Birth, Age, Sickness, Death, But Not Yet!
[Vung Tau, 10/29/22]
At Cóc Cóc Coffee, I usually claim a corner table at the back, where I’m left alone to write. Sometimes an older Chinese would come in. Sitting directly in front of me, he would watch the news or TikTok skits with the volume turned up. Bathed in Mandarin, he can forget he’s in Vietnam. Mindful of legal consequences, I haven’t whacked this gentleman on the head with an ashtray. Inspired by Hideo Nomo, I have perfected a downward motion for maximum velocity. All 6,000 of his characters will be spilled on the floor. Life is a series of negotiations, if not contests, for physical and mental spaces.
Since Cóc Cóc doesn’t open until 6:45AM or so, I must often roam in the dark for alternatives. Yesterday found me at the new market next to a florist. There, I talked to a man who looked old and worn out, but was only 59.
“I used to weight 70 kilos [153 lbs]. Now, I’m just skin and bones,” he grinned to show all his front teeth on the right side missing. Was he punched right there? “I have cancer.”
“What kind?”
“Liver.”
“So what’s your treatment.”
“No treatment. I have no money.”
“Does it hurt.”
“Sometimes, terribly.”
“You should watch what you eat. Stay away from oil and sugar to give your liver a rest. Booze too.”
“Everyone must die. Even the Buddha died!”
“He lived cleanly and watched what he ate.”
“When Mr. Sky tells you to go, you go.”
“But if you eat better, you’ll have a few more months.”
“Nonsense!” His sudden testiness was surprising. “Birth, age, sickness, death. No one can avoid it.”
“Even babies die.”
“That’s right.”
Before he left without saying goodbye, skin and bones said that he did stay in the hospital for a month. Sharing a room with five coughing patients, he could hardly sleep. “They coughed all night and hacked up blood.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t catch what they had!” I laughed, and so did he.
When it was time to pay, the café’s owner said, “It’s been a while since you’ve shown up, brother.”
Today, an old woman waved at me, so I gave her sidewalk café a try. Although Vietnamese are among the sloppiest dressers, there were two older men nattily attired. One wore creased pants and ironed dress shirt in two shades of gray. Another had on a sand colored polo shirt, ochre colored pants and tweed flat cap in raw sienna. Led by the USA, the entire world has become fussier yet sloppier, but many men over 50 still balk at appearing like Beavis and Butthead. At Cô Giang Market, I ran into a crippled seller of lottery tickets on a dolly who was dressed better than many church goers in, say, California.
Scratching their balls, they show up in shorts and tank tops to yawn through a sermon delivered by an immigrant priest in an impenetrable accent. To perk them up, father cracks Hail Mary jokes.
Between sips of 31-cent black coffee, I looked up to see kids in helmets with red horns. Halloween is celebrated here. Vietnam’s first public transgender is the singer Cindy Thái Tài. Her four albums are Nỗi lòng cô đơn [Lonely Heart] (2006), Tình yêu đã mất [Lost Love] (2007), Nụ hôn ngọt ngào [Sweet Kiss] (2007) and Hãy về với em [Come Back to Me] (2008).
As I was to leave, a man with hairy arms showed up. There must be some French or monkey in his ancestry.
Maguerite Duras on her Chinese-Vietnamese lover, “The skin is sumptuously soft. The body. The body is thin, lacking in strength, in muscle, he may have been ill, may be convalescent, he’s hairless, nothing masculine about him but his sex, he’s weak, probably a helpless prey to insult, vulnerable. She doesn’t look him in the face. Doesn’t look at him at all. She touches him. Touches the softness of his sex, his skin, caresses his goldenness, the strange novelty. He moans, weeps.”
Twice daily, a dwarf shows up at Cóc Cóc to sell lottery tickets. She has a modified motorbike and a bright faced daughter. The least cheerful barista at Cóc Cóc is also the ugliest, but nowadays, we’re supposed to think everyone’s beautiful. Her sullenness only makes her uglier. To compensate, she has invested in many tattoos crawling up her spindly arms. Ugliness as fact or process is the greatest lesson.
Cóc Cóc’s prettiest barista already has two children. To be fought over has its toll. Often, I can hear her on the phone telling her squabbling kids to cut it out until mommy can come home.
It’s 10AM and I’ve eaten nothing. Half a block from Cóc Cóc is a joint for grilled beef wrapped in piper lolot leaves, for just $2.36. With it comes a heap of beansprouts, plantain, carambola, cucumber, lettuce, basil and fish mint. Vietnamese chew through more leaves than giraffes. The dipping sauce is fermented fish, lemongrass, lime, garlic, chili, pineapple and sugar. The only sour note is a misshappen server with a disconcerting habit of chewing crookedly even when there’s nothing in her mouth. This, too, is instructive. Just off frame, there’s always something stinking or even deadly to dent your Edenic picnic.
Exchanging money at a jeweler, I chattered with the lady, “Gold is still going up, sister?”
“Yes, it’s still rising.”
“But so is the dollar. Isn’t that strange? Usually, they go in opposite directions.”
“There’s so much uncertainty. There’s war. People are worried.”
Even among my readers there are those who think nothing’s wrong. One man suggests there’s not even a war in Ukraine. It doesn’t matter what I saw there in 2016. Heroic Gonzalo Lira and his tragic death must have been fake news. Fact free convictions are natural outcomes of relativism.
Living next to the ocean, I must dip in it more often. That’s what I’ll do this afternoon. Lonely bodies in a depleted, polluted stew, we bobble and splash. Most sins and imperfections are under the surface. Not that long ago, corpses washed up daily. Turned from turbulent land, everything will appear normal.
Kate Chopin, “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
Birth, age, sickness, death, but not yet! That’s what they all say.
[Vung Tau, 4/20/24]
[Vung Tau, 4/10/24]
[Vung Tau, 4/19/24]
[Phnom Penh, 4/8/24]
Has anyone else noticed we have become a culture of infantilized images? When at one time we were a culture of the written word. Instead of restrooms with the words "Men" and "Women" we now have the stick figure of a female with a skirt or a male with pants or trousers to indicate the appropriate venue.
The late, great Canadian sociologist Dr. Marshal McLuhan wrote that literacy in the West was a temporary aberration that arose from the Italian Renaissance c. 1500 and Western culture would eventually return to a sort of "collage" thinking of arbitrary images and impressions jumbled together instead of the linear, rational thinking of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. I am reminded of this every day in the appearance of the thumbnail ads to the right of my email. Virtually every ad, no matter what they are hawking (and it is often some Big Pharma drug) is accompanied by a smiling, or simpering, or mawkish, or just plain stupid idiot's face, with an appropriate "catch" phrase admonishing me to buy some wonder drug de jure. Is there ever a rational, tightly reasoned synopsis as to why I should buy this product? No. That would be too much to ask for from a population of robotic drones.
Howdy, Linh. Again, excellent prose - much to ponder. Mr Herzog is correct in his his observation. Yesterday, I attended a funeral and was dismayed to see how many fellow attendees were slovenly - almost childlike - in their attire and behavior. Heaven knows normally I wear jeans and work boots when working on the farm; but, my late friend Bill deserved to be shown respect, and so I wore a somber suit and tie. Even the funeral was chock full of modern, revisionist drivel - the minister droned on about our collective guilt over slavery while a nearby train rumbled by, blowing its mournful cry. Ah well, since it is 4/20, I'll head over to the nearest cowboy bar later to share the latest crop of homegrown with my fellow rednecks, roughnecks, bikers, welders, ex-cons, cattle ranchers, and general f*ckups, while we feed the jukebox, drink, and mourn the memory of the America of our youth. It was far from perfect, but there was honor, decency, and mutual respect. Most of all, there was a sense of hope for the future.