What I have to say about Vietnam is not new, or profound, I'm sure. But I'll say it nevertheless. I admit I haven't followed events in Vietnam closely in recent years, but obviously communism has been abandoned in favor of capitalism. You can see that within two minutes of landing here. ​

Thanks to our relative purchasing power, Ross and I can enjoy some luxuries in Asia. For a few dollars, we can arrange for a driver to pick us up at the airport to take us to our hotel in Hanoi. It was a nice car, too, though I forget what make and model. As I settled into the backseat, I immediately recognized the song playing -- an instrumental muzak version of The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.  When that song was a hit, American soldiers were crawling though the jungle in Vietnam, and possibly the father of our driver belonged to the guerrilla forces they were trying to subdue. Now, in the blink of an eye, we Westerners and our tourist dollars are more than welcome. And our soundtrack is an anthem to youthful alienation, with a  pretentious little slap on capitalism thrown in: "and the people bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made."

It's probably most unwise of me to say anything about politics, since I have a newly-published book I want to sell, and the temper of the times is to boycott any purveyor of goods or services whose views you disagree with. My view is that we should all calm down, lay off the name-calling and thank our lucky stars that we haven't had to live through what the Chinese and the Vietnamese have lived through. 

​Even in winter, it's pretty warm in Ho Chi Minh city, and most of us tourists are dressed casually. There are a lot of dreadlocked, backpacking hippie young folks. Typical tourist attire is shorts or frayed cut offs, sandals, t-shirts or tank tops. We certainly look like we eschew conspicuous consumption and materialism. I saw so many hippies in the streets it really took me back to the anti-war days, when we'd gather at the Unitarian church and sing "Where have all the flowers gone." At the time I never would have imagined that I might visit Vietnam myself one day!

Ross and I went to the Ho Chi Minh City museum. It's housed in a beautiful French colonial building and it hosts a few relics from the war. There is a big painted mural showing the residents of Saigon welcoming their liberators (What? No photos?)

​There are some incredibly pathetic-looking displays of the industrial manufactures of the collectivist era, prior to the reforms of the mid-eighties. This little display, seriously, is all that the museum can muster to show the glories of the years following liberation. For all the effort, and blood and toil and horror and misery.....

Said the sly and conniving Mary Crawford to Fanny Price, and so I say to you, dear readers, forgive my long silence. Mary went on to say, "for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve."  

​And so say I to you, dear readers, thank you for treating me better than I deserve. And just as Mary broke her long silence because of self-interest, candour compels me to admit that I want to tell you something!

I have just published my debut novel, A Contrary Wind: a variation on Mansfield Park. More about that in a moment.

So I am on vacation in Vietnam with my husband. Right now we're in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and it's Tet, or New Year. The locals have closed most of their shops and restaurants and are enjoying family activities like strolling along Flower Street in their New Year finery and taking pictures. This is our first trip to Vietnam and we're enjoying the people. country and culture very much. 
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​To recap events with me since my last blog post, I spent five months in Canada from late spring to August, then I was able to return to China in September to resume my teaching job at Zibo Vocational Institute. This semester is my 7th (!) semester at ZBVI. Sorry that I didn't resume blogging through the summer or fall, but I was busy writing a 130,000 plus word novel during the summer and, during the fall, I was feeling exhausted most of the time. When I wasn't teaching class or preparing for class, I was sleeping. I think I caught a bug on my return to China. So a lot of what I could say about China these past few months would not be exactly positive. And yet I'm happy to be back, and glad to be with my Chinese friends and students again.

Just like last year's winter vacation, unfortunately. I brought my end-of-semester cold-which-turned-into-bronchitis with me and Ross and I have spent a lot of time resting (coughing, hacking, wheezing) in our various hotel rooms and taking short excursions to see Hanoi, Hoi An and now, Saigon.  I don't want to complain; it is what it is. However, I have got to think that the winter pollution has played a part in the way we're feeling now. It was so bad for a few weeks in December, I hesitate to even show you a picture. This is the way it looked, walking to class. I tried wearing a mask, but they always made my glasses fog over and I couldn't see where I was going!

But I've had something diverting to think about while resting in my hotel room, blowing my nose, and that was -- publishing my novel! Whilst walking the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, I am agreeably diverted by seeing signs that say "Fanny" and I can remind myself that I now have a book with my name on it, which has been a goal or dream or, rather, an expectation of mine, since I was seven years old!  It is now available on Amazon and through Smashwords. If you like Jane Austen, I think you'll like this. If you read Mansfield Park and didn't like the heroine Fanny Price, why not give my variation a try. She's got a little bit more of a backbone. ​Download the free sample for your Kindle reader or read it online.