Young Saigon : Open to the World single work   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Young Saigon : Open to the World
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'In the building opposite mine here in Ho Chi Minh City, still commonly called Saigon, an old man in the top-floor apartment tends his rooftop garden. He climbs there via a ladder every morning, shirtless and holding a plastic watering can, and spends a half hour amid green potted plants. I watch him shamelessly, a 31-year-old Australian Jimmy Stewart in a Vietnamese Rear Window. How old would he be? Old enough to have been in the war. He moves slowly, and pays no attention to me or anything else beyond his tended patch of green - in fact, he appears to be encouraging a wall of creepers to all but block out his view of the street.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Griffith Review Millennials Strike Back no. 56 May 2017 11329631 2017 periodical issue

    'Millennials are making their mark on a world that is profoundly different to the one their parents knew.

    'Millennials, those born in the final decades of the twentieth century, have had bad press for a long time. Now they are fighting back as they come of age in a world radically changed from that experienced by previous generations.

    'Even the oldest were still in primary school when the Soviet Union collapsed, when deregulation swept the West and much of the postwar consensus was jettisoned, when the Kyoto Protocol was signed and when the internet became a reality and the world shrank. They were in their teens when the World Trade Center collapsed, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced a new world order; when climate-change sceptics and shock jocks poisoned public debate; when the first dot-com boom crashed, China experimented with capitalism and revived consumerism, the global financial crisis pushed capitalism to the brink, and Facebook was born.

    'The challenges this generation now face are great – political uncertainty, climate change, globalisation and economic stagnation have changed the rules of the game.

    'This is the best educated, most connected generation ever, but the world they live in does not offer easy pathways – inequality is rife and traditional doors are closed. Some millennials are detached and disillusioned, but others are coming up with innovative ideas, experimenting with new ways to live and work. Their vision and energy will shape the future.

    'This special edition of Griffith Review is devoted to the challenges and opportunities this generation is facing and embracing. It is co-edited by Julianne Schultz and Jerath Head.' (Website abstract)

    2017
    pg. 174-182
Last amended 27 Aug 2020 14:41:41
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  • Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon),
    c
    Vietnam,
    c
    Southeast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
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