Clik here to view.
US-Vietnam alliance fantasy
Vietnam remains in the thrall of an ideologically Communist Party that has no intent to share power. But it is also caught in a tight spot. Renewed tension with China, its ancient adversary, is causing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hanoi revisited
I’m visiting a city I haven’t stepped foot in since 1997: Hanoi. The city feels smaller, but also more prosperous than the one I experienced 17 years ago. My day job is writing about finance and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ho
Vietnam, being ruled by a Communist party, cannot reach its full potential. There are too many political barriers to a more effective economy. The main problem is the vast role of the state and its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No country for old men
While conducting business meetings in leafy, pleasant Ho Chi Minh City, I got an earful of rumors and speculation, which is what you’d expect when out drinking with stockbrokers. The Vietnamese...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The General Retires
Little Vietnamese literature is translated into English. The best known novel is Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War, a beautiful and incredibly sad work that is often compared to Remarque’s All Quiet on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Golden Lands
Peter Gordon of the Asian Review of Books kindly asked me to write something about a newly published tome on Buddhist architecture (click here to read it). I learned a tremendous amount from Vikram...
View ArticleHanoi bull
The bull has been adopted as a universal symbol of financial market success. The most famous representation is the Charging Bull statue in Manhattan. The Chinese had to have a replica, made by the same...
View ArticleVietnamese opera
Vietnam’s theater, hat tuong, borrows heavily from Chinese opera, with extravagent costumes that identify stock historical characters. Filed under: Travel, Vietnam Tagged: Arts, Chinese opera, hat...
View ArticleShiva the destroyer
By way of the ancient Cham culture of Vietnam. Filed under: History, Society, culture & media, Travel, Vietnam Tagged: Cham, Champa, Hinduism, Shiva, Vietnam
View ArticleThe Last Unicorn
I’m tempted to describe this book as elegiac, but that would be inaccurate on two counts.* First, although the extinction of wildlife accelerates, William deBuys tempers the destruction he reports with...
View Article
