Atomized junior- The Web log


Dedicated to the smallest particles of meaning on the web
Atomized Links:



theUsual Suspects:





Subscribe to "Atomized junior- The Web log" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


Thursday, 3 March, 2005
 
Wheaton

I am in the middle of sketching notes or thoughts for a couple of different posts, but they're not going to get done tonight. My thinking has gone all askew (and that is pretty unkewed). So I am going to sweep all these notes and unread articles aside, for a moment, to write instead, that my friend Tran is back from her month long trip back to Vietnam. She had gone with her parents to visit her older sister and her family who still live there. Everything is different from when she lived there, she says - she left in 1994. The landscape - everything seems to have been rebuilt, or realigned, both in Saigon and in the town down south that her father grew up in. They had trouble finding the spots where they had lived, it looked so unfamiliar.

The culture had changed the people didn't seem the same. There were factories, hotels and bars; places of entertainment, but only for the rich - there were more of them. All the jobs that are to be had, in those hotels - go through them. All the people from the communist party. She had gone with some anticipation and trepidation, wondering where home was, but there was nothing there she remembered, none of her friends. Home, she has decided, is in Wheaton.

A sample of our conversation today: "They have 7-up in Vietnam but they don't call it 7-UP." "Oh, What do they call it?" "'Baht(?) up'." "Umm, what's the word for seven in Vietnamese." "'Baht'(?)." "And there is a big '7' on the bottle like there is here, right?" "Yes, why?" Suddenly I suspect I've been subtly set up somehow. But she just smiles.

A brief aside: Mir (of Dim Sum Diaries) had written in a comment, that when she worked in DC some years ago she had known a Tran Nguyen at USAID, (which is different from USIA) . Tran says she did work there for a while, maybe it was her. I will continue to sort this out tomorrow.


8:59:41 PM    comment [];trackback [];


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
2005 Paul Bushmiller.
Last update: 4/01/05; 00:45:41.
March 2005
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
Feb   Apr


Prolegemma to any future FAQ.

Who are you again?
paul bushmiller
what is it exactly that you do?
at the least, this.
What is this?
it's a weblog.
How long have you been doing it?
3 or 4 years. I used to run it by hand; Radio Userland is more convenient.
Ever been overseas?
yes
Know any foreign languages?
no
Favorite song?
victoria - the kinks
RockandRoll? Favorite American song then
Omaha - Moby Grape
Favorite Movie
Billy in the Lowlands
favorite book?
any book I can read in a clean well lighted place
Is this one of those websites with lots of contentious, dogmatic and brittle opinions?
no
What do you expect to accomplish with this?
something
Site Meter