the Europeanization Movement of the Great Kingdom of Viet.

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"Everyone is so civilized nowadays! It's a damn shame! The streets used to be filled with depraved, uncouth men and women - people who'd spit and piss wherever they pleased, people who'd beat each other up in public. Remember the days when four people rode together on a single bicycle!? Remember when people used to curse each other in public and smack their neighbors around? Houses were filthy with toilet water; dogs ran wild in the streets. Bicycles without headlights were everywhere. Now everything has changed. Alas, the good old days of our parents are gone forever! No one even curses anyone's ancestors anymore! The old order has broken down completely! Kids today don't even know how to talk dirty!"

the ultimate summit of the international freak scene

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Charles and Guy sat looking across a chaotic vista of jeans and khaki shorts with splashes of jade and ivory and a tangle of shoulder-length hair. Signs hung on the walls warning of the dangers of getting caught with hashish. For Guy, this was a bizarre environment.

‘So, this is your trip - hippies.’

‘No, not really. I work mainly in the big hotels, but anywhere people have a lot of cash and no routine is good. Every day travellers deal with new faces, and so it’s natural for them to make friends with strangers. Once they decide you’re their friend, the guard drops. In this business you never turn down a chance to meet anyone. A contact is a resource; if not now, then later. And with the hippies it’s quick. It takes about ten minutes to take a wallet and a passport.’

‘But what’s inside a hippie’s wallet?’

‘You’d be surprised. A lot of these kids are carrying $1,000 in travellers’ cheques; the drug dealers, more. Don’t judge by appearances.’

‘But all these - they must be junkies. So many of them are so thin and sick looking.’ 

‘That’s what I used to think. Actually, most of them are just nice young students having their last fling before they settle down. Their resistance is lowered from smoking hashish. Then they get sick, and go down with dysentery. After a few months on the road diarrhoea is just about their only topic of conversation.’