Flurry of Canadians

[Vung Tau, 1/28/24]

Among whites here, Australians and Russians are most visible, but there are all sorts. The British presence is attested by the availability of full brekkies, meat pies, black pudding and mash and bangers. The impressive Museum of Worldwide Arms was founded by a Brit, Robert Taylor.

Canadians, too, are here. One is my friend Matthew Rossman. Too busy with article writing and self-publishing, I haven’t had time to trek up a hill with Matthew. Going to his teaching job at the Việt Mỹ School, Matthew might spot me at Cóc Cóc Coffee, pecking away. I’m sitting there right now. If he had a moment, Matthew would join me for a quick chat. Time is short and my hourglass’ bottom half is getting fleshed out. Certainly sexier than Madonna, La Muerte jiggles her obscene booty.

A popular expat hangout, Matildas, is owned by a Canadian, and there’s a 76-year-old Canuck who’s notorious here, at least among expats, as a sort of piss preacher or urine missionary. Drinking it daily has rejuvenated Johnny, and he did look awfully hale and happy when he showed up at my door, twice, on consecutive days.

In 2021, I wrote “Big in Africa,” and I’m huge there, but as Mr. Miyagi! Fame does flame out. During the O.J. Simpson trial, I was recognized everywhere as Judge Ito.

As merely Linh Dinh, I’m occassionally sought out by discerning or chemically imbalanced admirers, believe or not, so I’ve been hunted down by readers in Serbia, Albania, South Africa, Thailand and Laos, etc. Last week in Vung Tau, an American resident of Saigon, Oliver, decided to check into DC Homestay, so he was just two doors from me. It was this cheerful man who dragged the urine pope to my door. Since it was 10PM, I only shook Johnny’s hand. Getting up before 4AM each day, it was way past my bedtime.

The next afternoon, the same duo returned, and this time with a farty trumpet as fanfare, I kid you not. I’m going to strangle Oliver the next time I see him. Roused from my rest after hours of writing, I had to put on a shirt to receive wee wee wisdom.

The great Mexican boxer, Juan Manuel Márquez, is a piss drinker. Soft spoken, he’s pure class. Vietnamese nurses used to buy children’s urine to ease difficult births. A man in Vung Tau told me his mom drank his piss when he was a boy. There are even books about this, apparently. From Johnny, I learnt piss can also be applied to sores, so it’s a miracle cure. To make sure he doesn’t waste any, Johnny pisses into a bucket.

During Tet, I met two more Canadians. Vietnam born, they’ve been living in Montreal and Winnipeg for decades, with one spending six of those years in prison. If I was still an Unz columnist, several pseudonymous screamers would be jumping in to shriek that these expletives aren’t Canadian at all. Whatever. I get it. I ain’t no American writer neither.

Graciously, the young owner of DC Homestay hosted a dinner then lunch for long-term residents, so I found myself sitting across from a woman in her late 70’s. Though I had seen this quiet lady around, we had only smiled and nodded at each other. Now, I had a chance to learn about her. Before 1975, she was a bank teller. Her husband had been her high school French teacher. By 1979, they had four children.

As with most Vietnamese, living was nearly impossible, so he was forced to get on a boat with their two oldest. Since it didn’t break apart or capsize, they made it to Malaysia before dying from thirst or hunger. They hadn’t been intercepted by pirates.

At a refugee camp, they applied and was accepted by Australia, then Canada also said yes, so of course they moved to French speaking Quebec. The gods were smiling. Just a year later, their family was whole again. He found work at the French consulate, then she at a bank, where she stayed for decades until retirement.

Though all they wanted was stability, history upset everything. They’re lucky it didn’t maim or kill them.

During our talk, Dzuy, sitting right next to me, kept interrupting with inane comments and even a joke. Trying to please or perhaps just flirting, Dzuy repeatedly declared how beautiful she was. Since he was so unctuously creepy, I doubt she was flattered, and she didn’t even smile at his stupid joke.

“Three men are asked what do they look at when confronted with a beautiful woman?” Dzuy grinned. “The first one says, ‘I look at her eyes. I am an admirer of beautiful eyes!”

Pleased with his performance, Dzuy was chuckling. “The second man says, ‘I look at her figure. I appreciate a beautiful figure!” To drive home this point, Dzuy fleetingly caressed an imaginary body. At least he didn’t hump it.

Now Dzuy paused before the devastating punchline. Beaming, he continued, “The third man, he looks left then right before whispering, ‘I look to see if my wife is around before I dare look at anything!”

To be polite, I chuckled, then asked, “Speaking of wives, where’s yours?” I had seen her around.

“Oh, don’t ask! I’m so lucky to be free!”

I once overheard Dzuy gush over the phone how much he missed her, when she was gone for just a day, “I miss you so much, I can’t even sleep, but I must try to sleep.”

Our last Canadian, Linh, had been a South Vietnamese Ranger, so a combat soldier, and it showed. There’s an edge to everything he said. It’s this short temper that landed him in jail.

Pissed that an ex South Vietnamese soldier had been beaten up by four or five Viet assholes, he confronted one, but this punk didn’t back down. Enraged by such insolence, Linh shot him!

Laughing at this pleasant memory, Linh snarled, “The judge gave me nine years, but I only served six. Since this kid died after my trial, I wasn’t charged for murder!”

Just last week, Linh got into a shouting match on the street when he tried to persuade a cop not to fine a taxi driver, “It’s Tet, brother. Just let him go. If you fine him a million, how is he going to enjoy Tet?”

“What if he kills somebody?”

“But he wasn’t going to kill anybody.”

“Địt mẹ!” a bystander suddenly jumped in. “Just shoot this guy!” meaning Linh.

“Địt mẹ” is “fuck mother,” but only in the north. In the south, it’s “đụ mẹ.” That this stranger could be so belligerent meant he was a plain clothed cop, Linh reasoned, so he snapped back, “Đụ mẹ mày! [Fuck your mother!] Why don’t you grab his gun and shoot me!”

Linh wasn’t going to take any bullshit from a Commie northerner, but here’s a key detail. He was doing it as a Canadian citizen!

Returning for Tet, overseas Vietnamese bring back habits and preferences picked up from decades of living in Canada, USA, France or Germany, etc. The lady from Montreal chose DC Homestay because it had a large garden, by Vietnamese standard. She needs space.

Quebec’s six-month winter she can do without, though, so she’s in Vung Tau half the year. Also, she can’t be away from Canada longer than that without losing her “supplement.”

At our table, there’s a Vietnamese-American from Orange County. A South Vietnamese captain during the war, he spent four years in a reeducation camp. Unlike Linh, he’s rather subdued. For our feast, he brought a Pecoranera Rosso, but with La Muerte’s hot, stinking breath on me, I had to abstain.

When I professed a taste for Vang Dalat, half the table cracked up. I might as well have admitted to drinking piss for pleasure. Though I had spent two years in a medieval building in the heart of chianti country, with vineyards just outside my window, I was still a beer swilling hick to these snobs. Perhaps one day I can enjoy a Rooster microbrew again.

Looking around at all these survivors, I realized I was just an untested, pampered baby! I had never been shot at, forced to kill, desperate on an unseaworthy boat or in prison. This shameful knowledge was also tinged with schadenfreude, I admit. Most pitifully, we measure our success, what a ludicrous word, by others’ failures or misfortunes.

In Winesburg, Ohio, there’s this hilarious line, “He had always thought of himself as a successful man, although nothing he had ever done had turned out successfully.” Successful or not, we’re all still here, if far from whole or half deranged. Missing sense or limbs, we still crawl forward.

Linh is not just belligerent. Hearing about a legless ex ARVN barely eating, he went to this man’s shack to give him $300. With this, the man could establish a drink, snack and cigarette stand.

Looking at the Montreal lady, Linh declared, “You must have been one hell of a beauty! If I had met you half a century ago, we would have been a couple!”

“You’re certainly confident!” I laughed.

Not quite blushing, our aging beauty merely smiled.

[Vung Tau, 1/31/24]

[Belly’s in Vung Tau on 11/26/19]

[Vung Tau, 12/9/23]

[Vung Tau on 12/6/24]