Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
- 12
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Just random Vietnamese news that broke out into the international news circuit:
A Vietnamese-American 24 year old came back to Vietnam for a banking internship and was raped by a Vietnamese from a rich and politically connected family. Typical SEA corruption/incompetence/cynicism shenanigans occur with the Vietnamese police and even the US embassy. Fortunately, this American citizen's dad is also rich and politically connected to ....Ted Cruz. The perpetrator has been arrested. I expect the VN government will throw the book at him to calm this slight diplomatic incident.
An 18 year old girl was ran over in a traffic accident by former vice chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the National Assembly. It is incredibly high profile and there are worries of protests from the younger generation that draws comparison to Nepal/Indonesia. I personally don't think it will matter in the long run.
Vietnam defended ASEAN Championship for soccer in the most bizarre manner where Thailand scored all 4 goals of the match, 2 goals and 2 own goals. I just wanted to linked this picture of Infantino reacting to the scoreline because the second own goal was scored in the last minute of extra time. Truly great stuff.
"The group stayed up late and when she went to bed, Tam found herself locked out of the room where she expected to sleep."
This part of the story is a bit odd.
coordination? conspiracy? who knows! "Forget it Jake, it's China-lite".
Well...put yourself in the shoes of a 24 year old, well-connected, presumably high-status Vietnamese-American woman on a banking internship. If you find yourself locked out of the room where you're expected to sleep, I imagine you'd be super annoyed. Wouldn't you complain? Make a scene, shout? Bang on the door? Call someone? Or at least enter another room where you at least know some of the people sleeping there?
I've once booked a house at a resort with classmates (4 guys 4 girls) before and just found random rooms and couches to sleep on when others took "my spot" for the night. She also decided to go to a resort with these people so there must have be some level of trust there. They stayed up late and one could easily think "oh they must have absentmindedly locked it, let's not disturb people sleeping/hooking up/etc., there are other places to sleep anyway".
Is it normal to lock the room in these circumstances though? If this was the case here I'm sure they locked the house, but the bedroom as well? I'm not well-versed in Vietnamese customs so I don't know. Either way, something's fishy about this story. I presume they made some verbal arrangements beforehand and she was planning to share a bedroom with other women. Is it normal for women to lock one of their own out of a bedroom for the night when there's some level of mutual trust there?
Unfortunately not enough details to infer, I can see different reasons why the door was locked from the nefarious/conspiratorial to the innocent/accidental. For whatever reason, the Vietnamese-American woman didn't raise a fuss at the time and just found a different spot to sleep. She also isn't suing for any kind of conspiracy but just the rapist. Personally, I'm inclined to believe if she's willing to bring justice to the rapist but not anyone else (though she still could) then the chances of a conspiracy goes down. But who knows.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link