Vietnam
The summer is seriously no time to be in any part of Asia, really. While you might exaggeratedly fan yourself with your hand and joke about frying eggs on the sidewalk when thermometers in your hometown start creeping past the upper-20s (Celsius) come late July, society in Asia is basically devolving into Lord of the Flies, with people in China retreating into caves, those in Japan sweating buckets and people in Vietnam desperately scrambling for whatever random object they can find to fend off the violent rays of the sun, lest they literally burst into flames.
That last one, we suppose, is good for us, as at least it’s resulted in a few photos for us to chuckle over as we write this from our ice-filled summer cave bunker.
This is the dress that has got tongues wagging in Vietnam for being not Vietnamese enough. Thuy Dung, former Miss Vietnam 2008, and fashion model, recently wore this dress down the runway at a Spring-Summer fashion show in Rome. She has since come under attack for wearing a dress that is “too Chinese” in style.
The SPCA has taught me that dogs can technically drive. But that doesn’t mean we should be handing them the keys and making them designated driver for Katy’s hen do. I mean, besides the fact they don’t even have thumbs, lovably distractable dogs are likely to veer off the road in pursuit of squirrels, other dogs’ butts, a weird shadow and pretty much anything they can put in their mouths. They’re clearly a hazard to other drivers.
And that’s why the police in Hanoi are looking for a man filmed speeding down the road at night letting his dog steer the bike.
Recently our Southeast Asia correspondent Kowloon Kurosawa took a trip from his current residence in Cambodia to the neighboring country of Vietnam. Following standard RocketNews24 foreign travel protocol he soon made his way to a Burger King in Ho Chi Minh City.
However, what he found surprised even our cholestorol-hardened reporter. This Burger King has a special combo menu called Rice King. Not only that but it contained a teriyaki tonkatsu combo!
It looks like the Vietnam national soccer team has extra motivation to practice hard in the next two months.
Popular Vietnamese actress and model Diem My, who is known to be an ardent supporter of her country’s soccer team, amused Japanese net users last week when she declared that she would reward each member of the Vietnam national soccer team with a kiss if they manage to win the upcoming Southeast Asian Games tournament. Not to sound shallow or anything, but that sounds like one heck of a deal!
You generally don’t have to look too hard to find a business capitalizing on the appeal of scantily clad women, but recently there seem to be more and more places using half-naked dudes too. Hooray for gender equality, I guess?
Earlier this week, we told you about the upcoming Macho Cafe in Tokyo and the handsome dentist who cradles patients in his lap while doing a cleaning, but neither of those places have anything on this hair and nail salon in Da Nang, where your beauty comes with a side of beefcake.
One of the things kids most enjoy about going to Disneyland is getting to meet the characters up close and personal, and they love seeing their favourites on TV too. But something about the characters on this Vietnamese children’s show are a little…off. This bizarre TV show features a lawsuit waiting to happen, canned children’s cheers, and characters that will haunt your dreams.
That old Internet meme about stupid business plans that goes something like, “1) _____, 2) ???, 3) Profit!” can now apparently be applied to dumb revenge schemes, as a Vietnamese man, who, after becoming so incredibly furious at his wife that he simply had to do something to get revenge, put together this brilliant scheme: 1) cut off own penis, 2) ???, 3) SATISFACTION!!!!
In Vietnam on 15 July it was reported that Hanoi police investigated the Dong Yang Nong Sa food distributor and discovered a large stash of illegal food additives. Referred to as a “Magical Additive” it has the power to transform pork into beef. This comes as great news because I was just about to stop believing in magic.
You have to hand it to Coca-Cola. Despite being the best-selling cola brand and one of the biggest companies in the world, they certainly don’t seem to rest on their laurels. Like a hungry up-and-coming business, they’re always coming up with new gimmicks in each of the 200 countries they operate in, whether it be personalized bottles in Japan or, like now in Vietnam, a set of functional caps which can transform your empty bottle into a water gun, pencil sharpener, night lights and more after you’re finished with it.
Bad weather holidays were the greatest reason for not going to school. Sometimes, though, the severe weather isn’t quite enough to force a closure. The wind isn’t quite strong enough or the rain or snow isn’t dangerous enough. So, if the school says classes are on, you do what you can to get there. A city in Vietnam has “schooled” everyone with the incredible lengths they will go to get students to their classroom.
You may have been under the impression that McDonald’s has already taken over the world. But even though it has already succeeded in introducing the Big Mac to over 120 countries or territories around the globe, it still has a few places left to conquer. Up until now, Vietnam was, perhaps surprisingly, one of those places. But not anymore with the grand opening of Vietnam’s first McDonald’s shop, which also happens to be Vietnam’s first drive-through restaurant and first 24-hour chain store. Opening day proved to be a smashing success with hordes of people flocking to sink their teeth into a juicy burger. Interestingly, due to the prevalence of scooters in Vietnam, the drive-through line was almost completely composed of people driving not cars, but scooters! Join us for a look at some opening day scenes with pictures taken by people who were there.
At any amusement park run by the “big two” – Disney or Universal Studios – you can be whisked away to a picturesque fairytale castle, or live out scenes from your favourite movies. But what if what you really want is to ride through the depths of hell and then go alligator fishing? Suoi Tien Cultural Amusement Park, located on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, is a mammoth of a theme park that delights and baffles in equal measure. Read on for our eight reasons not to miss out!
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