Category Archives: Topical story
December
31
Goodbye Vietnam (I’ll be back)…
posted by Adam Robert Young
So my time living full-time in Asia has come to an end. I have now settled back in Australia – in Brisbane to be exact. This retrospective post about my time living in Ho Chi Minh City is long overdue! After three attempts at writing this post, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will […]
September
30
An orphanage in Vietnam – through the eyes of Khuong (age: 7)
posted by Adam Robert Young
Allow me to introduce you to Khuong. Born physical challenged (seems to be cerebral palsy), he was left by his parents on the doorstep of Ky Quang II Pagoda at a very early age. Since then, he has been looked after by the orphanage attached to the pagoda. Unfortunately the orphanage is not really equipped […]
August
23
727 Tran Hung Dao – From riches to ruin
posted by Adam Robert Young
Completed in the 1960s, 727 Tran Hung Dao Street once loomed over Saigon as an impressive sign of wealth and progress. Known as the Presidential Building, the monolithic towers’ 535 rooms housed American soldiers during the war, and high ranking government officials after reunification. Today, however, the building is a rapidly decaying shadow of its […]
March
16
My wife’s photos misused in a Czech hoax!
posted by Adam Robert Young
I had never imagined my photographs would be used to fool so many media outlets in Europe and Asia! Here’s how it all went down… Any photographer is happy for wider audience to see their photos, so when I got an email from somebody in the Czech Republic back in 2009 asking if they could […]
October
13
Vietnam mourns a national hero
posted by Adam Robert Young
Mourners wait to pay their respects to Vietnamese hero Vo Nguyen Giap in Ho Chi Minh City Last week saw the passing of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, who many Vietnamese think of as the last true Vietnamese hero. He was a brilliant military strategist who was instrumental in Vietnamese victories against both the French and […]
April
24
Children, propaganda and death in Xiancun (Behind the Wall – Xiancun Village Today Part 2)
posted by Adam Robert Young
This is a continuation of a post based on my final trip to Xiancun village. Some of what you read may make little sense unless you take a quick look at some of the background in this post. As I was walking inside Xiancun towards the public meeting and undercover officers that I would soon […]
April
10
Behind the wall – Xiancun village today (Part 1)
posted by Adam Robert Young
Vacant shells of half-demolished buildings rise from piles of concrete rubble. This scene of utter destruction, despite appearances, is not the remains of a bombed city in a war-torn nation. It is a suburb smack-bang in the middle of one of the fastest developing Chinese cities – Guangzhou. Those that have been following this blog […]
October
03
Mid-autumn day and kids being kids
posted by Adam Robert Young
For anyone who knows anything about mid-autumn festival in China, the very mention of the event conjures up images of boxes of sickeningly heavy mooncakes given as gifts and immediately gifted to someone else. They are the traditional fare of the season, but nobody really enjoys eating them, so they get re-gifted in the same […]
September
21
My blood chilled and my heart warmed (slightly)
posted by Adam Robert Young
As I mentioned at the tail end of my post on the Anti-Japanese Protests on the 18th of September, I saw things that inspired me, and some that filled me with a deep feeling of sadness. Let’s start with the bad and end on the slightly more positive one. As the protests over ownership of […]
Adam Robert Young 