Written by Nguyen Du (1765-1820), The Tale of Kieu: Truyen Kieu (Vietnamese Edition) (The Tale of Kieu) was produced during the social and political upheavals of the 19th century, and is now a cornerstone of Vietnamese literature. In Vietnam, Truyen Kieu has attained almost a Shakespearean status: according to news reports, children study it in… Read More »
Undoubtedly, the Vietnamese have a killer instinct. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have survived so many wars (the First Indochina War against Japanese, Chinese and mostly French colonialists, and the Second Indochina War – the American part of the Vietnam War, or simply “American War” to the Vietnamese) within such a short span of time (1945-1975). True,… Read More »
On 14 June 2001, George W. Bush, unaware that a live television camera was still rolling, blurted the following words to Swedish Prime Minister Goran Perrson: “It’s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency.” That just about sums up the sorry state of affairs in the US, led by a “president”… Read More »
About the only thing in common between Stephen King and myself is our first name. Other than that, our views on writing (based on those expressed in his book, titled On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft) could be worlds apart. It’s not necessarily true that I disagree with the points he… Read More »
The two major presidential candidates agreed that Americans are seeing too much inappropriate material in popular entertainment. The Republican candidate, George W. Bush, stated that there is too much bloody violence in movies and on television. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic opponent, stated that the media presents Americans with too much sex and frontal… Read More »