Category: Life & Culture

At 9:00am, Lan and I finished breakfast and left the dining room on the 2nd floor of Hotel Vissai to go to the Golden Smile Health Shop. It was on Ký Hoà Street, about...

Five bundles wrapped in brown paper lay on one side of the table. On the other side were ten bottles. Each one had a label displaying a name in Vietnamese. “This one is for...

District 5. I hadn’t been there before. Other parts of Ho Chi Minh City had become familiar to me during the previous month. But in a city of 10 million people sprawling across miles...

It was 8:30am on a Monday. Lan pulled to the side of Hai Bà Trưng Street and brought her motorbike to a halt in a space crowded with shoppers. I sat on the seat...

It was 9:30am on Friday. We stood next to the motorbike. Lan removed the key from the ignition and took off her helmet. She re-arranged her hair. We entered the Big C Supermarket on...

It was 9:15am on Wednesday as Thien and I drove up on his motorbike and parked at the edge of the canal. We peered into the water, pinching our noses. The smell was horrible....

At 3:00am on Wednesday, I woke up and went back to sleep, but, at 7:00am, I woke up again. This time I had to get up. My friend, Thien, would arrive at 8:00am, and...