Wedding season is just around the corner in the US, and every wedding season makes me think of my own wedding years ago. I wanted my wedding to reflect Vietnamese tradition, but as a historian, I knew that there was no such thing as a single, timeless tradition and that practices change over time in […]
WHEN HISTORIANS GET MARRIED: WHAT IS TRADITION ANYWAYS? (PART 1) Read More »
I am marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in 1975 with an irregular series that reflects on the war’s end and its aftermath. This third second post is about Phan Thúy Hà’s Don’t Mention My Name, which serves as a foil to Phan Nhật Nam’s Stories Along the Road. Phan Thúy Ha’s Don’t
Huy Thanh’s “A Girl’s Destiny” (“Duyên phận con gái,” year unknown) is yet another song in which love trumps wealth, similar to Nguyễn Trung Cang’s “Our Treasure” (“Kho tàng của chúng ta”). “A Girl’s Destiny” is the thirteenth track on Saigon Rock & Soul, and this post is a continuation of my mini-series translating the
Bình Nguyên Lộc’s Thoroughfare (Đò dọc, 1959) is a charming novel about migration and dislocation in southern Vietnam in the mid-1950s. Nam Thành and his wife are originally from a village in Bạc Liêu province in the Mekong delta, but they flee with their daughters to Saigon during the early years of the Resistance War
FUN READS: MIGRATION AND DISLOCATION IN BÌNH NGUYÊN LỘC’S THOROUGHFARE (ĐÒ DỌC) Read More »