Dodging Wars in Departure Lounges

A soulful globe-trotter reports from Vietnam, traveling from Cambodia, of life and timeless imperial pyrotechnics

Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Since I’ve shown an interest in her past, Mrs. Seven, a 63-year-old widow living with two dogs, keeps telling me more. In Hai Phong 40 years ago as part of a performance troupe, she was told to never go out alone. Seeing a young southern woman wandering around looking lost, local savages would just grab her breasts. During the Vietnam War, southerners ate much better, so there’s more to grab, that’s true.

My only visit to Hai Phong was in 1995. As North Vietnam’s major seaport, it was most heavily bombed by the USA. Domestically, it’s known for a soup of red pasta with fresh water crab, bánh đa cua. Just two days ago, Typhoon Wipha slammed into it, to cause considerable damage to properties, but no reported death. Houses were wrecked, cars were crushed from falling trees and crops spanning hundreds of miles were destroyed. Extreme weather everywhere has become more common. If you haven’t, look into climate engineering as the key factor. Six decades ago, the USA used Vietnam and Vietnamese to test various techniques, along with the effects of novel weapons.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25

Napalm is lovingly described as sticking “like shit to a blanket.” In Vietnam Inc., Philip Jones Griffith quotes a US pilot, “We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn’t so hot—if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene — now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter (WP – white phosphorous) so’s to make it burn better. It’ll even burn under water now. And just one drop is enough, it’ll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorous poisoning.”

Can you believe it, it’s already the next day! Do check to see if it’s still 2025. Though a nightmare year, it’s only a prelude. Having arrived at Coffee Seven too early, I’m sitting just outside in the dark. In minutes, Mrs. Seven’s two dogs will appear. They’re sleeping on her bedroom floor. With junkies needing quick cash roaming the night, they can’t be let outside too early. Now I hear her rubber flip flops, then her lock jiggling. Suddenly, there’s light! Happy to see me, the white bitch comes running, with that stub of a tail half wagging.

Coming here, I passed Bluetooth listening to old school rap, when lyrics still had social messages, and not just I’m gonna to wet yo nigga ass and shag yo ho. Next to him was a woman of at least 70 doing exercises while sitting on a plastic chair. Any joint that could still be swiveled, she rotated.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25

Presently, the security guard, Sơn, will show up on his motorbike. Yesterday, he was listening to all these songs of homesick soldiers, composed in South Vietnam before 1975. The North’s heroic compositions, as demanded by the state, have mostly disappeared. We talked a bit about the absence of music about Vietnam’s wars against Cambodia and China. State control of culture was still in force.

I can’t think of one song reflecting the ordeals of being an American grunt in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Those still capable of reading should check out Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Bruce Weigle’s Song of Napalm. Nearly all my books are in New Jersey. Before leaving the US in 2018, I gave hundreds to my buddy, Ian Keenan. Though super erudite, Ian’s a conformist liberal, so has stopped talking to me. Via Megabus, we traveled together to Buffalo, New Orleans, Raleigh and New Orleans.

Sơn means mountain. The absurdity of being maimed or killed just as your life is beginning is a profound tragedy worth meditating or brooding on. At 4:37AM, he’s two chairs from me. Those songs of lives suspended, menaced or about to be smashed I expect to hear, again, any second now.

When I left Amman just a week ago, Israel had just attacked Syria. Having helped to prop up Ahmed al-Sharaa, Jews are already done with this ex terrorist. Their goal has always been to grab more land from Syria, so they’ve opened a new front in their never ending war against Arabs. They’re still fighting Hamas and the Houthis. Of course, it’s confusing. Like Uncle Sam, Jews are always plotting or fighting against so many people.

In Southeast Asia, another war has broken out. In recent years, Cambodia has gotten very close to China. In that nation, I’ve traveled on Chinese built highways and visited Sihanoukville, a fishing village transformed into a city filled with Chinese casinos. In Phnom Penh, I checked out NagaWorld. At this luxurious Chinese gambling mecca, I noticed with amusement a forlorn blonde Russian tinkling on a piano for bored Chinese patrons, lounging nearby. NagaCorp is building a casino/resort in Vladivostok, so there, too, classically trained Russian musicians will perform for yawning Chinese.

Has pissed Uncle Sam prodded Thailand to war against its supposedly weaker neighbor? Don’t underestimate the ferocity of the Khmers, however.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25

At 6:32AM, I’m at Trung Nguyen, a Vietnamese chain. Even with many books, it has little character. There’s no anchored mind behind any of this. Right outside on a bench are two fat boys with dull faces. Each has an iPhone and bulging belly. Closing his eyes from virtual reality overload, the older boy still clutches his orbitofrontal cortex masturbator. Ten yards away is an old broad, sitting alone yet masked. We’ve been conditioned to trust nothing unmediated, so why not oxygen? This deranged crone feels safer breathing air through chemically treated polypropylene.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25

All these phenomena are actually linked, Bluetooth listening to American rap, a war veteran still figuring out what the hell happened, phone hooked children alienated from their environment and more wars caused hidden hands not just indifferent, but glorying in how many lives they can pulverize. We’re but deracinated fleas blown every which way.

In the USA, millions of brokeassed chumps still think a billionaire child rapist is their savior. Those outside the Judeo Christian world can see more clearly than ever who these monsters really are. They’re so casual, if not cheerful, about their serial crimes. Even the most degenerate Orientals, Arabs and Black Africans don’t try to excuse away such prolific and protean Satanism.

It’s smeared on them like crap on a Christmas sweater or homey comforter. Shit, man, with a dark night of the soul so insistent and marathon, Jeezus must appear before peeping dawn. Maybe it won’t ever again. Meanwhile, they have their flaming Donald. Towering over their smudged out faces, America’s greatest president glows like white phosphorus. Barely basking in his flickering orangeness, they crack hellish grins.

It’s 8:24AM at Pato’s Bingsu. In the next room is a 27-year-old South African I’ve just met. Teaching English at three schools, he’s also learning Vietnamese. We joked about South African linguistic idiosyncrasies like “lekker” and “robot.” Drop me off at the next robot, brah! Like me, he was nearly mugged in Cape Town. Sitting in a car’s passenger seat, he managed to kick the guy off. I commended him for not freezing.

Wolfheze. As a Dutchman living in Budapest, Wolfheze is one, too. Even if you’ve never stepped outside your hometown, you’re also waiting in a departure lounge, hoping, if only half consciously, to not be left behind or swatted like an annoying insect. In three days, Wolfheze and I will chatter about this and more.

Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

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