estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: November 2007
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007. The Hold of Memory (1). Think about Saigon today and you’ll eventually think about the hold memory has. Stop You can’t go down this road. Don’t you recognize that voice, as you write this? The voice of the war, of the gonzo journalists, of Michael Herr and Hunter Thompson, and, before them, of genteel Graham Greene and his quiet, prescient novel on the end of French colonization, its replacement by American might. The atrocity exhibition (J.G. Ballard). The question for peop...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: Into the Maze (1)
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2008/01/into-maze-1.html
Thursday, January 17, 2008. Into the Maze (1). I was intrigued by the incongruous beauty of this lone tree. In the summer the rainy season intensifies. That year the summer rains came regularly each afternoon, unlike more recently, when they were sparser. Will the streets flood? Will my street and my house be flooded? Heavy flooding is a real problem. It is not unusual to be forced to turn back from certain streets which are drowned in a foot of murky yellowish mud and water.). Into the Maze (1).
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: February 2007
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Monday, February 12, 2007. There is a large, vaguely ominous building in central. A French colonial palace. The grey exterior is reminiscent of the color of warships. On the left side of the building, under large banyan trees, a. Helicopter is displayed as a war relic. On the right, American fighter jets and Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns complete the décor. The car, the famous Citroen “Traction,” is always painted black. This building used to house the Museum of the Revolution. Ho Chi Minh City. She repl...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: January 2008
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Thursday, January 17, 2008. Into the Maze (1). I was intrigued by the incongruous beauty of this lone tree. In the summer the rainy season intensifies. That year the summer rains came regularly each afternoon, unlike more recently, when they were sparser. Will the streets flood? Will my street and my house be flooded? Heavy flooding is a real problem. It is not unusual to be forced to turn back from certain streets which are drowned in a foot of murky yellowish mud and water.). Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: Photographic Memories
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2007/02/photographic-memories.html
Monday, February 12, 2007. There is a large, vaguely ominous building in central. A French colonial palace. The grey exterior is reminiscent of the color of warships. On the left side of the building, under large banyan trees, a. Helicopter is displayed as a war relic. On the right, American fighter jets and Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns complete the décor. The car, the famous Citroen “Traction,” is always painted black. This building used to house the Museum of the Revolution. Ho Chi Minh City. She repl...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: The Hold of Memory (1)
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2007/11/hold-of-memory-1.html
Wednesday, November 21, 2007. The Hold of Memory (1). Think about Saigon today and you’ll eventually think about the hold memory has. Stop You can’t go down this road. Don’t you recognize that voice, as you write this? The voice of the war, of the gonzo journalists, of Michael Herr and Hunter Thompson, and, before them, of genteel Graham Greene and his quiet, prescient novel on the end of French colonization, its replacement by American might. The atrocity exhibition (J.G. Ballard). The question for peop...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: Into the Maze (3)
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2008/04/into-maze-3.html
Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Into the Maze (3). The small temple shrine ( mieu. Sits in a narrow lane. The lone tree I had observed from my balcony peers out from a hole in the shrine’s roof. Inside the shrine, under the fluorescent lights, two elongated cement shapes that look like the corpses of turtles. They are covered in smooth white plaster. The large roots of the tree surround and weave around them. The straight trunk of the tree juts out from a hole in the roof. The shrine is marked in my memory as...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: Vietnamese Markets (1)
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2007/11/vietnamese-markets-1.html
Friday, November 02, 2007. For locals who live in these crowded, sometimes insalubrious houses, the picture is quite different. These small family traders have a hard time competing with the larger shops, supermarkets, and department stores that have opened all over Ha Noi since the early 1990s. Some of the big shops were purchased early on by small-time trading families. They seized an opportunity at the right moment and never looked back. Stay away from the face-to-face interactions where you have to h...
estrangement-effect.blogspot.com
Estrangement Effect: Vietnamese Ghosts (3): "Superstition" and belief in ghosts
http://estrangement-effect.blogspot.com/2006/12/vietnamese-ghosts-3-superstition-and.html
Thursday, December 14, 2006. Vietnamese Ghosts (3): "Superstition" and belief in ghosts. Her mother has a sharp tongue. She routinely uses it to chastise her adult daughter. My friend is often perplexed by her mother’s aggressiveness. Alternatively, she’s amused when this aggression is directed at other people. Neither she nor her mother “believe” in ghosts, they say ( khong tin. And yet ghosts appear to both of them. These ghosts stories are striking because people retell them as.
