“I was lucky to find an apartment to rent in the heart of the city just blocks from the central market and the palace of President Ngo Dinh Diem. The apartment was on the second floor above an automobile repair shop fronting a major one-way street leading from the airport. My walk-up apartment, No. 5 at 101 Cong Ly Street, was austere. The floors were of concrete. The bamboo sofa and chairs were covered in crumpled cotton slipcovers.”

I also lived with and taught English to Japanese students, hired interpreters to talk with South Koreans about the 1961 military coup d’état that I witnessed outside of Seoul, interviewed prostitutes in Hong Kong and Macau, visited opium dens in Singapore, and traveled by tramp steamer to talk to descendants of headhunters in British-held Borneo.

I lived with and taught English to Japanese students, hired interpreters to talk with South Koreans about the 1961 military coup d’etat that I witnessed outside of Seoul, interviewed prostitutes in Hong Kong and Macau, visited opium dens in Singapore, and traveled by tramp steamer to talk to descendants of headhunters in British-held Borneo.