Saigon.

Morning. Heat hung moist and heavy, blurring lines. Clothes clung to bodies, and movements seemed to glide. I floated among these narrow alleys, breathing lightly to avoid Nhieu Loc Canal's rotten stink, afraid to disturb the seemingly secret lives underneath these make-shift roofs. A pair of eyes twinkled in the blue haze of the morning, curiously peering from within the gentle darkness that enfolded the neighborhood. I pressed on, my conspicuously ankle boots crunching the …

…still cherish the beloved city, the mornings. And we hope, more than anything, for more opportunities! And, we dream, more than anything, for a better future! Saigon in its stern brown decrepitude, its seemingly bottomless decline, still had a capacity to produce mornings like that very July day. Mornings embraced everywhere by an affirmation of a new life so resolute it is breathtaking. Mornings like a perpetual phoenix which surfaces, unscarred, and ready for more...