Old Giap already looked like a xxxxxxxx.
Posted on 02/01/2018 1:02:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
Editor's note: This story contains graphic language.
A U.S. expatriate living in Vietnam has run afoul of its communist government and could face criminal charges for a joke posted online about a revered national hero.
Dan Hauer, who teaches English in Hanoi, is married to a local woman and speaks fluent Vietnamese, reportedly has a large following on social media for his popular language videos and observations about Vietnamese and Western culture.
However, a joke he posted about Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who led Vietnamese communist forces against the French and later Americans, has not gone over well. Giap died in 2013 at age 102 and was mourned in an elaborate state funeral.
The comment on Facebook reportedly came last week as a riposte to someone who had said he would get a Vietnamese flag tattoo if the country's under-23s soccer team won the Asian Cup.
According to the BBC, Hauer replied: "that was nothing - after a Vietnamese athlete recently won a gold medal, he said, he'd got a xxxxx piercing making his xxxxxxxxx resemble Gen Giap."
The comment drew swift condemnation and according to The Associated Press, many people began calling for his deportation.
The BBC reports: "The grandson of Gen Giap also publicly shared his anger about the post, initially in a strongly worded comment and which he later replaced with a more toned down one saying "millions of people who love him [Gen Giap] felt the anger caused by this foreigner's insult."
In a video clip posted on his Facebook page, Hauer said, "he did not think that the Vietnamese would take his jokes seriously," the AP writes.
"Dan just wants everybody to understand that Dan has no intention whatsoever to vilify Vietnam or vilify Vo Nguyen Giap," Hauer said in on the video in Vietnamese, according to AP. "Dan [learned] a lesson to be careful in using names and images of others in a joke, particularly famous Vietnamese historical figures."
Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communication said Tuesday that Hauer had apologized to Giap's family and the country as a whole. State media said he could be fined up to $2,200 but that a final decision on his fate would depend on his behavior, the news agency reports.
Hauer declined to comment publicly, but his wife, Le Thi Hau, was quoted as saying that she had received threats via telephone and text and that English learning centers had terminated contracts with her husband following the incident.
I think I understand the problem. He is probably a very good English teacher and is used to saying things among hí colleagues that won’t fly in a public venue. People here talk about most anything in sometimes highly irreverent ways but don’t write those things. Unlike in the normal actually communist state people do not fear that their neighbors will report them to the authorities for slight or even some major verbal síns.
To these western eyes Vietnamese women are exquisite but except for those in ads few qualify as what Americans call “hot.”
Old Giap already looked like a xxxxxxxx.
Because the women’s haters club here at FR say they’re hot, easy and don’t speak English...er, I mean, don’t nag.
Oh yes, that IS what they always claim. ;^)
In fact, I was corrected here by a bitter divorced freeper for using Thai women as an example of the Perfect Doll. He said I should use Vietnamese women. So I’m sticking with the expert opinion.
The thing is...those who post about how awful American woman are, are no "prizes" themselves! And I'm not talking about looks...I'm talking about personality and expectations.
Puts the "amp" back into "re-education camp". Sure hope they don't deport him, though. That'd mean he'd be coming back here.
What makes him an expert? Maybe he should move to Vietnam.
The Perfect Doll?
Yes, the Perfect Doll. I’m just passing on bitter, divorced freeper fantasies. Don’t blame the messenger.
My interpretation or understanding, is that Vietnam is a totalitarian country. Is that a fair statement? I understand they have made some free market reforms to their economic system. But I have been led to believe that concepts such as freedom of speech, or political satire or jokes against government officials, are not tolerated there.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
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