Choose Tactile

[Café Thanh Trúc in Vung Tau, 5/20/25]

Around 5:45AM, a bony old man with a cane tottered to an outside table at Café Thanh Trúc. Three of his buddies awaited. Since it took him forever to cover a few feet, he stated the obvious, “I’m old!”

“The old should just stay home!” The banterer was himself within sight of a too expensive coffin.

Finally settled, Bony muttered, “There’s no one to talk to at home.”

“On the altar, you’ll have no one to talk to!”

At least photographically, the dead are a constant presence in most Vietnamese homes. Living rooms here are shrines to the disappeared. Formally dressed and retouched, they stare at their stoic descendants who laugh way too often.

At 7:04AM, Bony is still here, but with a new set of buddies. The father and son who always claim a table right inside the door have also left. The boy is strikingly stupid in appearance. His constant staring at a phone can’t help. With his gaze nearly always at 14 inches, he is drowned by more sights, sounds and words he doesn’t even try to understand. Eagerly yet sullenly, he dives into his convenient and economical cesspool. It’s his window into the world! Perhaps Wifi doesn’t exist on mountain peaks above 20,000 feet? Everything below is a clogged toilet cheered by TikTok laughter. We are so lucky. Preceding Covid hysteria, social distancing intensifies.