Ho Chi Minh City

Coordinates: 10°46′36.8″N 106°42′02.9″E / 10.776889°N 106.700806°E / 10.776889; 106.700806

Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh; IPA: [tʰan fə ho̞˧˩ t͡ɕɪj˧ mɪ̈n˧]), formerly named and still also referred to as Saigon (Vietnamese: Sài Gòn; IPA: [sâj ɣɔ̂ŋ], French: Saïgon), is the largest city in Vietnam. It was once known as Prey Nokor, an important Khmer seaport prior to annexation by the Vietnamese in the 17th century. Under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of Cochinchina and later of the independent republic of South Vietnam 1955–75. On 2 July 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding Gia Định Province and was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh (although the name Sài Gòn is still unofficially widely used).

The metropolitan area, which consists of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area, Thủ Dầu Một, Biên Hòa, Vũng Tàu and surrounding towns, is populated by more than 9 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in Vietnam. The city's population is expected to grow to 13.9 million in 2025.

Saigon (1948 film)

Saigon is a 1948 film starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in their fourth and final film together. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures and was one of the last films Veronica Lake made under her contract with the studio. Ladd and Lake made four films together; This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key, both in 1942, The Blue Dahlia in 1946 and Saigon. While the earlier films all proved to be big box office successes, Saigon did not do as well financially. Ladd continued to remain one of Paramount's top male stars, while Lake's career was in decline. By the end of 1948 her contract with Paramount had expired and the studio chose not to renew it.

For Ladd, Saigon was one of a series of globe-trotting adventure tales he made, starting with Two Years Before the Mast (1946) and Calcutta (1947).

Plot

World War II has ended and Major Larry Briggs (Alan Ladd) finds out that his friend Captain Mike Perry (Douglas Dick) has only two months to live due to a head injury. Larry and Sergeant Pete Rocco (Wally Cassell) are determined to show Mike a good time before he dies. For a $10,000 fee, Larry takes a flying job working for Alex Maris (Morris Carnovsky) a profiteer. Everything is set until Maris' secretary Susan Cleaver (Veronica Lake) shows up to board the aircraft. Mike falls for Susan and Larry convinces her to play along but she has fallen in love with Larry.

Saigon (Killmaster novel)

Saigon is the sixth novel in the long-running Nick Carter-Killmaster series of spy novels. Carter is a US secret agent, code-named N-3, with the rank of Killmaster. He works for AXE – a secret arm of the US intelligence services.

Publishing history

The book was first published in December 1964 (Number A122F) by Award Books part of the Beacon-Signal division of Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation (New York, USA), part of the Conde Nast Publications Inc. The novel was written by Michael Avallone and Valerie Moolman. Copyright was registered in the US.

Tagline

"Little Paris" where love-talk is wire-tapped and each caress can lead to sudden mayhem.

Plot summary

The story is set in August–September 1964. Claire La Farge, widow of a French intelligence officer, lives in a large rice and tea plantation in North Vietnam. One night she receives a coded message in the form of a knotted belt (quipu) from a former associate of her husband. She sends her trusted servant, Saito, to Saigon to place an advert in the personal column of the Times of Vietnam hoping to contact former colleagues of her husband who can decode the message. Raoul Dupre, a former French intelligence officer and businessman in Saigon, reads the ad and makes contact. Agent Nick Carter, in Saigon posing as a WHO medical observer, answers the ad on a hunch and learns of Dupre's involvement. Dupre's daughter, Antoinette (Toni), has become a heroin addict under the influence of Lin Tong – a Chinese communist spy interested in finding out the truth about her father.

Spit

Spit may refer to:

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S.P.I.T.: Squeegee Punks in Traffic

S.P.I.T.: Squeegee Punks in Traffic is a Canadian 2001 documentary film by Daniel Cross. The narrative unfolds from the point of view of squeegee kids.

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Rotisserie

Rotisserie is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit – a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or roasted in an oven. This method is generally used for cooking large joints of meat or entire animals, such as pigs or turkeys. The rotation cooks the meat evenly in its own juices and allows easy access for continuous self-basting.

In medieval and early modern kitchens, the spit was the preferred way of cooking meat in a large household. A servant, preferably a boy, sat near the spit turning the metal rod slowly and cooking the food; he was known as the "spit boy" or "spit jack". Mechanical turnspits ("roasting jacks") were later invented, first powered by dogs on treadmills, and then by steam power and mechanical clockwork mechanisms. The spit could also be powered by a turbine mounted in the chimney with a worm transmission for torque and speed conversion. Spits are now usually driven by electric motors.