amadbrownwoman

...titled nhap (draft) which is about sexual obsession is causing a stir in the local literary scene.

A new novel released earlier this year by Nguyen Dinh Tu titled Nhap (Draft), tells of young disillusioned intellectuals who suffer inferiority complexes, seek redemption in sex, and ultimately fail to make peace with their problems.

“In Nhap, Tu doesn’t shy away from sex, which has long been considered a discomfiting issue in local literature but deals with it in quite a detailed way. His outspoken approach to sex, even when he describes homosexual sex, however, doesn’t arouse abhorrence among readers,” said distinguished author Chu Lai about Tu’s work.

“His sexual writing points to the fact that there are many people in society who suffer from obsessive inferiority complexes and don’t dare to live true to themselves,” Lai added.

“Like characters in other books who are obsessed with hunger and poverty, my characters are preoccupied with their sexuality,” Tu said, adding such obsessions are all equal in a writer’s eyes.

if only my tieng viet is not limited to hbo subtitles.

transcending taboos

An amateur theater club in Ho Chi Minh City has a welcome mat out for anyone who wants to get involved and do a bit for charity while they’re at it.

Saigon Players members come from all over the world and many of them have a strong theater background, but the whole idea of the club is to give anyone a chance to “tread the boards.” There’s a strong contingent from the UK, Vietnam, the US and Canada with Holland, Italy, France, Germany and Australia also represented. It also serves as a regular venue for a bit of nostalgia between the expats.

Charity is a core value of the group, as nobody gets paid and all the money raised from the box office goes to a worthy cause. It builds the members’ community awareness.

Club Nights are usually the first Wednesday of the month, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at District 1’s La Habana Club. These mini-workshops for members explore their theatrical skills and knowledge, with team warm-ups, theater games, group work, scene rehearsals and discussions on possible productions, but most importantly they serve as a forum for like-minded people to meet.

theater lovers wanted

what would i do without you, vietnam translators?

b movie par excellence. one reason i watch comedies even if low budget, in fact especially because it's a low budget is the honesty in showing what a particular culture deem entertaining.

the movie starts with about thirty minutes of some of the most boring shit you've ever seen on films, although of course i'm used to philippine b movies so it is NOT the the case for me how a woman falls in love with a guy, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, who has nothing going for him except for the fact that he comes from a rich family, but of course in the movie since he's that, he's a catch, then woman got pregnant, guy wants her to get an abortion and so starts the comedy part. woman didn't want to get abortion so she ran away from the abortion clinic, guy runs after her, get into an accident and because of that accident, becomes bedridden for several months. while bedridden, he starts having dreams in which the gender roles of men and women switches all because the men are the ones getting pregnant. it was supposed to be funnny. i found it too simplistic to even be funny: gender roles does not happen because one is having the kids and not the other, even in heterosexual relationships without kids, married, not married, and in homosexual relationships, there exist taking on gender roles. so wtf.


so i said in previous post to not watch this film. that's the verdict, do. not. watch. there is a limit to my love of cheese. okay, if you just gotta, well then watch it if only for:

(1) the one scene that cracked me up, must you guess, it was sex or to be particular, the metaphor to sex: car keys will have a different meaning to me, now on. it was not supposed to be funny but since it's not supposed to be funny, it cracked me up. what the hell, that's me. i've been numbed by socially conscious philippine movies with its in your face f* it til you drop f*ing scenes which is why i found it ingenious.

(2) the abortion clinic with its imagery of a butcher shop. abortion was made to look so brutal in this movie. i swear this is what every woman in the whole world think of abortion. but just about anything that involves doctors and nurses and hospital assistants and the assistants to the assistants' poking and prodding in that region is so invasive it's brutal to me.

A representative of the Vietnamese Embassy in Singapore has told Thanh Nien the embassy “is contemplating appropriate actions” in light of a recent newspaper article about a Vietnamese bride matchmaking service.

“We must look at the issue from multiple perspectives to respond in a correct way,” said Bui Tan Long, the first secretary in charge of community affairs at the embassy.

vietnam embassy ponders stance on matchmakinguproar in thanh nhien news

find me a find, catch me a catch!

Mr Mark Lin of Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker took out advertisements in the Chinese newspapers on Wednesday, offering the discount on the grounds that his business has been hit by the global financial crisis. Three Vietnamese women have been at his Orchard Plaza office in the last two months, waiting for prospective husbands.

Mr Lin is charging $4,000 as his matchmaking fee for each - half the fee he usually charges for flying them in and feeding and housing them. Over 20 men have inquired about the women this month, but he has yet to make a match.

(and some women, sitting in the high throne of stiff-necked priviledge often not only in class but also in race would again start the discourse of viet women oh wait, asian women are like prostitutes. oh yes, i've heard some white women in vietnam saying this....)

before yous start thinking of another slut-shaming vietnamese women are like these and that, tadadadadatado, oh so old arguments while sitting in a comfortable seat in a cafe where there are no locals around except for that cashier and the waiter who served the just divine coffee, ahhhh, you're sipping right now, stop your comments: we do not live outside of socialization, we are the product of it.

let's focus on the men: if you were a man who can easily afford it, would you? and if you were a woman, what do you think of men who would?

here is the whole story from the straits times: vietnam bride agencies cut fees

and here is the response of vietnam in thanh nhien news: story on vietnamese bride service draw cricticism. what killed me while reading this article is how desensitized the gov't official who was interviewed in this article was. "she was stunned to see such a respected newspaper running a very insensitive story on a very sensitive topic." she was concerned about the unblurred faces. she didn't exactly center on the practice of marriage brokerage in vietnam but how the straits times treated the issue. alas.

because when i'm in restaurants i observe and observe and observe and psychoanalyze ....

to start, you need a forty plus year old vietnamese man, you know, the ones with money and more often than not, married and also more often than not, has no vestige of physical attractiveness whatsoever (but oh well, that's me). next is a beautiful young vietnamese woman, often not older than thirty, not necessarily not educated, not necessarily not employed and evidently not the wife. the third is the woman's friend. often there for ___________________________ (fill in the blank, if it's me, it's for approval, a symbol of how blase and accepted this is in vietnamese society, but then again that's me).

now for the power dynamics, the woman brings beauty and harmony. she divides the food, serves the friend and the man and herself, of course the man comes first. the friend brings joy and hapiness to the otherwise boring conversation that's to ensue , basically most of the conversation is between her and the woman. the man taking on the role of the father, he is condescendingly bored of the women's chatter so he takes no part, but he is the one to whom the waiter or waitress caters to, for after all he plays a most important role, he pays, for everything.

this emphasizes just how different vietnamese women's expectations are from mine.

(because i realized that a lot of views to this blog* are from people searching for amadbrownwoman)

when writing comments on a space as mediocre as a vietnamese condom blogs, it's inevitable to make mistakes. although i do make sassy comments like this on a daily basis, i make a conscious effort not to blog in this manner. the reason is simple: i don't want to be penalized for my sexuality or my being a filipino. because if a man blogs in this manner, it's fine and just dandy. and when it's a woman, it's not so. i also don't want some snide shitty condescending comments like "hang on to your wallets, she's a filipina". but when i commented on thirsty thong, i realized i couldn't take it back, so duoc, duoc, i am che, i am amadbrownwoman, shoot me.

famous quotes that i made yesterday

i dunno jimmy i see them lovers around the park near my house too,the park near the airport, vietnamese couples may not show affection in public but they sure can fuck in public. which leads me to this: no need for gymnastics in vietnam as flexibility is proven and the most important of all, no need for vibrators...

as my image of vietnamese couples is not the same as the picture of hanoian couples, saigon couples are in motorbikes (hence the flexibility and vibrator), the inevitable question, saigon or hanoi, to be or not to be.....

willed ignorance is bliss
as attested by d ( thanks!), there is not much PDA except on parks, and other recreation areas. and then there's more than PDA that goes on. i see it oftener and oftener and like the locals, i ignore it more and more.

If you're in Vietnam long enough, you quickly realize that there is not that much PDA, except that there is a special force field around any and all parks, recreation areas and banks of navigable waters or lakes.

This special force field allows all those within it to be invisible to others - magically, you're invisible to both those who are outside this field (i.e. pedestrians outside the park) and those who are inside (i.e. your fellow Cong Vien visitors).

Sadly, this invisibility powers only extends over those viewers who hold a Vietnamese passport. So every expat can see what you're doing.

... That's the only reason I can think of to explain what we've seen in the local parks in the middle of a sunny Sunday stroll in Hanoi...

i think though that the locals ignore it because it's culturally unacceptable and so if one acts and talks like it's not happening, then it must not be happening. (ang gulu gulo ever, keber!) willed ignorance is bliss, pun intended.

it is i think part of youth culture, their way of circumventing the rigidity of hierarchical, confucian relationship between man and woman in vietnamese society.

there is a political economy in which it is based. aside from the obvious influences of the media (britneyspears is just one tv button away), there are many small factories and businesses in and around the city which employs many young people from other provinces and cities and from ho chi minh city alike. after all, this is the economic center of vietnam. this is in addition to the many universities found here. (don't take my word for it though. i am not an expert on vietnamese society no matter how long i stay in vietnam.)

what i find interesting is that no one else has commented on them on blogs and in other forms of media. am i the only one who actually notices such happenings?

it was one of those unguarded moments when i wrote this comment. it was not to criticize. the "motorbike gymnastics was pointed out by a homosexual Vietnamese man as part of his criticism of "normal" heterosexual Vietnamese relationships. i do not share that sentiment: everyone is entitled to own their bodies.

on saigon and hanoi
well, i meant, which is hotter? saigon or hanoi? is it safe to assume that it saigon stands alone in this. if that's the only thing that's happening (as described by d) in hanoi, booring.

(and believe me, mother tried)

*this means my old blog