Merry Xmas, Dear AP Reader, From Saigon!

Contact Your Elected Officials

Technically itโ€™s โ€œMerry Christmas from Bแบฟn Treโ€ โ€” a municipality about an hour outside of Saigon.

But, since itโ€™s famous for not very much at all exceptย as the site of a semi-significant battle during the Tet Offensive, you are probably unfamiliar.

Hence โ€œMerry Xmas From Saigon,โ€ which everyone knows about on account of the Last Great Indochina War and that iconic picture of those people hanging off the last American helicopters as they evacuated South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyแป…n Vฤƒn Thiแป‡u from a CIA safehouse.

Related:ย Existential Angst in ‘Nam (50 Years Late)

At any rate, what one comes to appreciate with enough travel is that Vietnamese cities (and all Southeast Asian cities, actually) are mostly the same: seas of motorbikes and humanity seated upon them, zooming chaotically by factories and sprawling commercial outlets and people in weird hats on bicycles.

Saigon, Bแบฟn Tre, Hanoi โ€” same same, but different, as they say in Thailand.

Christmas dรฉcor abounds here โ€” plastic trees with fake presents underneath, reindeer antlers (probably made by slave labor in China) affixed to car doors, etc. โ€” but not out of love of Christ or anything.

For the fashion.

For the aesthetic.

Christmastime moves products, even in nominally communist Vietnam, and the kids love it.

But they donโ€™t know what it means.

โ€œHe’s the one

Who like all our pretty songs

And he likes to sing along

And he likes to shoot his gun

But he don’t know what it meansโ€
-Nirvana, โ€˜In Bloomโ€™

But, whatever; I do appreciate the spirit of the season and the goodwill it evokes even if itโ€™s been stripped of any original meaning.

All the best, and God bless.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Follow his stuff viaย Substack. Also, keep tabs viaย Twitter.

Support always welcome via theย digital tip jar.

Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhaw

Ben Bartee
Ben Barteehttps://armageddonprose.substack.com/
BEWARE!!! Ben Bartee never minces words, so read at your own risk. Ben is a Bangkok-based American journalist, grant writer, political essayist, researcher, travel blogger, and amateur philosopher -- with opposable thumbs. He is the author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile.

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