My picture just published
My picture on the front cover. http://vietnam-briefing.com/
My picture on the front cover. http://vietnam-briefing.com/
I am in Doi Can, the street that goes from Lieu Giai to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. If is later afternoon. People are rushing out from their offices to go home. The street gets busy. I am sitting on a typical narrow plastic chair. Knees above the waist line. Motorbikes parked one the sidewalk, pushing people to walk on the street. Shops accompany this busy and lively street up to the mausoleum. Lights are […]
Let’s see if I manage to keep a diary of my stay in Ha Noi this time. It is the very first time I am here and will not do work for the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. It seems to me a sign of the passing of time, as well as the new route that the taxi took frorm Noi Bai airport to the hotel where I stay, the Horison. It took a narrow […]
“Welcome,Sir”. “Good evening,Sir”. I take a deep breath. End of today’s trip. I am home. But is it home? No, but these greetings are reassuring and familiar by now. They remind me of the country where I live now when I enter the lobby of the Marriot airport hotel in Manila. I recognise some of the staff as I have been here a few times now. Always arriving in the evening and leaving very early […]
The marathon is almost over. The PhD dissertation is now back in Tampere to be edited for the book and web pubblications. It gives an odd feeling to be so close to the end and to see, at the same time, that the day of the public defense is real and approaching quickly. In the next days I will post some of my reflections on the process of writing a PhD dissertation that I hope […]
Ha Noi. One month. I look from the window of my office at the 12th floor of the Vietnam Academy for Social Sciences. Hi see high rising buildings that are being built all around the town. I hear the beat of the town, the ten of thousands of motorbikes and the car of this town which has about 2ml inhabitants. The sky has been gray most of the time. It is winter time and as […]