Chim My // “But the most significant derivation from the meaning of as ‘water’ is the concept of people who have gathered near a body of water to grow rice for one another, and founding a stable community, sharing rain and drought, plenty and famine, peace and war: from ‘water,’ its basic meaning, has come to designate ‘the homeland, the country, the nation.’ It is in this ultimate acception that the monosyllable nước reverberates throught the deepest and farthest recesses of the Vietnamese collective unconscious and stirs there the most potent feelings. The nation’s fateful course, marked by ups and downs, is figuratively rendered as a ‘tide of water’ (vận nước) with its ebb and flow. The highest virtue demanded of a Vietnamese is that he or she ‘love the nước‘ (yêu nước).” –Huynh Sanh Thong (no relation)
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/15-billboards-that-dont-belong-next-to-each-other
I miss many things about living back in San Francisco: Mexican food, buying pizza by the slice, the smell of bookstores, good ole' Americana ice cream (none of that New Zealand bs they have here) and live music (please no more French rappers or British DJs who play that awfully depressing dystopian sack of rubbish Dubstep - it's almost as bad as Chris Daughtry macho emo rock: 5 o' clock shadows and barbed wire tattoos).
It has begun.
Ever since my Nam tat (which I got in Bangkok for $100), I've been ever so pining for another one. Initially, I wanted to get California on my left leg, but I ran out of money because I spent it all on roti. Saigon Ink is located at 26 Tran Hung Dao St., D. 1, HCM city. Great service! (Note: not open on Mondays, open from 10-8pm usually). They were very welcoming, accommodating, cheerful. We used Microsoft Word to get the Olde English font I wanted.This is a quote from a friend's brother. It cost 1.000.000 VND for about 1.5 hours of work.
I wanted to get a stanza of one of my friend's poems (8 lines or so) - and they were charging 2.000.000 VND for that. I'll just wait for San Francisco in that case.
More tats to come as soon as I finish the designs.
There is no think twice with you
There is only cheap wine Crack the bottle if the opener can’t be found
We’ll pick the glass out of our skin and lips in the morning
Lately, I've been cleaning out the closet, so to speak - organizing my books, folding my clothes in a fashion Rachel Ray would respect - gettin' it together, tightenin' the belt, drawin' up a Bath and Body Works bubble bath with some Herbal Essences Chamomile scented with Lemon Iced Tea up in this and worrying about mano e mano, straight me doin' me, FEEL?!
In case you've been wonderin', I've been - to channel Ellington - sentimental, just what happens wherever one may be, whether a million miles from home or in the comfort of your pop's living room; the mind is truly your only best airline.
Coupled with an imitation can of Pringles am I happenstancedly blessed with the wonderball known as Yeo's Grass Jelly drink.
Like biting into an Egg McMuffin, like listening to an old Boyz II Men single, like dancing the Tootsie Roll, I've rediscovered this gem, which has, to channel Dion, everything coming back to me now, being that I grew up with this drink, chugging this with every Cam Huong meal, sipping it like that purple stuff while checking my Upper Deck packs for holograms.
Unfortunately, can't find it everywhere. I obama that I can find it at many more places because the best birthday present would be cases of this liquid heaven. Wink.
And, uh, don't trust everything you read on wiki please:
"Grass jelly drinks are also very popular amongst Vietnamese women; they are believed to enhance fertility, this is caused by the high levels of estrogen contained in the grass's root."
I reckon growing up drinking this stuff + growing up in Berkeley can explain quite a lot about me.
