Sen and I were invited for dinner at one of my student's parents' house. He is a retired policeman, his wife blends coffee, and his brother makes banana seed wine (guaranteed to fix sore backs).
We had visited them a few years back, and I had forgotten how nice that part of Vung Tau is. The only thing between them and the Eastern Sea is a sand dune. Every on that street has a small fresh water pond in their back yard.
So as the sun set we had bbq beef, pork and fish; washed down with 333 beer, horse-bone wine and banana seed wine (just in case my back started playing up). Lovely.
Every year I go to the fortune teller. Every year they scold me for thinking too much. Here is an example. This retired policeman is a nice person. So is his family. His house is just above poor/humble. He has no car. There family only has one motorcycle.
In Viet Nam we are bombarded with stories of police and government official corruption. As with everything in Viet Nam, you can't believe too much of anything. You must discover it for your self. This expoliceman is always talked about as being a nice person. Obviously not all police are corrupt. If there is one honest cop there must be more. I am sure there are.
Is that too much thinking?
My synaptic receptacles are going crazy!
In his youth, this nice guy was a tax collecting policeman. His job was to make sure that the boat people who were exiting Vietnam via Vung Tau, had paid their taxes up. The government saw the boat people as being the type of person who would create trouble for the newly formed government, and they were quite happy for them to leave. But they must have paid up any back taxes. People who had everything squared away with the police were free to leave, take on the Thai pirates, survive the sea, and start life anew.
My former wife, Van, mustn't have paid her taxes. She was jailed once and escaped the police during an aborted run. Her third attempt was successful.
Not only was she running from officials, but she was running from her family. They didn't want her to go.
It served early boat people (many who were often former ARVN soldiers and Chinese merchants (both who supported the Sai Gon regime, with the USA) to be perceived as political refugees. It makes far more sense (of other stories told within Viet Nam) when they are seen as economic refugees.
In more recent times, many returning Vietnamese were in fear of the tax department nabbing them as they returned through Sai Gon airport. The government appears not to be that petty. But it did serve certain people (again ARVN) to create and spread this false fear throughout the Vietnamese diaspora.
I'll try and stop thinking now.
We had visited them a few years back, and I had forgotten how nice that part of Vung Tau is. The only thing between them and the Eastern Sea is a sand dune. Every on that street has a small fresh water pond in their back yard.
So as the sun set we had bbq beef, pork and fish; washed down with 333 beer, horse-bone wine and banana seed wine (just in case my back started playing up). Lovely.
Every year I go to the fortune teller. Every year they scold me for thinking too much. Here is an example. This retired policeman is a nice person. So is his family. His house is just above poor/humble. He has no car. There family only has one motorcycle.
In Viet Nam we are bombarded with stories of police and government official corruption. As with everything in Viet Nam, you can't believe too much of anything. You must discover it for your self. This expoliceman is always talked about as being a nice person. Obviously not all police are corrupt. If there is one honest cop there must be more. I am sure there are.
Is that too much thinking?
My synaptic receptacles are going crazy!
In his youth, this nice guy was a tax collecting policeman. His job was to make sure that the boat people who were exiting Vietnam via Vung Tau, had paid their taxes up. The government saw the boat people as being the type of person who would create trouble for the newly formed government, and they were quite happy for them to leave. But they must have paid up any back taxes. People who had everything squared away with the police were free to leave, take on the Thai pirates, survive the sea, and start life anew.
My former wife, Van, mustn't have paid her taxes. She was jailed once and escaped the police during an aborted run. Her third attempt was successful.
Not only was she running from officials, but she was running from her family. They didn't want her to go.
It served early boat people (many who were often former ARVN soldiers and Chinese merchants (both who supported the Sai Gon regime, with the USA) to be perceived as political refugees. It makes far more sense (of other stories told within Viet Nam) when they are seen as economic refugees.
In more recent times, many returning Vietnamese were in fear of the tax department nabbing them as they returned through Sai Gon airport. The government appears not to be that petty. But it did serve certain people (again ARVN) to create and spread this false fear throughout the Vietnamese diaspora.
I'll try and stop thinking now.