MetaFilter posts tagged with Vietnam

Facing up to CNN

greatgefilte — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:14:36 -0800

Should viewer discretion be advised for pictures of children with congenital deformities? One Ontario woman doesn't think so: "I am 'deformed' and reading that viewer discretion warning ahead of the article (amounted) to telling me that every time I left the house I should wear a similar warning." Born with Goldenhar syndome, Penny Loker (blog, Twitter) hasn't let her congenital facial abnormalities stop her. She works in customer service at one of Canada's biggest telecom companies, Rogers, and volunteers regularly at Kitchener, Ontario's Grand River Hospital. Oh, and her dream is to head to Comic-Con one day. Penny's email to CNN resulted in the network apparently changing (but not removing) the warning displayed before accessing the photo gallery in question, and a detailed profile about her life, not to mention an interview on the Canadian Broadcasting Company's local affiliate.

Fascinating pics of Vietnam in the 1980s

KokuRyu — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:46:37 -0800

Fascinating pics of Vietnam in the 1980s (Part 1) (Part 2). Photographs by Philip Jones Griffiths. Here's a 1993 interview.

A sobering look back on an infamous chapter in history

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:17:23 -0800

In the Year of the Pig is a documentary on the Vietnam war, produced and originally released in 1968 as the war raged. It begins with some background on the end of the French colonial period, then moves on to the American involvement. It features gripping historical footage from the war itself and from leading political players of the time. At the time of its release, a New York Times review said "There are no frills and few ifs, ands or buts about the stinging, graphic and often frighteningly penetrating movie". It is highly recommended for anyone seeking to understand more of the history of the war. Viewable in its entirety here.

CS in VN

kliuless — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:49:31 -0800

Kids In Vietnam Are Crazy Good At Programming - '11th graders in Vietnam are so good at programming that they could easily pass an interview at Google' (via)

The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'

Obscure Reference — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 06:29:55 -0800

Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks... but said nothing.

"As the hymn says, you can lay your burden down."

zarq — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:36:49 -0800

The Things They Leave Behind. "When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened 30 years ago, something unexpected happened: People started leaving things at the wall. One veteran has spent decades cataloging the letters, mementos, and other artifacts of loss — all 400,000 of them." (Via.) Website: The National Park Service Museum Resource Center. CSPAN Video: "Bob Sonderman, director of the Museum Resource Center, gave a tour of the football field-sized warehouse which houses roughly 2.5 million archaeological objects from National Park locations in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia." (2/11)

He said he would welcome a million American soldiers to come in

elgilito — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:47:43 -0800

On July 17, 1945, the OSS Deer Team, led by Major A. K. Thomas, was parachuted in the jungle 200 km north of Hanoi, to make contact with a mysterious group of resistance fighters willing to help the US against the Japanese. They were greeted cordially by the group leader, "Mr C. M. Hoo", a sick-looking older man, and his acolyte "Mr Van", a dapper man wearing a white linen suit and a black fedora (and he did like his fedora). From mid-July to the Japanese capitulation, the Deer Team trained Hoo's ragtag band, provided them with explosives and small arms and followed them during skirmishes. They also allegedly saved Ho(o)'s life. Major Thomas' full report on the Deer Mission (including the FPP title and the line Forget the Communist Bogy) is buried in the 1972 Hearings on the causes of the Vietnam war (see also the same events according to Henri Prunier, last surviving member of the Deer Team). On September 2, Major Thomas' friend of the forest, born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, AKA Nguyên Aï Quoc, AKA OSS Agent 19 "Lucius", AKA Hồ Chí Minh was standing on a platform in the Ba Đình flower garden in Hanoi, proclaiming Vietnam's independence in front of a large crowd. "Mr Van" AKA Võ Nguyên Giáp was there, obviously, as were OSS operatives, notably the head of the Hanoi mission Major Archimede L. A. Patti, who later wrote a detailed memoir of these events, Why Vietnam? Hồ started his speech with "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...". The OSS Mission in Hanoi was disbanded in October 1945.

A Tiny Vietnamese Village Where Women Chose to be Single Mothers

winecork — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:17:45 -0800

LOI, Vietnam — They had no plan to break barriers or cause trouble. But 30 years ago in this bucolic village in northern Vietnam, the fierce determination of one group of women to become mothers upended centuries-old gender rules and may have helped open the door for a nation to redefine parenthood.

I ate a dog in Vietnam

Keith Talent — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:42:45 -0800

Vice details dining on dog in Hanoi. (Trigger warning; pics of roast dog, graphic text). Dog eating is not limited to South East Asia, there's a historical precedent almost everywhere in the world, and is still eaten in parts of Europe. The Germans continue the tradition of always having the best word for any given situation, where it's called "blockade mutton". Oh, and the linked Vice article has perhaps the single greatest descriptor in the history of English food writing, describing a fermented shrimp paste "which tasted like a medieval prostitute’s gusset". Which is either a triumph for English, Frat Boy Division, or legitimately great.

Stanley Karnow, 1925-2013

TedW — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:29:32 -0800

Stanley Karnow, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and historian, has died at age 87. He won the prize in 1990 for his book In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines (discussed on Booknotes). He is best known, however for his work on Vietnam. His book Vietnam: A History was widely acclaimed and its companion series on PBS, Vietnam: A Television History won six Emmys and a Peabody award and was one of the most widely watched documentaries on PBS. He discussed the war in 2000 in this Salon interview. Needless to say, his reporting was not appreciated by everyone.

Subspecies Extinction Alert

Scientist — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:47:03 -0800

DNA analysis has confirmed the death, by poaching, of the last Javan rhino in Vietnam. This marks the official extinction of the Vietnamese subspecies of Javan rhinoceros. The entire species is now represented by just 35 individuals from the Indonesian subspecies, all of whom reside in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia.

Are Western tourists being poisoned in Asia?

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:34:34 -0800

Western tourists (mostly female) visiting Southeast Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, and Bali) are ending up dead, likely poisoned. Local officials have blamed the use of the insecticide DEET as an exotic ingredient in so-called "Bucket Drinks", or the use of Chlorpyrifos in hotel rooms. But Deborah Blum, an author and poison expert, doesn't buy into the insecticide theories offered by local officials. She thinks this looks like targeted murders. Since writing about the poisonings, she says she's been contacted by people who claim poisoning foreigners is common in 5-star hotels, and the police and owners cover it up.. A Facebook group was formed not only so that world travelers could share safe travel tips, but also so that notice of the unexplained, and often uninvestigated, deaths could be made public.

Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book

laconic skeuomorph — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 06:49:32 -0800

A comic written by Julian Bond and published in 1967, after he was expelled from the Georgia House of Representatives for opposing the war in Viet Nam. [Warning: n-word is used once as an example of hate speech] Via the Sixties Project, previously.

"We Just Witnessed a War Crime"

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:33:02 -0800

The first thing we learned about war re-enactment is that it's fucking terrifying having guns fired at you, even ones loaded with blanks. The second thing we learned is a common re-enactor's dilemma called "The G.I. Effect", which is basically that people playing Americans don't like to die. So sometimes they just don't.

It's Like Vietnam All Over Again, pt 1. Part 2

Honey, I Shrunk the Tariff

vidur — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:55:00 -0800

"Honey laundering is a complex exercise that involves several players in the honey chain from apiary to wholesaler to retailer. In the case against ALW, evidence was presented to show the use of fake country-of-origin documents for shipments, replacement of labels on Chinese containers with fraudulent ones, switching of honey containers in a third country, and even the blending of Chinese honey with glucose syrup or honey from another country."

Reflections of China Beach

mediocre — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:00:30 -0800

On April 26th, 1988 ABC aired a made for tv movie as a backdoor pilot called China Beach. It went on to be a critically loved, audience deprived show that lasted four seasons from 1988 - 1991. It remains a show applauded and admired for it's unique narrative style that often combined the fictional and factual accounts of Vietnam and blurred the lines between the show and reality with moments such as the cast visiting war memorials out of character, and interviews with veterans, putting these clips in the middle of the show instead of placing them outside the fictional narrative. Unavailable on DVD officially still due to music licensing issues as is the case with many of these nostalgia, rich shows. As always though, the internet finds a way.

Malcolm Browne, 1931-2012

Rangeboy — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:24:18 -0800

Malcolm Browne, the war correspondent who took one of the most iconic and disturbing photographs of the Vietnam conflict, has died. He was 81. Browne was working as a reporter for the Associated Press in Saigon in 1963 when his office received word that something "very important" would happen at a street intersection the next day. When Browne arrived at the appointed time, he saw Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc douse himself with jet fuel and light himself ablaze in a protest against the U.S.-backed government of South Vietnam. Browne, the only Western journalist present, took pictures of the immolation. Browne's image was published around the globe and for many served as the first warning that things in South Vietnam were worse than either Saigon or Washington would admit. Browne's reporting was often criticized by American officials, and at one contentious press conference an Army officer asked Browne, "why don't you get on the team?" Despite (or because of) the controversial nature of his reporting, Browne (with David Halberstam) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his coverage of Vietnam. He later wrote a memoir, Muddy Boots and Red Socks, in which he reflected on his career, dispensed advice for aspiring journalists, and discussed his familial connection to Oscar Wilde.

"Very interesting and attractive young women without hats"

KokuRyu — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:38:33 -0800

Leftist Planet: Why do so many travel guides make excuses for dictators? ...formerly totalitarian countries that have undergone market reforms and economic growth are often upbraided by guidebook writers for betraying their revolutionary ideals. As living standards rise in Asia, the authentic travel experience is harder to come by. Writing on the Rough Guides website a few years ago, Ron Emmons, co-author of The Rough Guide to Vietnam, expressed his disappointment at the diminished power of the communist economy in Hanoi, sighing that his "first impression of Vietnam was a Pepsi advert splashed across the side of a shuttle bus. After centuries of valiantly fighting off invaders by land, sea and air, Vietnam had finally succumbed to western influences.

Watch with one eye, hear with one ear, hand-made celluloid films!

elgilito — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 09:35:29 -0800

A tale from Van Phuc village is a short film by Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Tashi Gyalthang. Half-fiction/half-documentary, this short shows the singular craft of Nguyen Van Long, who spent several decades entertaining children in the Thu Le park in Hanoi, Vietnam by playing his hand-made flipbook cartoons or 5-min celluloid movies on a Soviet projector.

Vietnam War Zippos

curious nu — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:50:38 -0800

Engraved Zippo lighters from the Vietnam War.

He’s documenting history, one Asian movie theater at a time

blueberry — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 10:59:02 -0800

Three years ago, Phil Jablon (aka The Projectionist) started a concerted effort to start documenting the rapidly-vanishing stand-alone movie theaters and former theaters in Southeast Asia. Today his website, The Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project is a historian and movie-theater lover's dream. Jablon has captured the fad ed, the lost, the torched, the almost lost, the repur posed, the reborn, and the unbounded. The photos that Jablon has taken outside_. and in_. document the various_. styles_. and structures_.; the colors_. and feelings_. projected_. back in the theaters salad days_.. But more interesting is the life that is breathed into the photos by the answers, stories and photos (both old_. and new_.) that he collects when talking with current_. wor_.kers_., for mer wor kers_., neighbors_., and people who were kids at the time of the theater's heyday. The site brings images of buildings_. to life_. by bringing old stories (from those who loved them) to light. "This is Mr. Phayungsak …as a child, his father ran an older theater in town made of bamboo and mud... " (Suwan Rama theater) "The staircase led to balcony-level seating, the projection booth and the sound room, where live dubbers, sent by the film distribution company, would perform the voices for foreign movies." (Sri Pathana theater) "Dawei was memorable for its colorful tag-alongs, like this guy, who prided himself in resembling Mr. Bean." (Mingala Thiri cinema)
To date Mr. Jablon has visited and written about scores of theaters in Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Below, as on his site, are links to all of his posts broken down by geographic region:

Cambodia (1)
Korea (1)
Laos, Central (7)
Laos, North (10)
Laos, South (9)
Myanmar (Burma), Bago Division (5)
Myanmar (Burma), Mandalay Division (11)
Myanmar (Burma), Shan State (5)
Myanmar (Burma), Thanintharyi Division (4)
Myanmar (Burma), Yangon Division (18)
Myanmar (Burma), Magwe Division (5)
Thailand, Central (11)
Thailand, Central, Bangkok (59)
Thailand, Isan (44)
Thailand, North (44)
Thailand, South (6)
Vietnam, South (4)

How to kill a rational peasant

homunculus — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 14:00:57 -0800

How to kill a rational peasant: America's dangerous love affair with counterinsurgency. [Via]

Iconic Image from the Vietnam war.

HuronBob — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 06:41:36 -0800

The photograph of 9 year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc (often referred to as the "napalm girl"), taken nearly 40 years ago on June 8th in 1972 by press photographer Nick Ut, won a Pulitzer Prize at the time and became one of the most important images from the Vietnam War era. Although Nixon doubted the veracity of the images, video taken just before and after that photograph seem to support the fact that the event did, in fact, happen. Kim Phuc has since created a foundation (note, link for future reference, it seems to have exceeded its bandwidth at the moment) to provide medical and psychological support to the victims of war. Photographer Nick Ut now lives in L.A. and works for the Associated Press. warning: links point to images and video of a naked child and may be very disturbing

Realpolitik in Action

Renoroc — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:37:47 -0800

The United States sees the world as Vietnam does: threatened by growing Chinese power. The difference is that whereas the United States has many geopolitical interests, Vietnam has only one: to counter China.

A Motion Comic

netbros — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:58:11 -0800

The Art of Pho by award-winning British illustrator and animator Julian Hanshaw is a moving and surreal story in interactive animation about a creature named Little Blue and his relationship with Ho Chi Minh City. In Vietnam's bustling capital Little Blue learns to master the art of making Pho - Vietnam's ubiquitous national noodle dish. This graphic novel adds the dimensions of sound, music, animation and interactivity to Hanshaw's art and features 8 episodes.