Recently, I was in Da Lat, Viet Nam, where my Paternal relatives wanted to take me to see some embroidery place, as they casually put it. They knew I liked sewing and fashion so they probably thought I could appreciate the embroidery work done by these people.
Well, what I saw completely blew my mind. Even if you don’t like embroidery, this was spectacular work! It was all hand embroidery, with some having millions of stitches!
I will be embarking on a three week trip to Viet Nam in March, returning for the first time since I left as a refugee in April, 1980. I will also be passing through Vancouver, Canada, where I once lived for about five years, leaving in September, 2000. They are the only two places I have lived aside from Halifax where I am today. During my journey, I will be podcasting to document the stories, reflections, perspectives, feelings, etc. I will experience.
If you would like to listen to them, please go to my T.T. Phone Home podcast page. I just did my first podcast tonight, 5 nights before my journey begins. However, there are already plenty of stories to share of cultural ways, my past, people special to me, etc. that I won’t wait until I start my journey to document.
This was the first dress shirt design I ever had, which inspired me to learn to sew and create my current wardrobe. It was a highly symbolic design with a distinct look and I finally got all the factors right to make it, from fit to craftsmanship to final design (from draft) to the matching buttons which I found quite serendipitously in Manhattan.
Recently, DuPont posted the advertisement below for its PHB71 Hybrid Rice grown in Viet Nam. Hybrid rice is cross-breeding of rice strains, not genetically modified as in artificially modifying them. Think of cross-breeding dogs and genetically created dogs, if you want to better understand the difference. We do the former all the time. The latter is a bit more expensive and sketchy… and probably illegal in many countries.
What I found amazing was how these Vietnamese farmers grew rice in the paddies in one season, then harvested shrimp in the same paddies in another! Talk about making use of the land!
The Lucky Few is an hour long documentary about the story of the USS Kirk and its crew in their incredible mission to rescue Vietnamese refugees during Operation Frequent Wind in the final days of the Viet Nam War.
As the War was coming to an end on April 29th to 30th, 1975, Operation Frequent Wind airlifted about 7100 “at risk” Vietnamese (to death from the Communist Viet Cong) and American civilians out of Sai Gon, the capital of South Viet Nam. Some lifts were scheduled. Others were not. The relative American small warship USS Kirk, a destroyer escort, and its crew suddenly found themselves in the midst of a flock of unscheduled airlifts, to which it admirably accommodated even though it was neither meant nor ready to do any such thing.
Digital Citizen 