Friday.10.22.04
faithless [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 6:10pm
i watch my fingers shake while i hold the computer mouse and lift up my hands. they’re shaking, like they’ve been shaking for the past few months. i stare at them as if by focusing all my energy on the vibrations they’d stop. i fear the night, with the quiet solitude of empty space, and shuffling people. i just want to hear a voice, telling me things will be ok…. that there’s a purpose to all of this.
hanoi in a week, america in two. any roots i had when i left for VN have withered all away and more than the emptiness i fear the discovery that all places hold the same thing: nothing, like the washed away imprints of a storm, a song sung but forgotten. a week has ended and the songs have played themselves through. i wish i can forget…..
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thought steep [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 1:35am
i sit in my chair and fight sleep. 2 hours of sleep, some strange conversations, deja vu, and then shaking hands and meeting with people. where am i? i sit in my chair and fight sleep, filing through email after email. someone knocks lightly on the door of the office and walks in. the other people sitting at desks surrounding me don’t notice much. it’s common, people coming in and giving paperwork or asking about something. the voices come different with each person, different issues, different implications in the business. and then an angry email from management. just like so many other things in the world, people get offended because the truth is told. no one wants to hear the truth. it’s like a cold icicle that slides down the back of your shirt, when all you want is the closing warmth of disillusion.
i beg for the work day to end, because i can’t stand the jabbering that goes on behind and around me. people laugh, joke, flirt, release words that don’t mean anything and ultimately just lead back to themselves. one of the sales guys is hitting on the sales girl, making semi-baby voices and asking why she doesn’t talk to him, how come she talks to the technician instead of him. a secretary wearing an ao dai walks in and sits down, staring at the wall, and then leaves. i look out my window and see a tan wall concrete wall with a small opening carved square out of it. it looks like a painting, this one part of the wall.
the 5pm i beg for finally arrives and everything falls to the wayside. people trickle home. yet the emails keep coming, the people still seek my inexperienced opinions, and i am still at work. it never ends, the things you have to do..
me and short-stout had a falling out. to put it simply he said some shady things about to me to a girl, just to increase his chances of bagging her. totally unexpected, i am left reeling and wondering who the hell i can trust anymore in this world. everyone’s out for themselves.
i sit in the corner and my head begins to feel heavy. my eyes shut off and i pass out in a deep slumber. i wake up 2 hours later, my head on the desk. one of the cousins is chatting on yahoo, random banter to random people. i get up and walk out to a black saigon night and hail a cab, crawling into the backseat while telling the guy the address. got to do some errands. the cab’s a bit rundown, devoid of any light and giving off an earthy impression. with the soft insides of this moving cave, we rumble through the streets among a continual crowd of human beings on motorbikes. the taxi driver reaches down to somewhere near the radio and starts pressing some button. right away i pull myself to the middle of the seat and watch him carefully. in a country where you make your living by skimming off the top and taking where the takin’s good, taxi drivers are notorious for rigging their meters with special “jump starters”. clever setups allow the driver to increase the rate at which the meter runs, or even straight out add money to the fare.
“what are you pressing down there?” i ask him. he throws his head back for a moment before looking ahead.
“oh, that’s just the window control.. see.”
he proceeds to press the button and the windows go down. i’m not all that convinced and watch the meter like a mother watching a sick baby. no more than a minute into the ride the fare starts jumping. it’s rigged.
“hey.. what’s up with the meter,” i ask, “why’s it jumping like that?”
the man is quiet for a few seconds before replying, “it’s 7000 vnd per kilometer. that’s standard everywhere.”
i wait it out and within a minute the fare jumps up again. the taxi turns right, which i know is the wrong direction. the fare is now getting to be ridiculous for a 3 minute ride and i have to stop it, before we end up on the other side of town and the fare’s ridiculously out of control.
“alright, stop here.” i tell him. the guy pulls over.
“it’s 7000 vnd per kilometer.. it goes up like that.”
i don’t respond and reach into my pocket. while the car is stalled the guy presses the secret button and the fare magically jumps a few thousand dong. incredible. i pay him and tell him to give me back exact change. most people who just come to vietnam completely lose their cool when they find out they’ve been ripped off. i’ve pretty much gotten to understand why people do it, and consider it a game. if you don’t know how to play, you’re going to lose some money. it’s the law of equilibrium; you’ve got the money and they don’t. i pull on the door hand, the metal piece nearly falling off in its plastic base, and jump onto the sidewalk. a few motorbike drivers sit on their livelihoods on the corner amidst brown darkness, chatting next to a stand selling food. the stand is a small square of cheap tin metal, glass, and florescent lightbulb. a speck of struggle, diluted with the normalcy of the daily, and displayed for all to see. i see a Vina taxi, one of the two cab companies that doesn’t cheat you. the other is MaiLinh. it’s in decent shape and shiny. i hail it.
soon i’m at a towering 20-something story commercial center, a ritzy upperclass sidewalk cafe spilling foreigners, rich vietnamese, and prostitutes dressed to kill over the sidewalk under the massive square marble pillars. saigon is a cruel mistress because it understands the plurality of existence. haves and have nots, rich and poor, the beautiful and the ugly, they mix in this potent city teeming with the potential like air mixes with air. business, it’s going, money it’s coming, work it’s here to be taken, people, oh the sadness of reality. i can see the motorbike drivers slumped in their dustry jackets on the corners, watching the colorfully dressed elite dine in the warm muggy saigon air, being served by other people. the waitresses bustle from table to table, yes sir, yes mam, anything you want. this is where i must go sometimes for business, and tonight is no exception.
i walk into the bar near where i came to do business, considering a sterile dinner. a quick expensive dinner, because i need something quick and safe to fill up my stomach for tonight. i shuffle in and sneak a seat by the round bar, a few plain girls filling orders for fruit shakes and drinks and all sorts of odd foods for the picky diner moving around. the place is brightly lit, almost like a family restaurant. across from me i see two asian foreigners, throwing back some beers, and to the right an old back-country type American, cap pulled tight over his grey hair. i ask for the menu and order some forgettable dish. just something to get rid of the hunger, and i’ll be on my way thanks. i watch the girl behind the alcohol bar in the corner, laughing and throwing english phrases at people passing by. i stare at the American, because he’s staring at his drink. his hat covers his eyes and for some reason i think it’s a veteran. for awhile i sneak glances at him, watching him nurse his drink and look around as if he’s as lost as i am. in moments i catch him scowling at his drink, a fated and once-murderous silent cry at the brutality of the past, or perhaps the hopelessness of the present. the lips pull back to reveal old teeth and i can feel the hate and pain from here, the furor held back with something profoundly strong. the girl behind the bar says something in vietnamese, smiling mischievously, and the guy turns around and smiles. he’s old, with the wrinkles forming all around his mouth and eyes, but he’s still fit enough to kick my ass. he returns to staring at his drink, his apparent enemy, and resumes the existence of a ghost. this place is full of ghosts.
a jovial waiter breaks my train of thought with his laughter, pouring different mixtures of fruits into spotless glasses for customers somewhere off in the cafe-restaurant. the girls behind the counter laugh with him, playfully offering jokes and him responding just as playful, back and forth like cubs roughhousing with each other. even though they’re years older than me, i find it cute and can’t help but smile. the waiter’s accent is distinctly central, bringing stereotypes of abject poverty and indescribable hardship. what if the tourists and passerby travelers truly saw this country as its inhabitants saw it? would they still comfortably pass through with cliched compliments stuck to their lips? i can hear the smile in the man’s words and am grateful, that i can get something as subtly pure as this in such a sterile and lifeless place. but always, there is the truth of poverty, temporarily drowned out with these bright lights and pristine settings. this is death for me, this utter and confused version of comfort, and somehow, it is where most vietnamese want to end up.
i pay and leave, finish my business, and am back in a cab. quietly we move through crowds of people on motorbikes, children standing and sitting and holding on, wrinkled feet pumping rickshaw pedals, and modern-cut fashion for those that can afford it. we pass the Ben Thanh center, where advtertisements glare from billboards and building roofs. a large video screen running advertisements sits above it all, showcasing to everyone with eyes that vietnam is on its way to modernity, to prosperity and a good life for all. we move past the center and the people continue pouring about me, all the same because they speak the same language and think the same things. but what bothers me most is that they are not all the same. they can’t be, even though they all want to leave this country when i am the only fool thinking i can stay. they say people come to saigon for the work opportunities, and some get swept away in the seedy underlyings of the place. they are pulled into the dreams of the rich west, and suffer for their foolishness with the horrors of society. we pass one of the largest parks in saigon, where i’ve been told by the locals that the area is notorious for junkies and prostitutes. if you’ve got a stolen motorbike then this is the place to get it off your hands. you simply drive up and wait, and someone will come out and offer to take if off your hands for a low price. i’ve been told the couples, who are now lining next to each other on motorbikes, like fish in sardines no more than 2 feet apart from each other, are not completely couples. some of them are pimp and prostitute pairs, seeking their next John. i am told so many things that my head spins with the sadness sometimes, and it’s all so much worse because i’ve seen so many of it with my own eyes. poverty is a poem, and then you face it and live with it, and then it becomes horror.
i don’t have to ask myself whether i’m American or Vietnamese. the discourse comes naturally because i find myself switching between the two languages, a farce in both worlds. i understand enough to enter their world, but not enough to get out.
“do you want to stop here or do you want me to cross the street?” the drivers asks.
“can you cross the street and park to the side?” i reply in vietnamese. i say it like i belong to this place, but the tiredness of my voice betrays the fact that i am not, and never will be.
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