Viet Life

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#photography

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Which one do you like best?

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Return to blogging

I have no idea how long it has been since I posted, I’ll see later. So, quick personal recap, after having lived in Vietnam since 2013, I have returned to France since the start of covid. My region isn’t so badly affected, I’m shocked to how badly the country has handled the crisis. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that.

I write this for my own mental health, the covid situation has had good and bad effects on me. My plan has been for a long time to try and get out of teaching, now that I am, I kind of think I could have taught and do what I’m trying to do now. Other factors are keeping me in France, for other reasons. 

My current project is to do international trade as an independent agent, my worries are that I think I am not ready, but with what I have learned up to now, you learn as you go. My frustration is the lack of income and slow developments. I do believe this could be a great opportunity for me, as long as I stay on track and keep focused on my goal.

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Environmental disaster in Vietnam!

Dead fish all over Vietnam... 

This is a scene I witnessed yesterday just driving along the river I noticed people stopping on the side of the road to look at what was happening to their river. I then saw a boat with 3 men abord and 2 plastic container bins doing there best to pick up the dead fish and talking to the people who were taking photos probably telling them not to take photos because the government is trying to cover up this story by giving some dumb excuse. 

It was an alarming scene, to see so many dead fish just floating with the current, probably a few hundred thousand fish going on for kilometres... I don’t know what to call this, it isn’t a slaughter because they didn’t mean to kill all these fish, the story I heard is that they are pointing the finger towards Formosa, a Taiwanese joint-venture steel plant in Thanh Hoa province, where most of the fish have washed ashore.

The company did it self no favours when one of its senior officials told reporters: “Sometimes in order to win something, you have to lose something. It’s impossible to build a steel plant here and keep fish stocks in the surrounding area high at the same time.” For me this is an outrageous statement willing to sacrifice wildlife for profit, but this is the mentality of most big companies and the reason I’m not willing to work for them. Something went wrong when we decided to work for money and give up on life, something we need to question, is it worth working for a  company which is killing us slowly? Something is very wrong with us, these companies a killing our seas and yet we continue supporting these companies by buying their products, some would blame the lack of information but with internet now you have no excuse.

The dead fish story started in central/north of Vietnam and these photos where taken in the south, in Ho Chi Minh city which is not a costal city, just how bad is this sea intoxication?

The dead fish shouldn’t have been the first alarming situation here in Vietnam because when you see what the rivers look like in their “normal” state you still wouldn’t want to swim in them. Rubble everywhere and plastic things in the water..

I’d just like to summaries by saying that we need to stop hiding our problems and deal with them, you could create so many jobs by just cleaning up your country and your profit will be monstrous, not only will people enjoy visiting the clean country but life in the country will be better. Our governments are nothing without us so let’s show them the way and be a bit more eco friendly!

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Life is so fucked up!

I’m so pissed off! First thing is when I thought I was a pimp munching the hell out of this fucking double cheese burger and now I’ve figured out the fucking double cheese burger is actually munching the hell out of me and my pride! The burger actually contains: 1 dead animal’s flesh, some impregnated cows milk for the cheese, a whole load of fat and sugar and preservatives and other shit stuff. All this for less than 10$ with chips and a coke, very cheap for actually killing an animal and impregnating an other plus all those other ingredients. But then one day I said: “Fuck you hamburger!” all this because of one thing. When I was a child I always had pets: dogs, cats and rabbits all fucking cute! And I went to school where I had lunch most of the time, my mum sometimes asked me: “what did you have for lunch today?” “Oh I had chicken and chips, yummy!” (Well yeah, school will teach you, you need your cereals, your meat, your veg... blabla fuck off school! You never even taught me to cook!). Then we got some chickens at home cause we wanted fresh eggs and shit, cool! But one day there were no more eggs so my dad “had to” kill them, that’s when I thought I was fucked up cause I didn’t really want to eat them because they were actually... my pets too. So then I left home and went traveling to Vietnam, a different world, different language, different girls, different food, different road, different fucking everything I thought! So I get there first day and my landlord invites me for lunch and a few beers, jet lagged and a bit drunk the food comes up a he had ordered chicken in different ways, chicken guts, chicken feet, chicken body, chicken head... the whole damn thing! First of all I just liked chicken breast and KFC wings or legs but in order to be polite I tasted the guts and all of it, awful. Having lived there for a few months and getting used to the neighbours dog barking at the middle of the night, I noticed it wasn’t barking anymore. Few weeks later, oh the dog is back but it sounds different, ok I don’t give a shit but then I can’t really sleep cause it’s barking then I hear some struggling noises and some hitting noises as if someone was whacking the dog with a stick. Then I remembered they actually eat dog in this part of the world, shit! That’s fucked up! Time passed and I moved to an other city in Vietnam, got a job and lived a pretty happy life. In the evening I like to go on Facebook and waste my life and I saw video of a kid, maybe 3 years old in Brazil or Portugal or something. His mum was filming him eating and he was curious about what he was eating, this is kinda what they said: 

Mum: “Eat your fucking octopus”

Son: “But octopus is a fucking animal? Where is it’s fucking head?”

Mum: “They cut the head off so we can eat this shit”

Son: ”But octopus is an animal, I don’t want to eat animals, they should be happy and we should take care of them”

Mum: “Yeah, you’re fucking right, let’s not eat anymore fucking meat ok?!”

Then I realised that 3 year old cute little cunt face was smarter than me, he actually decided at 3 years old not to participate in animal slaughter for ethical reason. Then that cute kiddo got me hooked and I’ve watched so many videos about the meat industry that it really pisses me off to see the fucking companies are making so much money by slaughtering animals in the name of “we need to eat meat because it’s good for us”. I’d like to tell them to fuck themselves, why aren’t all the vegans dying of meat deficiency?  “Oh, meat is what made the human’s brains evolve and now we are a superior race” Fuck off!  “Oh let’s teach kids the perfect meal: Rice/Potatoes/Cereals/Bread + Meat/Fish + Dairy shit +  Veggies/Fruits. Fuck off! This meal actually means you would either participate in killing an animal everyday or be eating cow’s flesh for a whole month. It’s funny how obesity is always assimilated to sugar and salt, meat gets way less criticism and is the cause of billions of deaths every year. If we just inverted the roles, animals eating humans, human race would be extinct in less than a year. Just google it 6 to 140 billion animals are killed every year just for fuckheads to fill their fat bellies, I don’t know the real number but it’s fucked up! The worse thing is it’s all about money! “Hey I have a cow, I’ll sell it in little bits so I can make more money to buy 3 cows” and keep going with the slaughtering. It’s funny how useless a cow is, it only produces milk and meat. OH WAIT! It’s actually the same for any other mammal, like dogs! Yes in Asia they do eat dogs and cats, WTF does the word “pet” mean the it becomes meat?! Reminds me when I was driving in this street in Vietnam and I see a dog meat stall, dead hairless, lifeless dogs pilled up on a table in the street, as fresh as it can be! Then in the same street chickens hanging on hooks from there throats, lifeless and featherless, and I asked myself: “What is the difference? Why is eating chicken more acceptable then eating dog?” It’s all fucking murder... 

I’ve personally decided to stop eating any dead animal, not because I don’t like the taste but because I couldn’t harm an animal in order to eat it, I love animals and it’s actually better for my health not to eat them, I don’t have to pick of the fatty bits of meat anymore, I don’t need to taste shitty parts of animals, my digestive system is doing great, I use my brain more when I cook (I recommend making vegan hamburgers!), I piss off them multifuckingnational fastfood cunts, I contribute way less to global warming (watch the film: cowspiracy) and I just see life differently.

Put yourself in the place of these animals who don’t even have a life for the most of them, is it worth eating meat?  

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Losing faith in eating meat...

Okay so, you learn at school you must eat a healthy balance of food including #cereals, #fruit, #veg, #meat, #milk and other things... Wait a minute! What is meat?  It can be many things but the first thing it is, is... something #dead... Wtf! Oh so it can be rat, dog, cow, snake or .... my grandmother?! Oh no of course we don’t eat humans, humans breath, communicate, think, and have jobs, silly me! A nice juicy steak doesn’t! Or does it? What is a steak, usually it’s beef, but beef isn’t alive? No of course not, it’s dead cow... But cows have feelings? Aaah of course not, they can’t speak... really?! Or is it just that we don’t understand them? Shit too much reflection here, let’s have a ham sandwich! Sh*t!!! Ham?! That’s dead pig right?! So ham and steak are 2 dead animals already!! I didn’t mean for them to die... Hmmm but mum made us lasagna tonight with .... minced beef :’( BAAAANG!!! An other part of that cow gone!! Why is there meat (or #AnimalCorpse) in almost all the dishes nowadays? It’s not really fair in my opinion, but so difficult not to eat meat. We don’t even choose what we eat anymore, meat is forced in our mouths and we are “victims” of the the meat industry’s propaganda. It’s a dirty but genius plan which make billions of $ for the companies behind all this. They make money by #SlaughteringAnimals... would you kill a cow to eat it ? If you cannot kill your own “food” why do you eat it? 

You might say: “Oh but we need protein!” well there is protein in green veg and beans.. “Oh but that’s not enough protein” well my friend, we only need 50g of protein on average per day, that’s the equivalent of a 250g slice of dead cow’s flesh (or steak) = 1 kill for you today! And too much protein is only going to mess up your health so... try to reduce your intake.

My advice, don’t be fooled by the big money earning companies’ marketing, it will only get you one step closer to your grave. Do research and use common sense, do we really need to kill for us to live ? Sh*tiest #paradox ever... 

Please watch this video it’s very interesting and educational:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uDwq_DyiTM

You’ll find part 2,3,4 and 5 on the same page.

#StopTheSlaughter #BoycottMeat #DontBeAPuppet #BeSmart #UseYourBrain

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Trip to Da Nang

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So I went to Vietnam to study for a year, a very interesting experience. First of all, I enjoyed the food on the plane, that set the standards of food pretty high for me (as an asian culinary amateur)! 

With my future classmates, we couldn't sleep on the plane so decides to take full advantage of the free drinks (being too full up for the free food) and ordered a few Vodka and orange or Whisky and coke while most of the plane was sleeping. Arriving in Hanoi airport a few hours later, and feeling a bit tipsy we decided, went through the customs and all the basic procedures.. 

At the airport our landlord and a Vietnamese student from our university where waiting for us and took us to our house (see photo).

It was only about 10am when we got hungry again and so our beloved landlord took us all for lunch and a few drinks to the nearby restaurant. Vietnamese people like to showoff their culture of food and sharing so he ordered "classic" Vietnamese dishes such as chicken feet, chicken intestines, chicken blood... and the local beer "Bia Hanoi". My appetite for beer then grew much bigger then my appetite for food, and finally most of us where feeling tipsy, again. So the chicken feet, blood and intestines didn't taste too bad. And after that we headed out for a Vietnamese cold coffee!

I don't remember what we did all afternoon but by the end of the day we still had energy to go out and check the clubs! Something we didn't find...