“In the past, President Musharraf has been repeatedly approached by the Bush administration to take off his uniform, but given the recent arrests of thousands of political opponents and the emergency rule enacted, he felt the time was right and was very comfortable with his decision,” remarked his press secretary.

While the theme of rogue military dictators slipping out of their uniforms has always been a key demand of Musharraf’s political rivals, this act has its detractors. What upsets people like Imran Khan, who heads the Movement for Justice Party, is that “it used to be that military dictators were portrayed in their impressively full regalia. Now you get military dictators dressing every bit the democratically elected leader at the UN, even commanding attention in business casual attire on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. The result of it is coverage that is very damaging—that trivializes and marginalizes military dictators because it does not give them the respect they deserve as ruthless powerful men who harbor no moral compass.”

Still, other critics insist the Bush administration’s demand for Musharraf to lose his uniform is yet another adoption of corrupt Western caricatures of authoritarian rule.

See new products such as the Vietham cap, golf-shirt, and more.

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arms from a white boat
dark flesh in a silent film
sinking innocence

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sunlight pours on hairs
polite demands for our gold
father’s shorts are down

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they’re building fences
a dust cake for our departure
says my banana-leaf watch

But Pax Thien is merely a Vietnamese boy, what does this have to do with Vietnamese men? In a mere decade, Pax will already be in the pubescent bloom that produces some of the signature Viet male physical traits: dark, languishing eyes, tempestuously flaring nostrils, and regal cheekbones.

“Viet Ham appreciates Miss Jolie’s long-term valuation of Vietnamese men–no doubt she is prescient in her confidence that little Pax will eventually outrival her own “hotness” and in turn generate a lot of interest in Vietnamese men down the road,” said Malaise, founder of VietHam.com.

About VietHam.com
VietHam.com, first established as a personal blog on Blogspot (later acquisition by Google), is a US-based cultural thinktank focused on improving the traditional and changing image of the Vietnamese man, and believes that there isn’t enough publicity or awareness about Vietnamese men in US popular culture, politics, and business. VietHam.com revolutionizes the stereotypical Vietnamese male cultural presence by aggregating stories (’evidential ham’), both literal and figurative, that showcase Vietnamese men in all their beauty, eloquence, and understated finery.

VietHam.com is headquartered out of Woodinville, Washington. For more information, visit: http://www.vietham.com.

I got off the last KTX train coming from Gumi, an inland industrial city roughly 3 hours south of Seoul. It was close to mignight. Most of the luxury name shops had long shuttered their windows and lights, yet the train station in Cheonan was just starting its night shift as a shelter for the entrepreneurial homeless. These folks jockeyed for position, some for room to sleep, others to promote their personal brand of misery and helplessness.

Still an hour from my hotel room in Seoul, I quickly navigated through and over people in the station. I had not waited more than a minute outside when a black taxi pulled up to the curb. A Korean man in his mid forties leaned across his passenger seat and unleashed a torrent of his native tongue. The absence of my immediate response didn’t confuse him, but rather effected a transition in his manner and face, like gearshifter sliding into a familiar gear.

“Where?” he asked me.

“Seoul…..Grand. Inter. Con. Tinental Hotel,” I responded in a slow, deliberate manner.

We seemed to reach an agreement. He motioned me in, and I gratefully got into the rearseat. I looked around the cabin and dashboard and found comfort in all the familiar knobs and dials. Below the taxi meter, there was a framed ID photo of the driver and his license details. The pale young man in the photo held a stern look that seemed intended to mask his youth. I snuck a look the driver and found that same stern look now congealed in dark, leathery skin. I spent the rest of the taxi ride contemplating how his life must have been for the past twenty years. This bothered me a great deal that a person had spent the last two decades of his life picking up people, dropping them off, and waiting in traffic.

That night, I reassured myself that my taxi driver must have passed up chances in his life, missed certain turns that could have significantly changed things for him. It turned out to be solace for one night. By the end of my trip, every taxi driver and photo ID I noticed told the same story.

1) “Some say the Holocaust was an act of God, that all those Jews repaid their blood debt in God’s little bakery oven.”

2) “Dick walked into the lavatory, sat down in the stall next to me, and just blew chunks. I thought to myself, Henny Penny, the sky’s falling down!”

3) “If you don’t have that nigger girl you made secretary of state pick mama up some vagisil from the market I will split you a hair lip again I swear to Christ”

4) “Good Heavens! Are you all gonna tell me you actually think our administration is conspiring to circumvent the Geneva Conventions? That tarbaby is way past its expiration date.”

5) “And when we are done with Iran it is time to take on Mexico. Everyone knows that Mexicans are nothing more than shaved Macaccans anyhow…”

Isn’t this fun? Now you can guess which ones deserve their imaginary quote:

Barbara Bush, George Allen, Donald Rumsfeld, Ann Coulter, Tony Snow

“Being with you is like wandering through a perpetually bleak, gloomy day, desperately busying myself with self-loathing introspection to stave off thoughts of a blissful final exit.”

To wit, they both:

- harbor a thinly veiled desire lead a cult
- delight in being the only woman among men
- pout and whine with no discrimination to the importance of the matter
- cannot contain their rescue fetish as it pertains to pets, animals, relatives, neighbors, the lonely, the garrulous, and the less fortunate
- coo at animals and inanimate objects
- share a wretched delight in heckling me

If I were smarter, I would have kept the two apart to prevent the fabric of the universe from being torn asunder. But instead, they met one another and swapped stories of how infantile I allegedly am.

Now it is too late. Even at 9,000 miles apart, they manage to gang up on me. This came about recently when I related to my wife the story of how my mom used to tease me in a very peculiar manner.

I was seven years old and such a sucker for her whining. Here’s how it would go:

Her: Oh my son….your mommy is soooo hungry, and I am longing for some ribs.

Me: No! Stay away!

Her: Look at me! I am so skinny and hungry, you should just let me have one of your ribs. Won’t you let mommy have just one rib? Mommy is sooo hungry!

Me: Just one? Do you promise?

Her: Of course just one! But I have to pick the very best one! Come here and let me find the best one.

At this point, she’d take me into her arms, flip me sideways and starting counting my ribs with her fingers. She knew I was ticklish beyond all reason and delighted in making me squeal as she identified and rated each rib bone. Finally, when she sensed I could take no more, she’d announce that she’d found the one to eat and bit me in my ribcage.

Of course I screeched in terror and ran off with tears streaming from being tickled.

Upon hearing this ridiculous childhood account, my wife immediately took on the mommy part and begged for a rib, pleading, “Tommy…I am soooo hungry….won’t you give me just one rib???”

He perfectly captures the Orlando Bloom highschool senior photo pose. This delicate Vietnamese beauty should be put to a Shakespearean sonnet…hmm…let me see, how about sonnet 36:

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which, though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so; I love thee in such sort
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.