Drinking a cup of tea and thinking of warm days in Vietnam, I find something I wrote while there:

“I start to think of home. I imagine how things are going to be different once I return, what exciting new changes I’ll make in my life, how thrilling it will be to tell others of my travels. Then last night I had a dream I was in SF, walking to work while daydreaming of being in Vietnam. It felt shitty; I was ever dreaming of where I wasn’t. I woke up to find myself still in Vietnam — it was like teleportation! — but I wonder: will this dream make a difference? Do I wake up now to find myself exactly where I want to be?”

That damn grass is always greener…

It’s a lot like love, I suppose: We dream of a perfect jacket — that comfort of a snug fit — but then find it too ill-fitting, so we wriggle free into a closet-full of clothes, only to realize that jacket was the only thing ever worth wearing.

Or something like that.

And so it is with our old pal Life. We are all constantly striving to better our circumstance — earn that more respectable degree, find that more satisfying job, live in that more exciting place — when in the struggle to grasp what’s new we forget that what we have already in our clutches isn’t so bad after all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re thinking, I know this already. But my question to you is: does that knowing make a difference?

A Bangkok Story

I walked into the glowing white supermarket, a halo of sanitation.

Thinking myself rather native and shopping for the new breakfast I’ve fallen in love with — a discovered fruit equivalent to a steroidal grapefruit sliced and cellophaned like the sterile environment from which it came — I pick up a package and grab a bottle of carrot juice to accompany it. I Am Health.

There are a few other things I pick up, too — chewing gum, cough drops, an ultra fine ball-point pen, things I can live without but must have, as they are branded “so Bangkok” with their Thai and mint green / pale orange palate.

By now my hands are full with groceries. I head to the checkout isle. The perfect glow from the florescent lights make me feel dirty just for the sweat I know is rolling down my back from the heat outside. Inside, of course, it’s a perfect 70.

And then the trouble starts. As I’m standing in line, the grip on my carrot juice is compromised by the condensation rapidly forming and it falls, splats upon the gleaming linoleum floor, shattering the sanctity of cleanliness.

There is orange everywhere.

From every corner of the store, women in identical blue smocks swarm upon the puddle of carrot. A manager is shouting in Thai, directing the clean-up cadets. I stand there, petrified.

Customers continue to walk through the mess, tracking orange stains across the floor. The Thai, apparently, don’t often look down when they walk.

These people, the Thai people — usually so blasé about hindrances; irritation never entering into the equation — are hardly ever not smiling. And yet this man, this manager? Not smiling.

I just keep uttering the few phrases I know in Thai:

Sabai di mai ka? (“Everything okay?” Closer to, I find out later, “Are you physically comfortable?”)

Kun sabai di mai ka (“How are you?”)

Kapun ka (“Thank you”)

Mai pen rai (“No problem / Don’t worry about it”)

Mak, mak! (“A lot / very much”) — this one repeated over and over, embarrassed, for good measure.

Finally, I reach the checkout, orange streams of guilt trailing behind me, and hurry through as fast I can, forgetting to pick myself up another bottle of juice.

Okay, okay, okay. I know that I’ve been back from my trek to Asia for over a month now, but a promise is a promise, and I did promise there were more stories to come– I said patience was a virtue, right? Right.

Speaking of patience, after taking a little fall and spending some time on both crutches and sedatives, I’ve been forced to take things a little slower of late. It’s amazing what not being able to walk will do to one’s efficiency.

Oddly enough, everyone I’ve spoken to about my knee injury has responded with something akin to “it’ll be good for you” or “interesting timing,” referring to my tendency to behave, as one friend put it, “like a kung pao firecracker.”

I haven’t a clue to what she’s referring.

Fine, a slower pace would do me good; I’m trying to implement moderation and consistency and, and, and — look, patience seems a lot more virtuous when I’m not the one having to be patient; then it’s just moving painfully slow.

But with all of this immobility I’ve had some time to breathe, reflect. In all of this, I’ve revisited my Vietnam notes, scribbled down a few stories, and will now — in the days to come, and for your reading pleasure — share.

* * *

The Joke

On our 6-hour drive to Nghe An, my Vietnamese friend Bac decided to tell us a joke.

“There was a man and a woman. The woman was very attracted to the man, and so she decided to ask him a question. ‘If you had 1 million US dollars, what would you do?’ The man said he’d put it in the bank, so the woman left!”

[The Vietnamese folks crackle with laughter. Americans: silence]

Bac looks over at us. We look out the corner of our eyes.

“You know why?” she starts. We exhale, anticipating a punch line. Why, we question.

“Well, because he had so much money and would not share! You know: she would not want to marry a man that did not at least buy her something — he has 1 million US! A man like this would not make a very good husband.”

Humor, it seems, doesn’t always translate.

Some fundamental truths, both here and abroad:

1. Life is short. (Welcome to the second week in the fifth month in the year of 2006, one less year of your life)

2. Money does not grow on trees

3. Love hurts

4. April showers bring May flowers (or, rather, in San Francisco: sunshine, and a few sprouting dandelions strong enough to nudge their furry yellow heads out of sliver-sized sidewalk cracks)

5. There are more pictures, stories, and Vietnam nuggets coming your way.

6. Patience is a virtue (please see number 5.)

Flew in yesterday, and how odd the feeling of my apartment, work, city… not to mention streetlights and air pollution regulations. Amazing how long 2 weeks can feel when every day is new, stimulating, and chock full (good lesson on how to live a life?)

This morning I walked through Chinatown; I think I miss Asia.

Forget God, community, Mother Theresa or volunteerism; if one wants to feel a part of something greater than oneself, all one will have to do in the future is move to Bangkok. It was made very apparent that Asia is the new America, and culture is flowing at an amazing rate from this major world city.

No time to chat. Off to do three days of hiking in the mountains.

 Next up: Sa Pa, Vietnam

Jet set is right.

I’m a bit lagged, to be certain. But it’s not the few drinks I had last night-  nor the rapidly rising temperature in Hanoi today- nor the diesel fumes, rock quarry dust, days of notetaking, frantic attempt to grasp onto a few Vietnamese words or harrowing 7 hour car ride back that, on a few occations, had enough “close calls” to never recount to my mother-that have rendered this traveler on the sluggish side.

It’s the extremes between being in Nghe An on a trip to interview people living in the surrounding villages for a website I agreed to write for a local NGO, contrasted against being back Hanoi presently at a birthday party composed of expats and Vietnamese gay boys (“rice queens” as they refer to themselves).

And now I hop on a plain for Thailand in two hours.

I asked one woman, 24, with three kids, if she could have one thing in the world, what would it be? She said a cow. And this is not a unicef commercial. These were people who had to ride bikes 30 minutes three times a day to get clean water. I met a lot of wonderful people. We laughed, played with the kids, talked about how the community is working toward great things by instilling new agriculture techniques, animal raising, etc. - and now I’m sitting here drinking Maker’s Mark Manhattans with, I might add, a very stylish asian hair pin in my hair. Hm.

 I have a plane to catch.

“I travel half-way around the world, and all I get is this stinkin’ opportunity”

So, it seems like I can’t even get away from work, even when on vacation. Pfft! [rolls eyes disingenuously] Actually, I am very excited: I was speaking with my host-friend Jenny, who works in public health here in Vietnam, and she was telling me about a local NGO (Non Governmental Organization) that has gone through a re-branding effort, and now needs some assistance establishing itself. They do development work in some of the poorest regions of the country -work such as safe cooking practices, basic sanitation, and health education. And they needs a website.

In short, we’ve diverted plans and are heading out on a 7 hour car ride to Nghe An, a remote region of Vietnam, where we are going to work in the field doing interviews to gather information on what this organization does and how they work to better be able to write for them a website.

This is an opportunity for me to see some otherwise inaccessable areas of the country, work with one of the only local NGOs in Vietnam, (write!) and contribute to what I’ve seen so far is a wonderful organization.

I’ll be offline for the next couple of days. When I get back, it’s off to Bangkok!

Look Both Ways

At first I thought taxi rides were my favorite thing.
Weaving in and out of motorbikes, other taxis, and bicycles laden with every kind of cargo one can imagine: flowers, fruit, construction material, children, you name it. There is a chaos to it, but a kind of order, too.

Then I went for a walk along one street in the Old Quarter of Hanoi and I loved the energy at street level. I got to poke my head into shops, where young men are painting large canvases, girls selling silks and fabric, lots of little trinkets that looked familiar from San Francisco Chinatown shop windows (no doubt, also made in China). It was rainy yesterday, so I walked through the drizzle and the mud and let my eyes float over the street vendors with their worlds of sausages, sticky rice, meat stews, colorful ice creams (I recommend the ginger) and shrimps. With host-friends I visited the fabric market (rows and rows of fabric stacked 10 feet high of every kind of fabric imaginable, most at about $2 per meter) and purchased enough fabric for 4 outfits. We visited a tailor around the street (infamous, I was to experience, for cupping breasts as measurements are taken) to be fitted. I have waiting for me 6 tailored items. Late to a wine date, we swung quickly through the market below, which was too vivid for my wee little brain to take in completely. I could recount some things here, like fried doves, banana leaves wrapped artfully with twine, indistinguishable meats, passion fruits measured out with old rusty calibrating tools, etc. But I think it’s best we wait for when I can get the images up on Flikr. I mean, I’m a writer and all, but my descriptive abilities met their match when I found myself running through the market, shoes soaked through, large tarps leaking grey droplets into buckets (of dirty cleaning water? Or is that stew?), the cleaver hacking on wood tabletops mimicking the thump-thump of my sandals slapping the wet ground while neon lights scratch over glistening orange duck necks bent back into awkward angles –

Do you see? That last sentence was a run-on, and horribly inadequate to describe the surreal feeling of it all –rendered ironic because it it precisely the reality of Vietnam that is most difficult to process –and now I’m about to delve into the world of esoteric descriptions, and I really think we’re best just to call the whole thing off.

But, to answer the question I know you’re dying to ask: I only saw one dog in a cage –dinner. (He was yelping, however, and it made me rethink my entire willingness to try.)

And so, back to traffic.  Now let me tell you the most wonderful experience of them all: crossing the street. It’s very simple and very intense and I think I like it more than anything. As instructed by my hosts (although there is a fundamental disagreement between the two on whether or not eye contact is essential or desirable to avoid) it’s very simple: just walk.
With vehicles of every size and every speed whizzing around us, we step off the curb, without looking both ways, and, taking our lives into our own hands (or, rather, putting them in the hands of others) we walk out into the middle of traffic. Horns blare, bikes swerve, but in general (one hopes) everyone simply accommodates and works around. This seems to be the way.

Traffic in Hanoi is a lot like traffic in Marrakesh, Morocco; and, I would imagine, traffic like many places the world over that don’t believe in traffic lights: it’s a particular frenzied energy that somehow feels to me more natural. Sure, red and green lights help create “order” such that the whole system moves according to some Divine Traffic Plan, but it feels more organic to just let chaos ensue and know that, hey –“it’ll all work out.” It’s the age old quandary: is there more sense in order, or order in chaos?

Plus, I have yet to see traffic in Hanoi that compares to traffic in the Bay Area. Full stop.
 

A Review of Together:
Chinese violin soloist Tang Yun with the Vietnamese National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Tan.

This is NOT a review. I have very little working knowledge of classical music and am in no position of authority or expertise to critique it. So, when I say “review” I mean “re-view” as in the viewing again of an experience, a rehashing– a revisting.

This is also not a review because it may not make sense. This is not pure non-fiction. This is sensual word-garbage, made possible only by the wet-dream of an evening I had last night– 63 hours without sleep, 2 bottles of sweet sweet Mountain Apple rice wine, fried catfish & dill rice-wrapped spring rolls followed by a disorienting taxi ride through the center of Hanoi, a visit to a street stand, beer served up in a plastic cup with fat ice cubes (“just accept the ice, Shannon: you’re going to get worms no matter what” assures my host), followed by a performance at the Hanoi Opera House.

So you see, this may make little sense at first, if you think about it. But consider this is not a thinking matter at all. Consider that this is like the guttural throat-calls of the woman selling bread right now outside the kitchen window at 5:30am– it makes little sense, but means plenty.

* * *

The trill of flutes like a Tchaikovsky-syrup and just like that I wanted to make love to the conductor: he couldn’t have been much more than 30, but his passion was centuries old. I loved to watch him and then not watch him. With the simple swoop of his hand, he showed me exactly what to feel, and sometimes I had to look away so I wouldn’t know what to feel.

There were those kinds of moments when my vision would become piercingly sharp and clear, even though I knew I had in my old prescription contacts. That’s good music.

His spine was what got me. It showed through just barely his soft silk suit. It and the ever-thickening music pulled and pulled so good and then when I wanted it to pull some more there was calm.

It was a pride.

Young, wide-eyed Vietnamese girls in the audience, the swell of the tempo, “a culture more romantic than the French,” my host had said.

Adrian Tan lifts his right palm upward, cups his finders, and releases, as if blowing a dandelion or coaxing a young child; but it’s the other hand I liked, the passive wrist gliding, leading, supportive and integrating all parts into one.

I could be submissive to that wrist, I thought, I could easily submit to a lament like that– and then the orchestra pauses, such that I’m not sure they’re really stopping, or, as if on a comma,

Back after intermission, fingers like the undulations of an inchworm, little string shivers, chatter, crooning, seductive mourning…

Tang Yun takes to the stage, and there is a new energy. He and Adrian Tan shake hands, almost a high five, a pat on the back, they are grooving now, this is better than any rock concert, the crowd stands, vibrating, and then sit, stand, sit, stand, encore 1, encore 2, encore 3– even the First Violin can’t hold back a smile.

I had wanted only to feel my heart ache but I think instead my chest climbed up a wall. In this moment, you know my thought? Thank God I don’t have a cell phone right now.

Tang Yun’s solo at the end was like an old man groaning, the kind of groaning earned only through years of life. There is an accomplishment to it, that groan, it says “yes, you too, child, someday, you too: us all, us all, us all, we die.” But Tan Yun is younger than I am.

Let me tell you: sleep deprivation, rice wine, plus a solo violin equals a symphony in and of itself. Tang Yun and I made a loopy reverie of sadness together that night.

And, oh!
That last note:
held longer than anything should ever be held, too good, painful-good, scary like love, but there it is, you’re drinking it in spite of your good judgment, not sure now if I want it to continue or stop, for fear I’ll never want it to stop, no one should be allowed to live in that sweet moment for too long, life doesn’t work that way, and in fact, if it did I think I would break,

and oh!
That last note:
like an orgasm that never came and you’re glad it never did.

Service
First thing is an apology.  
“We ah soah sorry to keepa you waitin,” she raises an eyebrow, extends a hand toward me, asking with the inflection in her voice to please see my passport. I show her.
“Miss Deeshjong,” she emphasizes my name once she is privy to it. “We ah sorry, Miss Deeshjong, to keepa you waitin. We will be with you shortly. We thank you fohr your patience.” She smiles. It is an immaculate smile. Everything about her, crisp: her sharp collared jacket, her slick hair pulled back into a black bow, the squareness of her glasses., her pert but friendly lips. Even her ankle’s curve at an immaculate angle. This woman I imagine, has never had a run in her stockings, ever. I will see her later, while I am waiting to board, and she will glide gracefully down the escalator, respectfully taking up less than half a stair in the event others would wish to pass on the left, frantically dashing to not miss their plane; but she will stand to one side, never in a hurry, always with the right measured amount of time to get from place to place, and she will place one delicate wrist propped upon the center of her nice round bag at she floats down, down, and disappears below my line of sight.