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Herding Cats (Dân chăn mèo in Vietnamese) is a true-crime memoir by Vietnamese author To Giang (translation by Hai Luong) in early October 2022. Originally published as Đường Xanh Viễn Xứ (The Green Faraway Road) by Nha Nam Publishers in August 2021, Herding Cats is the first English-language translation of Giang’s story of his involvement in and eventual conviction for cultivating cannabis for Melbourne’s Vietnamese organised-crime syndicates.

Conveyed in a vivid yet candid voice, Herding Cats reveals the inner workings of the cannabis trade and Giang’s personal struggle of holding onto a dream as his world slips out of control. Those herding cats live in ordinary houses that contain a secret cannabis farm. They devise various scripts for the crop-sitters to hoodwink the neighbours, police monitors, and public officials (known as cats). These people are called cats because cats are snoopy. Cannabis growers must overcome these cats. Deflecting the cats’ curiosity is one of the most important determinants of successful cat herding. Put another way, dân chăn mèo are mice, but mice that herd cats! Although the authorities have measures to combat the secret growing of cannabis indoors, these are often ineffective. Diamond cuts diamond! As an intelligent man, chăn mèo or a ‘cat herder’ devises unique and bizarre mazes that act like lassos around the necks of the cats.

As criminologist Andrew Goldsmith, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Criminology, Flinders University commented that ''“The author provides a rare and compelling first hand account of his time as a crop sitter for marijuana cultivations in domestic homes across Melbourne and its environs…Along the journey he offers some sobering observations on the limitations of law enforcement and border control authorities in their efforts to reckon with this issue. For readers looking for a ‘grass roots’ insight into the organised illicit drug trade today, this book has much to offer.”''

Herding Cats is the first true-life story of a Vietnamese crop-sitter who became an apprentice cannabis grower for a Vietnamese boss shortly after arriving in Australia and lived a precarious existence on its green (marijuana) roads. The Vietnamese Writers’ Association introduced it to the public, overcoming the strict censorship of Vietnam’s Communist-State media. It was written after the writer (To Giang) served a thirty-month sentence in a Victorian jail and was deported to Vietnam. The reader will feel his sincerity in the thrilling dialogue and complex character psychology in each marijuana cultivation mission of the dân chăn mèo (herding cats), who, like mice, use cunning and tricks to blind their neighbours and the police. The author describes what he did as part of these satellites of the Green Gangland, which gained hundreds of millions annually for the black economy. Dân chăn mèo appear to live in ordinary houses, but these houses hide a secret. The role of the cat herders is to deceive the ‘cats’, i.e., the neighbours, the police monitors, and public officials. Cats are curious creatures, so cat herders must avoid arousing their curiosity. Another way of putting it is that these crop-sitters are mice that control cats!

According to Professor Daniel Silverstone, Head of the School of Law and Criminology, University of Greenwich, ''“It is a raw, authentic insight into the secretive life of a Vietnamese Cannabis cultivator in Australia. The autobiography is an unsentimental account of life’s rewards and risks from inside the burgeoning and lucrative Australian criminal underworld. Fast-paced and worth reading it should have wide appeal.”'' Most of the best true crime non-fiction focuses on murders, serial killings, and rapes. While many true-crime non-fiction books by various authors, including criminals who have spent time in jail, have been published worldwide over a long period, this type of criminal memoir is still lacking in Asia and the Pacific. The real stories of cannabis growers and related criminal networks in Australia, the US and the EU are still not much exposed by insiders, even in academic criminology networks. This is an entirely new story for both audiences and publishers. That's why Nguyen Manh Ha, a journalist for BBC News (Vietnamese) highlighted that “It proves that no fiction can be as thrilling as the reality of insiders.”