POST 712 7June2025 Exercise SPLEEN, revision form KHAI MON, various items and pictures

 

WELCOME TO POST 712

POST 712 7June2025 

Exercise SPLEEN, 

revision form KHAI MON, 

various items and pictures

      EXERCISE FOR THIS WEEK

 

		POST  712  2025                                    Linda’s Thursday Quotation
		Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future. William Wordsworth   ==============    Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Marie Curie

 

 

THE LAKE OF THE RESTORED SWORD

	Extract from VISION and ACTION  / The Sacred Seal Story By Charles Phan Hoang (Amazon Publishing, ISBN   9798338428948)
	POST 712 (continued)  THE LAKE OF THE RESTORED SWORD
	POST 712 9 - THE LAKE OF THE RESTORED SWORD It was three forty-five in the afternoon and Clara had just sat down at a table of a coffee shop facing the Hoan-Kiem Lake, a wonderful site in the heart of Hanoi. She had not yet ordered anything when Le Thu Lan arrived. Clara was pleasantly surprised at the punctuality of her new friend. Clara had only arrived in Hanoi three days previously and she had already made good progress in her research at the National Library. That was thanks to the effective and professional cooperation of Thu-Lan who was a university professor of history. It was an unexpected opportunity for Clara to be able to meet Thu-Lan so quickly. They were both martial art experts and the two young women immediately became friends. They ordered coffee, a typical Vietnamese drip coffee served with condensed milk. The street was busy and after a few exchanges in English, interspersed with sentences in Vietnamese, a silence settled between the girls. Clara was thinking about her arrival in Vietnam. At the airport, a custom officer opened her American passport with an arrogant attitude, flipping each page attentively. She thought that perhaps, he believed she was a Vietnamese from the United States and he was looking for a twenty-dollar bill hidden in between the pages. She had learned from her Vietnamese friends that, in the past, some Vietnamese Americans followed this practice to avoid hassles with immigration. When the custom officer saw the Japanese name Ikube written on the passport, he asked courteously a few routine questions in Japanese, and with the natural responses of Clara, he realized she was indeed a Japanese American. Clara was still puzzled by the incident. After a minute or two, it was Thu-Lan who broke the silence by asking: "I'm surprised by your knowledge of the Vietnamese language. You're a Japanese-American, how did you learn to speak Vietnamese?" Clara said: "My father was a captain in the Navy. He was assigned to a U.S. base near Yokohama. My Japanese mother was a professor of English. They hired a Vietnamese lady, a refugee in Japan, to look after me and so I was introduced to the Vietnamese language." Thu-Lan: "I understand. However, this was a long time ago and you have a good vocabulary!" Clara: "Yes, that’s true. I’ve learned Vietnamese in a more academic way while I was in the army. I had been selected to learn Vietnamese and other Asian languages for my missions in this region of the world. After leaving the army, I went to live in California, in Orange County where there is a large Vietnamese community, so I continued to speak the language." Thu-Lan: "How is life in California?" While Clara was talking about her life to Thu-Lan, a man sitting at the table behind them paid particular attention to their conversation, especially when he heard the word “California”. As Clara and Thu-Lan paid for their coffee on their way out, the man sent a text message from his cellphone and followed them discreetly. Thu-Lan: "It's still daylight, we have time to visit the Ngoc-Son Temple. Do you know the history of the Hoan-Kiem Lake?" Clara: "Yes, but please tell me again in detail from your historical perspective."  (to be continued)

 

  REVISION: The form KHAI MON in six cards

       

64	www.clubmasterhoang.blogspot.com      POST 712       2025                                SHARING ONLINE
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END  POST 712   07June2025