Word: nong
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...earth. To a cynic like myself, they looked indisputably man-made. But to the believers?gathered in the tens of thousands along the riverbank?this was the breath of the Naga, the mythical serpent of Buddhist lore that many Thais believe haunts the broad reaches of the Mekong in Nong Khai province...
...Nong Khai's Naga has become the Mekong's Loch Ness monster. In this sleepy province in the heart of the Isaan region 620 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, where men are men and bugs are food, just about everyone is happy to regale you with tales of monster sightings or giant, snaking tracks left in the riverbank's mud. Some locals brandish grainy pictures of what could be anything from a log to a boat, and swear it is evidence of the outsize serpent. And then there's that postcard: ubiquitous and eye-catching, of a band of U.S. service...
Political mysteries don't get much juicier than the one surrounding Nong Duc Manh, Vietnam's 61-year-old leader: Is the new Communist Party Secretary-General the love child of the country's founding father, Ho Chi Minh? That's been a long standing rumor, and Manh managed to duck the question through his 15-year rise through the ranks to the country's most powerful position. "We are all Uncle Ho's children," was Manh's clever, standard answer...
...Manh represents a new generation of leadership for Vietnam: his career was forged not in the jungles of war but in communist training schools. His parents, Manh says, were named Nong Van Lai and Hoang Thi Nhi, ethnic Tay farmers in the remote northern province of Bac Can, who both died when he was young. The orphaned Manh soon found a new family in the Communist Party, which he joined at 22. The war between the north and the U.S.-backed south was in full swing, but Manh was sent to school rather than to battle, studying Russian in Hanoi...
Lovett's music blared thorugh the speakers during the next set of songs, a toe-tapping and high-stepping piece called "Nine Lives." Much well-deserved applause was given to costume director Nong Tumsutipong, who clad the men deliciously in tight jeans and sweat-stained silk shirts, and the women in colorful and daring leotards pieced together in geometric shapes. The latter fashion statement looked somewhat odd and misplaced next to the hip-swaggering cowboys, but it was dazzling nonetheless...