-^-for posterity-^-

going to the ben thanh market is always an interesting experience. i went there with some of the bluffton students and we had a riotous time.

we bought coffee (mostly weasel coffee because it's such an oddity), shirts, game boy games, conical hats and anything else to appease the void inside of us created by watching thousands of advertisments and spending hours mindlessly filing through malls.

at one point we were outside chatting. we were accosted by the normal array of vendors: lottery ticket sellers, cyclo drivers and men walking around with sandwich boards covered with odd things. there are rows of lighters of all shapes and sizes. there are sunglasses that one could find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of no where. there are pictures and postcards and other trinkets to take home and put in your attic.

two lighters caught my attention. one of them had the twin towers on one side and bin laden's face on the other. the vendor tried to push that onto us but we weren't biting. i thought it was quaint and would be a bit offensive. the worst was yet to come.

the last lighter he tried to sell us before we headed back inside was another lighter depicting nine eleven. it had the two trade towers on one side just as the other did but, to their right was a plane. when you opened the lighter the plane would flash red. that not being enough, the flame came right out of the top of one of the towers. that put us a bit over the edge. we explaned to the vendor that it was a bit sacrilegious and that we would probably be arrested if any of us ventured to buy it.