RIFLE RANGE BOY: To Money God, with love.

Traditional Vietnamese stone
carving at Ba Na Hill cable car station.

They led peaceful lives by their standards. They were ruled by little kingdoms with their own belief systems and mode of administration. There were little skirmishes here and there, but the subjects were contended, breaking their backs and building mammoth structures for their kings and the divine forces that protected them. They had a sense of belonging to the land that served them. In their own way, they developed their high culture for the present and the world after.

Then came the foreign invaders. With their imposing figures, strange hues, smell, and conducts, they bulldozed their ideology. They handed us the book of love with the pretext of friendship and commerce. Whilst we closed our eyes in prayer, they took our land deeds unbeknownst to us, and we were stuck with their books.

No more a godless society?

They looked down at our living and called it uncultured. The French colonist proclaimed our land theirs and decimated our structures just to replace them and build buildings in French designs. They introduced French haute culture, theatre and the French way of living.

We fought tooth and nail to assert our dominance. Fought we did, only to be a pawn in world politics afterwards. After sending the French packing, we had to fight our brothers over political leanings beset by the superpowers beyond our control. Many had to flee the country as the Americans experimented with cocktails of chemicals on us. We again sent the foreigners again, packing in a rush for good this time.

With a new pack of friends from the North, we again started going places. Maybe because they share a common heritage and a love for the Money God, we have set the wheel of progress. My people have what it takes and have no qualms going the whole nine yards to see us through to recreate a kingdom so prosperous so long ago. We have the tenacity to work our way all the way to the top.

Entrance to My Son, Champa heritage.
Ruins of a glorious Hindu civilisation.

View atop Marble Mountain Da Nang.

Indo-Chinese fusion: the hirsute monk and dragons.

China's marvel at engineering is on full display.
Entrance to the world's largest cable car service.
5km long in Da Nang, the 3rd biggest city in Vietnam.

Chinese architecture in Indo-China!

Not a rafflesia.

The might of Chinese engineering Ba Na Hills.

Was the tiger awoken?
40 years ago, the US bombed Vietnam to smithereens.

Too sanitised for sanitation?

A mock French village in Vietnam? Da Nang

Is slave mentality on display? The colonised trying to mimic the colonisers?

The French left them with beer culture and a sense of dressing up.
Most Vietnamese women were dressed to the nines.
The culture of 'slutty dressing' has not permeated yet, as for now.