Comments for Our Man in Hanoi

Comment on Story so Far by juracraven1

juracraven1 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:25:56 +0000

Nice to discover your blog. I have just started one about Hanoi – primarily photographs, food, and a dog… mostly because I was told Hanoi wasn’t suitable for a dog and I wanted to show that this isn’t necessarily the case! I look forward to reading yours. Mine is: http://juraphotos.wordpress.com/

Comment on Silence is spooky in noisy Hanoi by Michael Tatarski

Michael Tatarski — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:54:07 +0000

Great post, been spending the past hour or so catching up on your blog, really enjoy it. It’s the same down here in Saigon – I swear making noise is some kind of necessary action among locals. As I sit here at almost 8pm, I can hear the power tools they are using to build a house down the alley, and bass from a clothing store that is blasting music. It’s so hard to just get some peace and quiet here sometimes…

If you get a chance I invite you to check out my blog about life in “the South”: http://mike-alongthemekong.blogspot.com/

Comment on The Irish Stew by My favourite blogs about everything | Roaming Tales

My favourite blogs about everything | Roaming Tales — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:18:07 +0000

[...] It’s great to see how his life has blossomed since then. He moved to Vietnam and met a girl, fell in love over Irish stew … and the rest is history. Our Man in Hanoi is his blog about life as an English expat in, [...]

Comment on Silence is spooky in noisy Hanoi by mg

mg — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:14:36 +0000

I really liked what you wrote about silence and demons and development. Good stuff man.

Comment on A Death Anniversary in the Countryside by Tyler Watts

Tyler Watts — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:50:17 +0000

Us in the south have our fair share of comments about Northerners, but man those guys in their sweaters and jackets have style! Unmatched here.

Comment on A Death Anniversary in the Countryside by Hoai Trinh

Hoai Trinh — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:48:04 +0000

very well written Steve. Attending events of these in the countryside of Vietnam isn’t always a pleasant experience for expats but you made it through and picked the very right angle to write about it. Thanks for sharing!

Comment on Working extra hard to get it wrong by gillessnowcat

gillessnowcat — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:03:54 +0000

Amazing. I have that strange feeling of being half-surprised (this is going against any kind of logic, after all) and half-”bah this is Vietnam after all” -ised.
This episode gives a clear hint on how why the whole country seems so dysfunctional, since almost everything “works” like that.
This is why when I am in Vietnam I feel relieved when I see made-in-China products. “At least they won’t be broken before I come back home”.

Comment on Working extra hard to get it wrong by Tabitha

Tabitha — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:09:41 +0000

I FEEL YOUR PAIN.

When I was designing materials for WWF, I was always mystified by how the brochures would come back from the printers with radical “improvements”. How are they editing this, I used to wonder? They’re jpegs!

Since then, I have had the pleasure of witnessing the whole process from beginning to end. It goes something like this:

1. Client supplies finished, professionally-designed file to printer (in whatever format, it seems to be irrelevant)
2. Printer converts file to PDF
3. Printer manually copies all elements of the design, including copying text as an image, over into a new, blank file, and usually using CorelDraw “recreates” the image and text as they see fit, with bonus “improvements”.

A friend of mine decided to cut out the middle-man by supplying only a PDF. Which the printer then printed out, then scanned back in, then copied over into CorelDraw. Awesome.

Comment on Vietnamese men need to be empowered too by Lien Ta

Lien Ta — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:43:33 +0000

Steve, a good point I think. Yes, to some extent, I agree that Vietnamese women sometimes don’t think about “how they can involve their husbands in housework”. I really want to stress the word “how” here, which mean a way to make husbands do with a thinking that they should do rather than they have to do because their wives told them to do. In conclusion, I think this depends on the awareness of both women and men.

Comment on The Chicken Feet by Steve Jackson

Steve Jackson — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:50:27 +0000

Chicken feet with a large footprint. I like it.