Friday

In the news: apparently there's some trouble with the importation of legal hamsters to Vietnam, especially considering the wily truck of Thai black-marketeers. The best solution? Hamsters found to be undocumented will be immediately burned in bulk.¹ On the other hand, government officials concerned about unlicensed trade in possibly avian flu-infected chickens are proposing to merely pay more attention in hopes the situation, you know, goes away.² Have you heard of the following scam? Someone approaches with a suitcase full of cash-sized black paper claiming it's a fortune concealed from customs officials. He then asks to borrow money to purchase the chemicals necessary to restore the "blackened money" to legal tender. What could possibly go wrong?³ And here's a terrifying effect I'd never considered: can the construction site beside my building cause its collapse? Construction came to a halt on one eleven-story District One project Thursday when a five-square-meter chunk of earth sank across the street. Two hundred seventy people from the adjacent apartment block have been evacuated to nearby hotels, as more depressions in the area are still being discovered.⁴ The launch of Vietnam's first orbital satellite has been delayed yet again, according to the news.⁵ We should expect to see it blasted into space by a French aerospace company sometime around mid-April. While the article doesn't say what sort of thing the satellite will be up to up there, its funding by the telecommunications sector is a big clue. Lastly, I'll leave you with recent news about Ho Chi Minh City's favorite subject, traffic. It's noteworthy for its whimsical tone, evident in the inclusion the following quote:

"What the @#%&?!" said a foreigner unlucky enough to get stuck in a jam on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street in District 1...⁶

Now that's what I call bilingual. [Cavin]