“Authoritarianism gets results!” screams government spokesman at SEA Games

Manila, The Philippines – “Yes! Fuck yes! Việt Nam vô địch!” whooped an ecstatic Nguyen Bữa Tiệc after watching the Vietnamese football team comprehensively knock Cambodia out of the running for a gold medal in what he later claimed was “the only sport he could give a flying fuck about.”

An evidently drunken Nguyen had taken to his official Facebook page last Saturday, where he appeared to be commiserating the Cambodian team and praising Vietnam’s one-party state, before an aide could wrestle the phone from his hand.

The post read “Soz Hun Sen, guess the better despot won! #Vietnam4-Democracy0 #thrashedem #CambodiaStillHasElectionsLOL #GetWithTheTimes” but was later deleted. Sources close to Nguyen suggested a more powerful Nguyen had ordered it stricken from the internet.

One aide who wished to remain anonymous for fear of his family’s life later explained that Nguyen had ceased to see this as a sporting contest, but was instead intent on rendering the glory of the Communist Party into the athletic prowess of the young Vietnamese heroes on the pitch.

“Seriously, he’s gone off at the deep-end – I mean football is a decadent Western distraction and we’ve not even won yet, but it will be pretty embarrassing if we’re beaten by a team that can go home to legit elections though,” whispered the aide.

“Up yours Indonesia – what are you gonna do if we win? Elect a new winner?” taunted Nguyen, who for the fifth time in this year’s Southeast Asia Games assured his aides that Vietnam’s success depended wholly on a ruthless authoritarian model of government.

Contending that the sporting prowess of Vietnam’s football team was guaranteed through nothing less than total dedication to totalitarianism, Nguyen went on to assert that the players of democratic countries were too busy worrying about who to vote for to give 100 percent to the beautiful game.

“If they put as much effort into training as they did quibbling over human rights, then maybe they’d stand a chance before the wrath of the Golden Dragons,” laughed Nguyen, who at 34 years of age, was apparently unsure quite how democrats think or exactly what human rights were.

Despite analysts pointing out that Southeast Asian democracies were, for the most part, a perversion of the principles they stood for, Nguyen remained adamant that the failure of other nations to fully embrace the iron-fisted model of corrupt governance that Vietnam endures was the reason for their failure at this year’s SEA Games.

After pointing out that the Philippines had – at press time – won 320 medals along with enjoying a semi-functional democracy, while arguably-democratic Indonesia had bagged 245 medals, compared to Vietnam’s 239, The Durian’s embedded reporter was quickly silenced.

Sources familiar with the matter saw our reporter being hog-tied and shipped back to Hanoi for re-education at one of the top secret gulags they house bloggers, porn enthusiasts and other enemies of the state.

Expat holding on to back of motorbike apparently thinks he has something to live for

Tây Hồ, Hanoi – In a what can only be described as a startling display of hubris, expat Gary Leicester was today seen holding onto the back of his friend’s motorbike as though his life had some form of intrinsic value.

Onlookers noted Leicester’s white-knuckled grip on the rear-mounted Oh Shit handle and reportedly felt a collective surge of pity and scorn swell up inside them.

“It was, for a fleeting moment, kind of adorable the way he [Leicester] was clinging on as though death won’t come for us all at our most frail and enfeebled, but then it became apparent that he was simply following the programming enciphered within his DNA that insists against all reason that his life must have some meaning or purpose,” reflected bystander and biped, Clara McGovern, adding that Leicester’s futile act of despair may save his life in a minor traffic incident, but may well inflict upon him all of the unknown sufferings that lurk in the murky uncertainty of the future.

Leicester, 31, who sources later confirmed is yet to comprehend the true emptiness of his own existence in a godless world of arbitrary brutality, has been teaching English part-time in a language centre, where he mistakenly believes his educational “methods” are of merit to students.

“Whether it’s driving in Hanoi or anywhere else atop this ball of rock hurtling through the vast, unknowable void of space, it’s important to recognise that the reaper’s scythe could swoop low and claim any one of us at any time,” spouted fellow motorist Elijah Johnson.

“That’s why I only drive drunk in Hanoi, to cope with the stress of it all – well that and the fact that as a white man in Vietnam, my actions have no consequence regardless,” added Johnson, before careening off into the swirling mechanical hornets’ nest of Hanoi’s road network.

Noting Leicester’s apparent optimism for the future in spite of the myriad evidence mounting up to suggest such an outlook would be foolhardy at best, housemate and equally doomed lost ESL soul Richard Mangrove was taken aback to hear of Leicester’s concern for his own wellbeing, given the state of his life.

“Not being funny, but does he know what sort of job prospects await after two years in the purgatory of English teaching? I mean, if you think a life of grovelling at the altar of a crushing capitalist system is one worth living, then by all means hold on to that bike tight, but for me I’d rather embrace the void and welcome death’s embrace as a sparing from the hideousness abound,” sighed Mangrove as he poured himself another glass of bia hoi.

At press time Leicester was spotted at a local restaurant deliberating over whether to order phở bò tái lăn or phở bò tái chin, seemingly uncaring that his digestive system would pulverise each into shit just as willingly and that – ultimately – it would have no bearings upon his manifest destiny to rot back into the earth’s soil and follow the way of all flesh.