Pagodas show the spiritual side of Saigon

Vietnam is a Communist country, but its constitution guarantees freedom of religion.

Leo celebrates first ‘monthsary’ on WordPress

Today I’m celebrating my first month of blogging on WordPress.
I’m happy because I’ve kept a promise to myself – to publish at least one post a day.
In May I had three posts and this month, 32, excluding this one.
But I’m also a little bit sad.
I will be very busy with graduate school work next month.
In [...]

Three journalists, three countries, one profession

I realized one thing when I attended the 6th Asia Media Summit in Macau last month: media systems in several parts of the world are so different from one another, yet they are also so the same, in some ways.
They’ve faced problems in the past, but they look forward to seeing a much better practice of [...]

Italian PM Berlusconi statement reminds me of sex class in graduate school

“I never understood where the satisfaction is when you’re missing the pleasure of conquest.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued this statement in an interview with Italian magazine “Chi,” which was quoted by the BBC in a report about Italy’s leader.
Sex class
Berlusconi’s statement reminded me of the Anthropology 287 class (Seminar in Sex and Culture) that [...]

Lessons learned from Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson

I had been reading several online articles about the death of Farrah Fawcett when I came across a story about the demise of yet another prominent person – Michael Jackson.
Like the rest of the world, I was really stunned by these events.
But more than that, Fawcett and Jackson also reminded me of how short life [...]

Some travel courtesies to remember

1. Be honest. Don’t cheat or deceive anyone.
2. Respect everyone. People are not commodities.
3. Don’t litter.
4. Don’t violate religious customs.
5. Always wear appropriate clothing.
6. Be a gracious guest. Don’t allow your host to lose face.
7. Avoid ethnocentrism. Don’t assume that your way of doing things is better than theirs.
8. Don’t use foul language. Don’t be [...]

Travel does not always mean you need to go to far places

When the word “travel” is mentioned, most likely the first things that come to mind are far places, airplanes, high costs and many others.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking about those things, of course, as far as travel is concerned.
But it doesn’t always have to be that way.
Travel doesn’t have to be about faraway places all [...]

The ‘world’ is in Macau

Macau, a Special Administrative Region in China just like Hong Kong, has a land area of less than 30 square kilometers.
Yet, you can embark on a “world tour” when you’re in Macau. All it takes is some imagination:

Taxi receipt in the Philippines… first time!

My sister gave me a taxi receipt yesterday, and today I’m writing a post about it.
Too much fuss over a mere taxi receipt? Not really.
On June first, the Philippine government directed taxi drivers to issue receipts to passengers. Yes. Only on June first this year. (Read more about it on the Philippine Star)
It’s my first time to [...]

What a sad Father’s Day story

A Philippine Daily Inquirer headline says:
“Boy accidentally shoots dead dad”
It happened on Father’s Day.