Postcards from the End

[Đồng Đăng, 7/23/26] “We had to walk. It took us 3 ½ months to reach Kontum.” “And you were bombed.” “You’d piss your pants, running.” “Why didn’t you take a mini-bus, like that one right there!” “We had no vehicles.” “You just didn’t know who to call!” “Each man had to carry enough rice for two months, plus dried food. The AK itself weighted 10 kilograms, plus four magazines, plus two changes of clothing.” “That’s nearly the weight of a man.” “More for some.

[Đồng Đăng, 7/21/26] After 13 days in China, I’m back in Vietnam. Sitting in Đồng Đăng, population 25,000, I’m still 1,107 miles from my Vũng Tàu room. Yesterday, I paid $3.04 for a taxi ride from the Chinese border. I had a brief discussion with the driver about Chinese expelled from this area in 1978-79. “It had to happen,” he explained, “they could have served as spies,” for an invasion that, to my understanding, hadn’t even been planned.

[Pingxiang, 7/19/26] Egypt has a burger chain, Bazooka, that specializes in monstrous sized sandwiches, with one called Sniper. American style eating is an act of aggression or even revenge. In backward Pingxiang, there’s only the “BIG HURBER.” Since the Chinese on this large, colorful sign is simply 作的, meaning burger, hurber is just a gross misspelling. This restaurant’s logo is an American Indian, with feather headdress.

[Sín Chải, 2/21/20] Before 2026, I had only seen China three times. In 1995, I stared at it from Lào Cai. (I was traveling through northwest Vietnam with Mitch Epstein and Susan Bell. Mitch’s first wife was Mira Nair, the mother of NYC’s current mayor.) Though China was right there, I didn’t have the visa to cross that bridge. In 2020, I got a better look at China, over several days, also from Lào Cai.

[Pingxiang, 7/13/26] Having secured my keycard two days ago, I went to room 8009, only to find it still being cleaned, at well past 3PM, mind you, so all those China bashers are right, after all. Chinese professionalism or mere competence is but a sham. Checking into this or any other Chinese hotel is equivelant to jumping off its roof immediately. At least I won’t be crushed by all those floors, pancaking upon themselves, just like at the World Trade Center 1, 2 and 7.

[Nanning, 7/11/26] Each morning, I come down to the lobby from my 8th floor room before 5AM. Always, I would see the nighttime security guard watching some drama on a computer screen. It must be boring as shit because he nods off often. Since the volume must be kept very low, he can barely hear what these ditzes are saying. Sometimes he listens to fake, computerized music while half staring at these ghostlike figures getting weepy, stressed out or hysterical over nothing.

[Nanning, 7/10/26] In 1076, so just yesterday, If cannibalism was more prevalent here during Mao’s famines, one reason, certainly, had to be its more widespread poverty. Fewer folks had rice, at least, squirreled away. Even today, the per capita income of Nanning is less than 1/3rd of Shanghai. This was evident as soon as I got here. During three days in Nanning, I’ve encountered many, many more homeless than I saw during three weeks in Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, just four months ago.

[Nanning, 7/9/26] In 1076, so just yesterday, really, Vietnam invaded China with at least 80,000 troops. After capturing Guwan, Taiping, Yongping, Qianlong, Qinzhou and Lianzhou, they laid siege to Nanning, where I’m sitting right now with my chest puffed out and my head swollen. Back then, Nanning was called Yangzhou, pronounced, roughly, Young Chow (as in Young Chow Fried Rice).

[Guangzhou, 7/8/26] Reading about catastrophic floods around Nanning, my buddy Jonathan emailed to make sure I hadn’t been washed away. Cobras flushed from some snake farm were biting villagers, he said. No, I replied, I’m still on this earth, I think. Flying in from Guangzhou, my plane was delayed for about an hour, so we just had to suck it up, while strapped to our seats. A fat baby who had stared at me during check in, fascinated, didn’t even cry, though.

[Vung Tau, 7/5/26] Three days straight, I allowed myself a large bottle of Tsingtao, a decent Chinese lager, in an alley. Twice, I noticed a fly floating in my brew, so fished him out with my fingers. This reminded me of a joke. First time you see a fly in your noodle soup in Vietnam, you call the waiter. Second time, you get rid of this garbage and dog shit loving insect yourself. Third time, you just eat the fly.