UTILITY KNIFE

Sài Gòn, Vietnam, 2017 - Leica M7, Summilux 35, Kodak Tri-X * Under a grudging sun a young worker was cutting plastic nameplates from pre-cut boards. With the Vietnam War, Vietnam traded three millions of lives for independence and equality. More than four decades later, blatant inequality and endemic corruption proliferate. The country has ended up with the biggest lie of all, i.e. the worst of two opposing systems: the authoritarian ideology of communism and the unfettered ideology of neoliberalism. Finally capitalism crept up on communism in a country that engaged in double dealing with kind of deceptive red capitalism in the manner of China, the neighboring newly superpower.