I call it the American War because that is how it is referred to in Vietnam. It would be ridiculous to call it the "Vietnam War" since that would be the name of every war or battle that has ever happened in this country.

It seems to be a tradition of sorts here that any sort of holiday that passes they will get a few of these strange round boats and let some artists decorate them for the masses. These ones were at a beach access a bit further from where I live so even though they were painted during Tet (Lunar New Year) I never got to see them until yesterday.

So not long ago I got "in trouble" with a Vietnamese user here that got upset with me because I am always pointing out the faults of this country. While I think that their reaction and telling me to get out of the country was a bit over the top, I also can kind of understand that I might be having too much negativity even though I really enjoy living here.

Da Nang is a city that is one of the most important cities in all of Vietnam as far as tourism is concerned. There are other places that people visit more frequently, but Da Nang is the city that is most accessible that isn't also a capital city with what I consider to be far too many people in it.

Compared to other SE Asian countries, Vietnam is relatively devoid of corruption. I'm not suggesting that it is completely without it, I don't think that is true with any country, but here it isn't an every-day part of your life and also, or at least so I have found, if there is some money exchanging hands behind the scenes it does seem to be a mutually beneficial situation for all parties.

I was recently discussing with some people, as we do here in the expat community, about how happy they are with their condos or houses and who much they pay for them. Rent is pretty low here in Vietnam for reasons that I can only speculate about, but the average wages of a Vietnamese person is substantially lower than a foreigner's is. Again, there are a lot of reasons why this is the case and it is NOT because foreigners are smarter than Vietnamese people are.