# The cheeky nation

URL: https://avavu.au/newsletter/2026-01
Date: 2026-01-01

*Edition Six: Vietnam and the New Year*

# 新年快乐 Web Surfer!!

I've returned from a three week trip to Vietnam, with a new lease on life and a fresh understanding of just how bad an international holiday can go. [This month's article is a reflection on my journey in the form of a How-To guide.](https://avavu.au/essays/what-to-do-if-you-get-a-visa-that-s-only-valid-for-fifteen-minutes-how-to-guide)

## What to do if you get a visa that's only valid for fifteen minutes (How-To Guide)

To peek behind the curtain, the article is written as a way too specific guide about what to do if you find yourself in this exact situation: entering the country with a visa that's only valid for one day at 11:45pm. It's the story of me and my 15 minute visa.

The guide itself is a joke, and to maintain plausible deniability that I was writing a generic how-to guide and not a travel blog, I had to write the first half in second person past tense, and the second half in second person future tense.

> She would have given you a look that you might have at the time read as sympathy—especially if she was the same immigration official that first sent you away to get a stamp. Eventually, she stamped your passport and waved you through. You would have foolishly breathed a sigh of relief.
>
> In hindsight you will come to recognise this look was something else—a look often seen on the individual faces of a bureaucracy: “Well, it’s not my problem.”

I didn't want to include any pictures of myself, to keep up the illusion. But just for my loyal newsletter readers, here's a picture of me on the first day at my absolute lowest point.

![](https://avavu.au/images/newsletter/2026-01/sad.webp)

And here's a picture on the first day when I had my flight booked and I was feeling optimistic.

![](https://avavu.au/images/newsletter/2026-01/happy.webp)

It's quite fun writing something where you yourself are the butt of the joke. My actions during this trip made me look truly like an idiot. Below is a full list of the steps that you must follow exactly to resolve a similar visa issue.

- Step One: Realise you've made a mistake
- Step Two: Try not to panic
- Step Three: Contact your Vietnamese uncle
- Step Four: Question your transgender identity
- Step Five: Make friends
- Step Six: Leave the country
- Step Seven: Enjoy Bangkok
- Step Eight: Collapse to the floor of the Butterfly Garden
- Step Nine: Enjoy the rest of your holiday

Regardless Vietnam is an amazing country, and I had an amazing time. If my surname didn't give it away, I am half Vietnamese. This was my first time returning to the motherland in my adult life. I loved every city we visited. Before we left and me and my buddies were planning the trip, they asked if I spoke any Vietnamese. I went to Vietnamese school when I was younger for four years, but I didn't learn much and I've retained even less. There's an episode of _BoJack Horseman_ where monolingual Vietnamese-American Diane Nguyen travels to Vietnam expecting some kind of homecoming or connection but instead feels lost and isolated. With that episode in mind, I told my friends to treat me as if I wasn't Vietnamese for the purpose of the trip. I was just going to be like any other Aussie tourist.

In the end, I did feel a connection. I was still lost language-wise, but to the spirit of Vietnam I felt very connected. My grandparents were on the losing side of the war, and without realising it I was holding on to some residual generational distrust of modern Vietnam. But visiting, I found a happy, proud, and beautiful nation.

The other thing I found was an extreme amount of cheekiness. This is how I felt connected the most. I am a very cheeky person. My brothers are all very cheeky. My father is cheeky. We are just a cheeky people.

![](https://avavu.au/images/newsletter/2026-01/really-happy.webp)

***

## Some More Things

### [Karen Hao – Empire of AI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_AI)

My book throughout the Vietnam/Thailand trip was Karen Hao's critical history of OpenAI. It's a great read, but when I was in the hostel in Bangkok I became afraid people would misunderstand the 'empire' in the title and assume I was a digital nomad tech-bro. Hao means 'empire' in the critical decolonial sense, and not the generic sense of 'powerful'.

## Music

### [caroline – caroline 2](https://caroline.bandcamp.com/album/caroline-2)

I listened to this album for the first time in a bus from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. My friend and I did a song swap of our downloaded tracks, and I listened to caroline 2 and she listened to Jane Remover's Frailty. They're two albums that share elements of alternative rock and noise. She loved it, and I loved caroline 2. She had also accidentally taken a powerful anti-anxiety drug which may have influenced her opinion.

### [EsDeeKid and fakemink – LV Sandals](https://open.spotify.com/track/5uz5v1hRZLjNGatcPtOWUv)

TikTok lets you download up to two hours of videos for offline watching which I did for the flight. EsDeeKid's music featured heavily. This song is especially good, mainly because of fakemink's chorus. I love that line, "Drop the pack off to her man, then I go and hold hands with her." Aww, that's really sweet.