a crucifix dunk in the artist\u2019s yellowish red urine. One of Madonna\u2019s biggest hits, Like a Prayer, features a video of her dry-humping a black saint in a church. All the other blacks are celebratory, joyous and life-affirming, while all the whites, except for Madonna, are racist, evil and violent. But hey, there\u2019s no ideology behind any of this! It\u2019s just a healthy and organic evolution in thinking, and what the audience can\u2019t help but crave, if they have their heads screwed on straight.<\/h5>\n<\/a>I\u2019m wondering if Da Lat\u2019s relative cleanliness and orderliness can be attributed to its high number of Catholics, with their constant stress on personal responsibility and guilt, and their intimate awareness of their community<\/a><\/span>, through their parish<\/a><\/span>? At least once a week, Catholics pray with their immediate neighbors. By contrast, most Vietnamese who identify as Buddhists have an extremely nebulous, if not chaotic, religious life, for they study no sacred text and receive no religious instructions. In their homes, there is usually not even a statue of the Buddha, but only of a standing goddess, Kuan Yin, who is almost always referred to, most generically, as Mrs.<\/h5>\nA typical Vietnamese Buddhist\u2019s theology is a jumble of folk beliefs and superstitions, and I\u2019ll cite a familial example: when my mother-in-law got sick recently after a trip, she didn\u2019t blame it on something she ate, the long ride, the weather or her aging constitution, but the fact that she had gotten into a black car, \u201cI knew something was wrong when I saw that black car.\u201d I\u2019ve also seen her pray at a Cao Dai temple and a Hindu one. Granted, many Catholics also believe in heathen magic, as in a fear of the evil eye, but they\u2019re grounded, in theory at least, by the New Testament.<\/h5>\nIn early April of 1975, my uncle\u2019s family showed up in our Saigon home, for Da Lat had fallen. A few days later, a rogue South Vietnamese pilot bombed the Presidential Palace, just a quarter mile from my school, La San Taberd. Like all Catholic schools, it would soon be confiscated by the new regime.<\/h5>\nMy uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/a>I\u2019m wondering if Da Lat\u2019s relative cleanliness and orderliness can be attributed to its high number of Catholics, with their constant stress on personal responsibility and guilt, and their intimate awareness of their community<\/a><\/span>, through their parish<\/a><\/span>? At least once a week, Catholics pray with their immediate neighbors. By contrast, most Vietnamese who identify as Buddhists have an extremely nebulous, if not chaotic, religious life, for they study no sacred text and receive no religious instructions. In their homes, there is usually not even a statue of the Buddha, but only of a standing goddess, Kuan Yin, who is almost always referred to, most generically, as Mrs.<\/h5>\nA typical Vietnamese Buddhist\u2019s theology is a jumble of folk beliefs and superstitions, and I\u2019ll cite a familial example: when my mother-in-law got sick recently after a trip, she didn\u2019t blame it on something she ate, the long ride, the weather or her aging constitution, but the fact that she had gotten into a black car, \u201cI knew something was wrong when I saw that black car.\u201d I\u2019ve also seen her pray at a Cao Dai temple and a Hindu one. Granted, many Catholics also believe in heathen magic, as in a fear of the evil eye, but they\u2019re grounded, in theory at least, by the New Testament.<\/h5>\nIn early April of 1975, my uncle\u2019s family showed up in our Saigon home, for Da Lat had fallen. A few days later, a rogue South Vietnamese pilot bombed the Presidential Palace, just a quarter mile from my school, La San Taberd. Like all Catholic schools, it would soon be confiscated by the new regime.<\/h5>\nMy uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
My uncle\u2019s family managed to get out as Saigon fell, and in the US, they were sponsored by a black family in Mobile, Alabama. These kind folks took in six complete strangers, from an entirely different culture, with no common language, and this amazing generosity occurred all over America, for there were 125,000 Vietnamese refugees that needed to be resettled, in 1975 alone. Whenever I brought up this fact years later, no American knew what I was talking about.<\/h5>\nGaining his bearings, my uncle ran U Totem, a convenience store in Houston, then became a doctor again in Angola Prison. Another uncle practiced medicine in rural Texas. Visiting him in 1980 or so, I remember being amused by his Texan accent, but that\u2019s what a refugee must do. Forced by violent history, he must reinvent himself overnight. Becoming American, some of my relatives are already buried there. Spat out by the beast, I\u2019m back home, so must watch Nineveh burn from afar. The Jewish God doesn\u2019t toy.<\/h5>\nIf a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
If a border wall is ever built, it will be to keep Americans in, turn their mental prison, already air tight, into an actual steel cage. Travel hubs have long become police checkpoints. Since they didn\u2019t even dare to name their enemy, much less put up a fight, they can only wish they were refugees.<\/h5>\n<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\nLinh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/a>D<\/strong>a Lat may have some French touches, but it\u2019s still definitely Vietnamese, so people are constantly eating and drinking on many sidewalks, and not in elegant cafes, but sitting on low stools, all wrapped up because of the cold. Being outside<\/a><\/span>, Vietnamese can huddle together to observe the foot and vehicle traffic. They enjoy being in the flow. Small men with tiny, forgettable lives, we are tugged and swirled this way and that by the sweet or brutal currents. Cupping a glass of hot soymilk, I sip and belong.<\/h5>\n