Antidote to Burnout

The iconic forms of houses...

Ask a little kid almost anywhere to draw a house and he/she most likely will draw a simple shape with a gable-end roof. The gable-end roof form has persisted over the centuries as gable roofs were applied to most buildings... Read more →

Temple Mountains

Buddhist temples in urban areas of Vietnam often like to create a more ntatural atmosphere around the temple grounds. In Ho Chi Minh City, land is expensive and large pieces of land are hard to find or put together, so... Read more →

Color in Vietnamese modernist houses

Viet commented yesterday on my posting of 23 October 2007 entitled "Neighborhood new houses...": I realize VNeses like to use to the secondary colors to paint thier buildings (perhaps it's due to the heat, probably it's toomuch to the eyes... Read more →

Neighborhoood new houses...

There is construction work going on everywhere in all of the neighborhoods of Ho Chi Minh City. While there are a fair number of high-rise buildings, bridges, highways, and housing subdivisions under construction, the bulk of work being done here... Read more →

Street Vendor of snacks...

A moving display of color and texture -- snack food: Read more →

Ugly Ugly Dog...

This has to be the ugliest dog I have ever seen: The dog hadn't been in a recent fight -- that is just the way it looked. This must be a cross-breed between a dog and pig, if that is... Read more →

No need to rent a van...

Most goods get carted around the city on motorbikes or bicyles, as shown in this past posting. But a refrigerator on a bicycle is pushing the limits, it seems to me. Read more →

More on jungle cafés...

Last year about this time, I expressed my frustration about the constant rains characteristic of the final month or so of the rainy season in Ho Chi Minh City. This year we just accepted it like most Vietnamese and didn't... Read more →

Retail stores come and go...

You may recognize where my banner photo above comes from -- the photo of this restaurant building off Phan Xích Long Street in the Phú Nhuận District of Hồ Chí Minh City was taken a year ago when the building... Read more →

Sliced-off house...

Last year, I posted this photo of a house along Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street in the Phú Nhuận District. The front half or two-thirds of the house had been sliced off to accommodate the widening of the street. As streets... Read more →

The end of the rainy season is here

Last 5 May, I called the beginning of the rainy season here in southern Vietnam because the winds had shifted from the east to come out of the west, the monsoon winds that bring the rain for 6 months. On... Read more →

Celebration of the utilities...

An altar to the electrical grid, found on Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street in the Phú Nhuận District, where the street has been newly widened. On the other side of the street, the telecommunication cables are still hanging below head height. Read more →

More on slow internet connections in Vietnam

Here is a link to an article on Vietnam.net Bridge about the pervasive internet bandwidth lack in Vietnam: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2007/07/718231/ We all seem to have the same problem -- here is a quotation from the article: "Most internet subscribers are very... Read more →

FPT's bandwidth limitations in Vietnam

Vietnam's economic growth is clearly outpacing its ability to get supporting infrastructure in place. The increasing traffic jams are evidence of the lack of highways and the need for mass transit alternatives. New housing developments and industrial parks are located... Read more →

Cars on the narrow lanes of HCMC

Everyday many more cars are registered in Ho Chi Minh City, and the results are experienced daily in increased frequency of traffic jams. Seeing cars on the mid-block lanes is still disconcerting since these lanes were never envisioned to accommodate... Read more →

Cultural differences

Most of the Asians I know don't totally fit the stereotypes I unfortunately carry around in my head about what people should be. The same applies to how other people view me -- my neighbors often wonder why an American... Read more →