I have a confession. I was a complete and utter nerd as a kid, always happiest with a stack of books under my arm. Long before my first airplane ride, I was already traveling the world of my imagination: Exotic British India from The Jungle Book and...
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with fruit. As a Vietnamese kid growing up in the US, dessert more often than not was just the fruit sitting in a bowl that had been staring at me all throughout dinner. My Banana self revolted. Why didn’t my parents...
With the finale of Parks and Recreation last week, TV has entered a sad, sad era. It’ll be the first time in nearly 10 years that neither Tina Fey nor Amy Poehler will be on the small screen. In honor of their comedic genius, I’ve decided to...
Vietnam is recovering this week from another Lunar New Year – nine blissful days where the country practically comes to a standstill to ring in the Year of the Goat. The city slowly empties as work-obsessed urbanites head back to their countryside hometowns, shops are shuttered and...
I love meeting artists. I love seeing the world through a different set of eyes. Eyes that see in a palette of colors. The sky isn’t just blue. It’s cerulean. The bark of a tree isn’t brown. It’s burnt sienna with a touch of yellow ochre where the sunlight finds...
I am what is known as a late adopter. (Fine. It’s not strictly one of the technology cycles but much preferable to being called a “laggard“.) I didn’t climb aboard the iPhone bandwagon as much as I was chloroformed-into-a-moving-van onto it by a friend who had an...
I’m trying to think of the exact moment I became the beach equivalent of a vapid, disconnected supermodel. Having traveled to some of the world’s best beaches in Zanzibar, Curacao, Hawaii and countless Thai beaches, I can relate to supermodel Linda Evangelista who famously said: “We don’t...
When exactly is that moment where you realize that you’ve been traveling or living abroad for so long that what you’ve always called home is no longer home? Is it when you’re more excited to get back on the plane than you were to get off it?...
Three times a week I make the five minute drive over a singular, newly constructed bridge on the way to my tennis club. The wide four-laned road lined with restaurants (including duck rice porridge for which Thanh Da is known), apartment buildings and one lonely KFC quickly...
I’ve never been a big fan of ballet. Surprising, I know, considering I’m such a huge snob supporter of the arts. But when I got a chance to sit in on the final rehearsal of Cinderella at the Saigon Opera House, I didn’t refuse (mostly because I...