XDX Comics: VTV's New Game Show

Crossing That Bridge [Photos]

Crossing bridges has become a poignant metaphor for my life this year, as big changes have come along my path, none of which I've had much control over. The only choice has been to step across in faith (or perhaps to jump off). Some bridges are more challenging than others, especially when passing an opposing force, but each time new adventures await on the other side.

The wooden suspension bridge above is one of many still actively used in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam.

On Vietnam’s disrespect for the family of Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie

As the whole world now knows, the family of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie showed up unexpectedly in Vietnam last week for a holiday. They landed in Saigon and then the next day flew to Con Dao Island, where they are reportedly staying at the Six Senses Con Dao Resort.

When the couple and their 6 children arrived, they were greeted with the same reception they get everywhere they go: paparazzi at the airport, paparazzi outside their hotel, paparazzi at meals—paparazzi everywhere.

Somewhat surprising was the fact that Vietnamese paparazzi even followed the couple to Con Dao (the most remote and inaccessible point in the country) and tailed them all through their activities on the island, including the former prison museum. The photos are all over the internet.

The real tragedy however, besides the gross invasion of the family’s private time, is the golden opportunity that Vietnam has now missed—even destroyed themselves.

In this family, Vietnam had a friend. Ms Jolie and Mr Pitt are arguably the world’s biggest celebrities—and low and behold, they have not only an interest, but a personal connection with Vietnam, through their son Pax.

Vietnam could have tried to nurture this connection. Vietnam’s tourism ministry could have approached the couple and asked for help in promoting the country (as I've suggested many times before). Vietnam could have done what much smarter government officials in Cambodia had done, and extended an official welcome and foster a relationship with the family.

Vietnam didn’t do this however. Instead, the government of Vietnam abused this family by betraying their trust and their privacy. State officials and state employees have misused their authority in monitoring and leaking information about the family to the media. The communist government-controlled newspapers have sent their journalists and photographers (or at times hired ‘freelance bounty-hunters’) to tail them everywhere they go.

Its one thing, in a capitalist country, for private individuals to engage in this sort of behaviour, but here in communist Vietnam, it’s the very government who is ultimately responsible for harassing this family on their vacation.

So Vietnam, no, you haven’t exactly done to Pitt and Jolie anything that wouldn’t happen to them elsewhere. You did however show them that Vietnam isn’t so unique after all. And at a time when Vietnam is trying to develop ‘5-star’ tourism, you just showed the whole world that you won’t allow celebrities to enjoy Vietnam unmolested.

PS. A word about their kids. It is extremely rude, unprofessional—and sleazy, to follow the kids around. Stop it.

Secondly, please stop referring to the family’s six children as their six ‘adoptees.’ Only 3 are adopted, but that’s not the point—they are children, not property. To my knowledge, all of them carry both the last names of their parents, so its rather insensitive to apply it to the biological children but intentionally omit it when referring to their adopted children. More to the point—stop saying that the Ms Jolie ‘promised to bring her Vietnamese boy home.’ Pax is her son, not just any boy. Likewise, to my knowledge he is an American citizen. But even that is not relevant—the child’s ‘home’ is wherever his mother and father reside. My dear Vietnamese media, I tell you this because I know you are going to spend your lives pestering this poor child, so you might as well get this straight early on. You may mean well, but to do otherwise is highly offensive to parents of adopted children. 

New Video: Vietnam rams Chinese Vessel & Who was really behind anti-China protests

Two videos were uploaded on Youtube yesterday, which appear to show a Vietnamese coastguard vessel ramming a boat labelled ‘China Maritime Surveillance.’ It’s unknown where or when the video was taken, or even if the incident is part of the latest round of tension in the South China Sea this year. 

The original videos were taken down from Youtube either Monday night or Tuesday morning. However, one of the videos has been re-posted by another user name, now with enhanced sound and both English and Chinese subtitles.

What is remarkable about the video however, is that it paints a very different picture from the one that the Vietnamese government has put forth; namely that Vietnam has been a passive victim in the events what have transpired in the South China Sea.

The Vietnamese government has carefully managed, and some might say manipulated, its image through the most recent dispute with China over the uninhabited group of reefs, atolls and islets known to the Vietnamese as Truong Sa (The Spratlys) and Hoang Sa (The Paracels).  Both the Spratlys and the Paracels are claimed in their entirety, each by Vietnam, China and Taiwan. However, China occupies the entire Paracels group and the Spratlys are split between the three, as well as Malaysia and the Philippines.

It is often claimed that the latest round of tension began on 26 May, when Vietnam accused China of cutting cables on a seismic research vessel. News media have failed to note that in the month or so preceding the incident, a number of strange events occurred in the disputed territories—including strange late-night attacks on Vietnamese ships, fishing vessels mysteriously lost at sea, and a sudden and bizarre obsession by the Vietnamese media regarding the joys of daily indigenous ‘life on the islands’ (even though there are some military personnel but no actual Vietnamese communities living on the atolls and islets).

Early on Sunday, 5 June, I was with a high-ranking Vietnam official who disclosed to me that authorities had planned an event for later that morning. Police and some military from all over Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi were told to assemble at special locations in preparation. I was shown police loading equipment to block roads. I wasn’t told what the gathering would be about—at the time I assumed it was a routine police assembly. I would later learn that the event that was to happen in several hours was the first (since 2007) anti-China protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City over the South China Sea dispute. When the tweets starting showing up online about the protests, it was apparent to me that the government had orchestrated the whole thing.

Vietnam’s communist government allowed the protests to go on week after week, each Sunday morning. Such protests in Vietnam are extremely rare. However, in mid August the Hanoi government suddenly banned further demonstrations.

Interestingly, in the weeks prior to the ban, some protestors began to realize that they were being manipulated by the government all along.

‘On one hand, the government was manipulating protestors to do the will of the government’ one activist said (suggesting that Hanoi found the protests an effective tool in the dispute against China). ‘On the other hand, the government was also using the protests as an opportunity to root out activists.’

‘But it was actually people from the government who were instigating the demonstrations,’ said the activist. ‘Students in Thanh Nien uniforms [the government’s communist youth organization] were seen practicing their anti-China protests, just before the real protests would happen.’

It appeared to some that by the time the Vietnam government finally banned the protests, the only people left demonstrating were misguided and over-enthusiastic activists, and police out-of-uniform. Once citizen activists were identified, they could be detained and sent to prisons or 'rehabilitation clinics'.