charvey in Vietnam

Huge in Asia 2

I received an email from the Nate and Kai, the amateur film makers also known as "Huge in Asia."  They asked me to post the worldwide premier of their new video "Give Me Your Heart in San Francisco."  Huge in Asia has moved back to San Francisco from Hanoi and seem to be angling for "Huge in America" stardom now.  They have real talent.  Check out the video below.  It's clever.  All those views of beautiful SF bring back some memories too.  Enjoy! (Also check out their previous work "Hanoi Hustle" which is brilliant.)

 

A Time for Choosing

I stumbled across this 43 year old speech from the Gipper today.  Good stuff.

Christmas in Vietnam, Part 2

Yet another wacky Christmas in Vietnam.  The Vietnamese have adopted Christmas and made it their own.  They've also added unique Vietnamese Christmas traditions.  One is dressing up little kids in little Santa Claus outfits.  Another is the Christmas Eve Cruise, where pretty much everyone in Saigon gets on their motorbikes on Christmas eve to take in the spectacle and create magical Christmas traffic jams.  Yet a third is blinking Christmas lights suspended over the street and *everywhere*.  But the absolute weirdest thing I saw took place about two weeks ago.  I was walking to work one morning and saw two tandem bicycles (bicycles built for two people, where one rider sits behind another) sail through a busy intersection piloted by four men and women dressed in full-on Santa suits, pedaling away madly under the tropical sun.  I'm totally bummed I couldn't get my camera phone out in time to snap a pic, because it truly was surreal.

As promised, I snapped some pics that capture a tiny bit of the essence of Christmas in Vietnam.  You can view them here.  Also, check out more Vietnam Christmas goodies in my post from Christmas 2006.