So I've been a bit down after the closure of the unofficial street art park near my condo here in Da Nang, Vietnam. It was a wonderful place for talented people to do and hone their skills, talk to other people about it, and showcase their work. People were polite, nobody was destroying public property, and the little coffee stall was making some money for a guy that probably wouldn't have money otherwise. That all ended when local people started dumping all their garbage and construction debris on the land and then the owner, who apparently was fine with it being used for street art, sealed off the land with fences. I don't know what prompted a local business named Section 30 to hire extremely talented artists to make this huge street art murals, but I am really happy that they did.These massive murals cover 2 floors of the building that is next door to the bar / restaurant and I asked the manager how they pulled it off since the building belongs to the place next door and all I know is that they had permission. I think it would be pretty difficult to pull something like this off without getting the green light from the neighbor.I saw when this was being done by the artists and the bar had hired out a cherry picker for

I gotta hand it to the Vietnamese, they really do try to cater to their major tourism groups. If I had to guess I would say that the number one tourist sector here in DaNang at least, is likely Koreans. They must have some sort of really special flight deals or something because just about anywhere you go you can hear Korean being spoken. That's all fine and dandy because many Vietnamese learn to speak basic Korean in an attempt to cater to this lucrative group. However, speaking a language and learning how to write it is another thing entirely. There is written Korean all around but I have been told that the translation apps that people are using to do this are frequently wrong to the point where the Korean doesn't even make sense. In order to combat this, many of the Vietnamese businesses will instead opt to print out signs in English because most Korean tourists can read basic English anyway and for whatever reason, probably because it is the most widely used travel language in the world, translations apps tend to be more accurate when English is what is being done. That doesn't mean that the signs are always correct though. For me, I appreciate some "almost" correct signage, such as this one.I wonder what they were trying to say here. "Exceptionally" is obviously not the correct word but the best I can come with is that they were

Myself and basically everyone else that lives here in Vietnam complain endlessly about the construction noise. We celebrate inclement weather because it forces the sites to shut down and shut the hell up for a few hours. We desperately search for parts of the city that has condos but no construction only to realize that there really isn't such a thing unless you live in a part of town where it is impossible to get a taxi because it is so isolated that nobody wants to go there. Well a really nice friend of mine and his wife are regular visitors to Da Nang. They live 3 months here, and then 3 months in Thailand over and over again. They were elated when we met up about how they found a place where all the construction projects that could possibly done in the area already have been done and they were so excited about it. I was so excited about it that I planned my walk on one of my days to go and check out the area. When I got there, I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw what was going on across the damn street from the place he literally JUST moved into.Yesterday or at most 2 days ago, there was a wall there and now today you can see the wall has been reduced to rubble in the background and while I was walking by they were dropping off a huge amount of cement dust that will be mixed with that sand and the rocks. Guess what? This is goin

If you read my blog you know already that I was a bit miffed that an unofficial street-art park ended up getting filled up with garbage by selfish asshats and it became such a mess that the owners eventually erected a fence to keep everyone out. The owner never did this before when the people were just using the land to do street art and even allowed a small cafe to open there. Things were good and everyone was winning. it was quickly becoming a very popular place to go and hang out and have cheap drinks while you watch people do something that not very many people are capable of doing with spray paint. But then the selfish assholes started dumping trash and construction debris there and the owner really had no choice but to seal the place off after I presume they paid to have the debris removed. It looked like the glory days were over for people that appreciate street art and for the most part it was. However, someone recently jumped the fence and did some touch up work on one of my favorite pieces that was in there.Only the skeleton or "Death" is new, the rest of it was already there. You can see the piece before it was altered as well as the garbage that lead to the place being sealed off in this next pic

I suppose the term "trans corner" is a bit misleading in Vietnam since basically anywhere that isn't a national monument to Ho Chi Minh is filled with trash. Seriously, the lack of environmental care or awareness in this country is pretty nuts. They do a better job in the tourist areas than they bother with in the parts of town that are mostly just local people, so I guess that is something.One area that I regularly walk past on most days is a series of ill-contrived recycling bins as well as seating areas that are meant to double as some sort of planter. In the past the planters were neglected, the plants died, and then the uncaring masses filled up the plant areas with garbage which is tradition here or something. I don't know.The recycling boxes kind of amuse me in a shameful way because at this one corner we have the old, completely unused, recycling box that basically was ignored or misused as soon as it was put there. It was evident that the people were not going to use this thing the way that it was intended so what's the logical thing to do after it fails? Well apparently the government answer is to put a new one right next to it so that one can be unused or decay or be stolen just like the first one. If it isn't working just put another one there that is basically the same thing as before right? That's the recipe for success.

The saying goes that "this is why we can't have nice things" but as far as Da Nang is concerned I think I will modify that statement to say "this is why we can't have things." The unofficial street art center that was seat up on a vacant plot of land was a nice touch to the neighborhood and it was attracting some pretty decent talent and even a small cafe that would sell drinks so that people could sit and watch people make their art. This was serving multiple purposes in that it was something to do and it gave the artists a place to hone their craft. They were no longer breaking the law by doing their work and as a wonderful side-effect, the amount of hastily made garbage vandalism that plagues certain parts of this area was dropping off. People no longer needed to spray random houses because they could go to this park and do it without fear of getting in trouble. I thought it was really nice and as a fan of street art, I really enjoyed witnessing how it is done.But then the trash brigade came by and seized this plot of land and started dumping their shit on it. Overnight this place that was a wonderful place to get together and chat with artists while you had an iced coffee or a beer in the shade got turned into a dump just like almost any other plot of land in Vietnam.Most of this is clearly construction debris and not just your run o