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13 stories
Music & Arts
“If you happen to pass by Huỳnh Mẫn Đạt Street in Hồ Chí Minh City There’s a strange bar with a Mekong theme Where cải lương is performed every Saturday, a piece of our hometown heritage Beside the show, you’ll have a chat with Đờn Ca Đó Đây troupe A Mekong corner in the middle of skyscrapers”
Snack Attack
Since the beginning of our festive history, Vietnam’s special occasions have always been closely associated with traditional dishes. Lunar New Year is the time to enjoy bánh chưng and bánh tét , while the arrival of Trung Thu is foretold by the appearance of moon cakes and bánh pía . In the case of Tết Đoan Ngọ, revelers eat bánh bá trạng and bánh ú tro to get a taste of festivity.
Vietnam
The preference for light skin is widespread in Vietnam. It is discernible from the mere sight of Saigon’s streets during the day, when the majority of riders are covered up — in hoodies, jackets, jeans, pants, and masks — for protection against UV radiation, but also to prevent tanning under the blistering sun. Especially more so for women, light skin is often associated with beauty and social status, so protection against the sun has become more than a health concern.
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Arts & Culture
A subtle shimmer inherent to the seashells encrusted around its eyes makes Lân Sư Hồ shiver with life and appear as if it will leap out of the warehouse and prance into the ocean where its coral skin once grew.
Literature
There are too many good Vietnamese books to recommend, let alone read.
Loạt Soạt
For the first time, Vũ Trọng Phụng’s novel Làm đĩ is available in English. Originally published in 1936, the novel has been translated by Đinh Ngọc Mai under the title Making a Whore and was released last year by Major Books, an independent publishing house dedicated to making Vietnamese literature more available for the English-speaking world.
Loạt Soạt
Parallels by Vũ Đình Giang shocked me. While I refrain from spoiling its plot, allow me to share my experience when reading this novel, as translated by Khải Q. Nguyễn, to better explain how the book jolted me from expectations and why the experience provides a unique and valuable addition to the array of Vietnamese novels translated into English.
Environment
Why “Sticky Discovery”? This was the first question I asked during my interview with the man behind the YouTube series of nature documentaries . His name is Dính, given by his paternal grandmother because after Dính’s mother had two miscarriages, she’d hoped Dính (meaning “sticky” in English), would stay put.
Dishcovery
Why am I so obsessed with chè bột lọc heo quay?
Music & Arts
Vietnamese musicians created a musical bridge across political divides, transforming the pain of a fractured nation into melodies that still resonate with both homeland and diasporic Vietnamese 50 years after the war's end.
Environment
Nguyễn Văn Quại, 63, walked slowly on the muddy dirt path in his yard, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped beside a tree split in half, its branches dipping into the stagnant water of a narrow moat, and gestured towards the rest of his leafless crop — their trunks yellow, their bark cracked and brittle.
