The international papers are really digging this Thuy Linh scandal: Her fall from grace has highlighted the generational fault-lines in Vietnam, a sexually conservative culture within which women have been taught for centuries to remain chaste until marriage and stay true to one man — no matter how many times he cheats on them.

... new ideas about free love are much harder to accept than the free market. And unlike men, women who break the old sexual taboos are not easily forgiven.

In the old days, Khanh said, a woman who had sex before marriage would be ostracized — and rightfully so.

"A good girl must keep herself clean until she is married," Khanh said. "Thuy Linh should be condemned. If I ever see her again on TV, I will turn it off, for sure."

Life, eventually, will move on.