A. Cathy Nguyen
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anhthu.bsky.social
A. Cathy Nguyen
@anhthu.bsky.social
480 followers 230 following 780 posts
Kyoto ✦ games, tourism, memory ✦ en/de
https://kaydenuen.com/
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anhthu.bsky.social
the way i could write an essay about dogen's (youtuber who does japanese language and culture content) newest video. it has me all up in arms lol. ill have to sort out my thoughts in more detail but just a few comments here
screenshot of youtuber dogen and the thumbnail of his most recent video titled "On the Rise of Anti-Foreigner Sentiment in Japan"
November 6, 2025 at 9:40 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
i've very purposefully avoided vietnam war movies for most of my life. as to why - i think author viet thanh nguyen puts it well. source: www.hup.harvard.edu/features/vie...
screenshot of text from linked article, reads: And yet I yearned to hear the voices of ­Vietnamese ­people ­because, as an American, I understood how Americans saw and heard, or didn’t hear, ­ Vietnamese ­people, who ­were among the many ­others in the American imagination. I was an American, which meant that Amer­i­ca’s others ­were also mine, born from what the poet William Carlos Williams called the “orgy of blood” that is American history. But I also became aware of myself as an other through watching almost all of Hollywood’s Vietnam War movies, an exercise I recommend to no one, especially if you are Vietnamese. When Americans said Việt Nam, they really meant the Vietnam War, but ­whether they meant the country or the war, “Vietnam” for Americans was an American drama, an American civil war, a conflict in the American soul in which we ­were the extras. This was our country and this was our war, and yet our only place in American movies was to be killed, raped, threatened, or rescued. All we could do was scream, cry, beg, threaten, or curse, and if we could say anything at all, it was ­either “Me love you long time” or “thank you” for being rescued. Of course, we ­were never so rude as to mention, at least in English, that we ­wouldn’t have needed to be rescued by Americans if we ­hadn’t been invaded by them in the first place.
November 2, 2025 at 5:19 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
peace and quiet (for now)
November 2, 2025 at 3:58 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
princess monokoke is screening for two weeks as a digital 4k remaster across japan, including imax theatres. it's been going for a week now and my 3pm screening on a friday was nearly entirely booked out 🌸
princess mononoke imax poster my cinema seat
October 31, 2025 at 11:08 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
a good night to be delivering 📦
screenshot from death stranding 2, showing a full moon with the silhouette of protagonist sam
October 23, 2025 at 2:20 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
woooo! I will give my baby, aka Ludic Tourism, a final check tomorrow and then submit it to my grad school's office
Screenshot of pdf file icon on my desktop, all you see is "Nguyen_Lu... Tourism.pdf" but the full title is "Nguyen_Ludic Tourism"
October 17, 2025 at 9:44 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
a few months ago I pulled a half curse (半凶) omikuji which basically said there will be hard times ahead in terms of studies but I would prevail as long as I worked hard

a few days ago I got great luck (大吉) at shrine nearby which said i can move forward without worries 🌟 I've kept both
October 15, 2025 at 2:58 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
someone on tiktok just summarised my entire thesis chapter on cyberpunk 2077
a tiktok comment that reads: just started cyberpunk and it feels so foreign yet so familiar
October 14, 2025 at 2:51 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
my last few weeks of phd thesis in one picture
collage of various screenshots: top left my most recently played spotify playlist, final fantasy coffee ambience and the "This is Charli xcx" playlist, top right my writing statistics from oct 6 to oct 12, bottom my last two played games on steam which are also my most frequently played one: balatro with 54 hrs in total and ithya magic studies (i use it as a glorified pomodoro counter) at 376 hrs on record. 129hrs in the past 2 weeks!
October 12, 2025 at 4:55 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
alice in borderland has me giggling sometimes because it reminds me so much of probably one of my favourite japanese tv shows ever, Liar Game (2007). i'd really recommend it, season 2 as well
October 6, 2025 at 4:24 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
the only game ive been playing lately (other than love & deepspace of course) is balatro and i finally won with the black deck after being stuck on it for like a week omg. the times i've cursed at these deck's runs lol
screenshot of winning screen for black deck in balatro, on white stake difficulty
October 1, 2025 at 3:35 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
exhausting but also rejuvenating five days in tokyo, including tokyo game show, lots of chiikawa, food, and the vibes that are my favourite city🌸
holding a plushie named usagi from the chiikawa series in front of the love and deepspace booth at TGS, this one specifically features the love interest sylus from the game aka my 2d husband a photo of me meeting chiikawa from the chiikawa series, I'm bending down a bit to touch both of chiikawa's adorable paws? hands? me at the battlefield 6 booth at tokyo game show izakaya food including dashimakitamago, croquettes, sashimi, beer and umeshu
September 27, 2025 at 9:02 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
all i have to say for now is
the butterfly meme, with text on character saying "me", text on butterfly saying "anime tourist" and the bottom saying: "Is this an alt right pipeline?"
September 22, 2025 at 11:31 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
one of zombies in question:

(more than anything I was deeply impressed by the amount of detail)
blurry photo that captures a big chonk zombie mid-charge towards me. costume has a body gushing out of the zombie belly, the distorted face has a long tongue sticking out with blood all over the place. there's a clown costume somewhere too but it's impressively buried underneath painted grime and blood
September 18, 2025 at 6:03 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
printed photos of my besties at lawson today
photo copies of NANA illustrations, printed at a Lawson printing machine. they often have dedicated photos and illustrations available for photo print, so you pay with coins after selecting what you want. this way they are pretty high quality 🩷
September 17, 2025 at 2:49 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
no fucking way this is the headline and teaser you're running with @nytimes.com
Text is from the New York Times and reads: Headline: Kirk Shooting Suspect Held ‘Leftist Ideology,’ Utah Governor Says Teaser: Gov. Spencer Cox said the suspect had been “radicalized,” and noted he had a romantic partner who is transitioning from male to female who is cooperating fully with investigators.
September 14, 2025 at 3:43 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
is it though??
screenshot from the guardian that says "The casing messages, like Robinson’s political ideology, are difficult to parse. The NYT has reported that Robinson registered to vote in Utah, but is not affiliated with a political party and had never voted in an election, according to the Washington County Clerk."
September 13, 2025 at 1:08 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
it's, by the way, the key combo for the Eagle 500kg Bomb stratagem
screenshot from the Helldivers 2 wiki, showing the key combination in question that let's players in Helldivers 2 call down a bomb called the Eagle 500kg Bomb
September 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
... only for it to climb back up lol
weather forecast for Kyoto, dropping to 30°C for two days before slowly going back up to 35 again within six days
September 10, 2025 at 6:32 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
blood moon - do recommend seeing it for yourself tonight 🙂‍↕️

pretty impressive what a phone from 2021 can still do
photo of blood moon - camera phone google pixel 6 pro photo of blood moon - camera phone google pixel 6 pro
September 7, 2025 at 5:48 PM
anhthu.bsky.social
just saw this on tiktok plus the visualiser and I was immediately sent back to the past
screenshot of MMD3 player software
August 31, 2025 at 8:27 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
i was struggling very hard with the last chapter and although i did get to my projected word count everything felt really wrong. instead of forcing an immediate rewrite though i closed the thing and now i printed it out instead, following the mantra of "make it better later"
an image of two circles, one imperfect one with text that says "just make it exist first" and then "you can make it good later" for the perfect one
August 27, 2025 at 7:49 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
it's weird to hold the first draft in my hands
printout of my thesis, titled: Ludic Tourism - Video Games, Travel, and the Mediation of Place. First Draft!
August 27, 2025 at 7:23 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
this door had me seriously fooled, I walked past it 6 times and didn't realise it was fake + door knob in the middle until after I came back to this floor at the end lol
a fake door with door knob in the middle (as opposed to on the left or right)
August 22, 2025 at 9:06 AM
anhthu.bsky.social
takashimaya in kyoto currently has a special promotion for the upcoming theatrical release of Exit 8 - a paper chase for anomalies throughout the building 🏃🏻‍♀️
the basement entrance to takashimaya, a shopping mall in kyoto. what looks like a sign for exit 8 is in fact promotional material. the 8 is upside down security camera poster with shifted eyes a seashell for 8,888,888 yen sign above the escalator that indicates exit 8 with blood splashes
August 22, 2025 at 9:05 AM