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Selected Culture Stories

Vietnam Coracle •

Genesis: Vietnam's Creation Myth

In the beginning, there was chaos. The realms – and everything that would later exist within them – were a knotted tangle of pre-elemental threads. The first entity to emerge from this primordial disarray was Ông Trời, the supreme deity, who set the sequence of creation in motion by pulling apart heaven and earth. By separating the universe into the physical and the ethereal, Ông Trời infused the universe with its most fundamental law: everything must exist within a system of cosmic balance. Vietnamese mythology is heavily influenced by Taoism, and this concept of duality is perhaps best understood through the lens of the Taoist yin-yang symbol, which has two equal but antithetical halves, each containing an element of its opposite.
SilverKris (Singapore Airlines) •

Aboard The Reunification Express

Perched by the bow-shaped bar, I nurse the last of my mocktail, a liquid rainbow of roselle, lemongrass, mint and passion fruit. The hushed lounge is an unapologetic manifestation of nostalgia for the early 20th century. Rattan blinds and creamy curtains ensconce secluded corners. Dried tropical flowers spring from earthenware vases. As if part of the furniture, two dapper Englishmen perch opposite – though they grumble over laptop screens, not newspapers.
Travelfish •

Vietnam: Beyond the Stereotype

Vietnam is awash with antiquated and orientalist fantasies. Travel media outlets manufacture nostalgia for a colonial heirloom with crowded street kitchens and conical hat-wearing hawkers. Foreign travel companies overrepresent Vietnam’s beaches as if the country exists to serve sun-starved Northeast Asians and Europeans. And although Vietnam has been at peace for over four decades, American films continue to portray a perilous place reeling from war.
Vietnam News •

Do Foreigners Have the Right to Complain about Countryside Karaoke?

If you haven’t experienced it, you probably don’t get out enough. You arrive for a short break at one of Việt Nam’s quintessential countryside destinations. The views from your rustic lodge are sublime. Streams meander through lofty rice terraces. Pockets of cloud cling to jungle-topped karst mountains. The rice paddies emanate a green so fanciful that it’s bordering on nuclear.

But somebody, somewhere, is howling into a microphone, plunging the celestial landscape into an aural inferno with t