This captivating ethnography explores Vietnam’s sex industry as the country ascends the global and regional stage. Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to diverse clientele: wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen, Viet Kieus (ethnic Vietnamese living abroad), Western businessmen, and Western budget-tourists. Dealing in Desire takes an in-depth and often personal look at both the sex workers and their clients to show how Vietnamese high finance and benevolent giving are connected to the intimate spheres of the informal economy. For the domestic super-elite who use the levers of political power to channel foreign capital into real estate and manufacturing projects, conspicuous consumption is a means of projecting an image of Asian ascendancy to potential investors. For Viet Kieus and Westerners who bring remittances into the local economy, personal relationships with local sex workers reinforce their ideas of Asia’s rise and Western decline, while simultaneously bolstering their diminished masculinity. Dealing in Desire illuminates Ho Chi Minh City’s sex industry as not just a microcosm of the global economy, but a critical space where dreams and deals are traded.
We are all living in uncertain and unprecedented times. Come to a place of renewal, refreshment, and rest as you trade your feelings of anxiety and worry for joy and peace in this original collection of poems and Scripture meditations created to nourish your body, soul, and spirit. Take a break from the business of life to refocus your heart and mind on God through poetry and the word of God. You will come to a new and fresh understanding and insight into the real-life issues that we all face and that bind us together. Find perfect serenity, peace, and rest for your weary soul.
A behind-the-scenes look at how the rich and powerful use offshore shell corporations to conceal their wealth and make themselves richer In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Spiderweb Capitalism takes you inside this shadow economy, uncovering the mechanics behind the invisible, mundane networks of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, and fixers who facilitate the illicit movement of wealth across borders and around the globe. Kimberly Kay Hoang traveled more than 350,000 miles and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with private wealth managers, fund managers, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, auditors, and other financial professionals. She traces the flow of capital from offshore funds in places like the Cayman Islands, Samoa, and Panama to special-purpose vehicles and holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, and how it finds its way into risky markets onshore in Vietnam and Myanmar. Hoang reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones. Dazzlingly written, Spiderweb Capitalism sheds critical light on how global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets, and deepens our understanding of the paradoxical ways in which global economic growth is sustained through states where the line separating the legal from the corrupt is not always clear.
As a parent, raising your child is the most demanding job you will ever love. But parenting smart kids is tough! HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT?
Born in to Pharaoh Khufu's harem, Hasina is on the brink of womanhood and entering Egyptian society as a woman of privilege.Trained to read and write, she manages trade deals as caravans swarm to the black lands for foods and Egyptian ware. She is unaware how a nomadic people fleeing the barren lands of Canaan are about to remover her from all she has known. Used by her Father as a peace offering to stop a plague in her city, she has no choice but to become Sarai's new handmaid. From Pharaoh's daughter to a Desert Queen's servant. As she struggles to overcome her resentment at the One-God's nomadic people and leader Abram, she forms a close friendship with Sarai, feeling pity for the barren wife of the Patriarch. Until Sarai gives up hope of bearing the One-God's promised child to Abram, destined by God to be an Exalted Father and a great nation. Sarai, in her hidden pain and bitterness, looks upon Hasina, young and fertile, and hatches a plan with Abram to use Hasina in her stead to carry an heir to term. Hasina is powerless as a servant to refuse and is relegated to become Abram's concubine. She conceives quickly and is pleased to see her station rise among the people who begin to defer to her as if she were a wife. Sarai, however grows in envy and jealousy as Hasina rises above her station and undermines Saria at every turn. The storm erupts when Sarai demands Abram put Hasina back in her place. Abram, however, choses to stay out of the women's quarrels and gives Sarai permission to deal with Hasina as she sees fit. Abuse follows and Sarai removes Hasina from her servants station to a slave and changes her name to Hagar - a stranger in a strange land. Depressed and despondent, a lonely Hagar plots to run away back to her home in Egypt where she can raise her child among her own people. The One-God has other plans for Hagar however, and meets her at a spring on the trade route to Shur. What He says to her changes her life and her destiny. Will her child be a boy? Will he grow to lead Abram's great nation of people? Will she become the next Matriarch if she returns? She carries the One-God's promise in her heart as she makes her decision - return to her people or return to the abuse? She knows what she must choose if she wants greatness for her child.
Hope Ocean is a single mom of two young children who works as a teacher near Sacramento, CA. What can complicate a comfortable and predictable life more than rescuing and harboring an alien? Hope and everyone close to her are giving it their best in a chaotic race against being discovered and a struggle to keep everyone alive and well and out of the government's hands. Hope is one tough woman, from a wonderfully supportive network of friends and family, but can she handle all the personal danger and stress? Her closest friends and precious family are all along for the fast-paced adventure that is making Hope question and second-guess everything.
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