Play Where You Are
[Vung Tau, 8/3/24]
I could only hear the woman, “My boy was so happy with his new toy, he was shaking! His brother had to explain to me, ‘Mom, you don’t know how happy a kid is with a new toy!’ It was so funny, his entire body was happy!”
Then, “I never do more than what I must, so I have time to play. I wash the dishes and do housework as quickly as possible. Gardening, I don’t consider work, but play. Of course, I put aside money just in case my kids get sick, but I don’t waste money on anything. I don’t waste money on clothes or shoes, just coffee.”
Play in Vietnamese is used most promiscuously. To invite someone over, you say, “Come by my house and play!” Countless verbs can be paired with play. To enjoy yourself is to eat and play. To patronize a prostitute is to play her. Sometimes it’s used as in English, “I’ve been played.” To relax with a drink is to “sit play have drink.” Ngồi chơi xơi nước. To go anywhere for fun is to go play. I will go play the USA.
When she went silent, I could tell, from the corner of my eye, she was reading a thick book. In 1 1/2 year in Vung Tau, I’d seen exactly one serious book read. It’s The Collected Stories of Nam Cao. Executed by the French in 1951 at age 36, he didn’t write all that much. His creation of the most hideous pair of lovers, Chí Phèo and Thị Nở, ensures his immortality. There’s also a spinster aunt who’s both shocked and jealous of her niece’s sudden sex life. “Are all the men dead that you must lunge towards that bastard?”
Immortal my ass. Like every other writer, Nam Cao is nearly gone. Just about every young person I’ve seen in every Vung Tau cafe is either playing video games or staring at idiotic TikTok videos, with their canned laughs and goofy sound effects.
It turned out the lady next to me was reading Osho, the godman or sex guru banned from 22 countries. Eleven of his books have been translated into Vietnamese. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is also huge here. I should just dive into the Pacific and breast stroke towards Guam. Had Nam Cao known how to swim, he would have likely not been caught.
The death of reading is also the death of attention. Without that moral prerequisite, there’s no knowledge, respect or love for anything. That’s why our world is overrun by assholes speaking out of their asses. I hear your refuting farts.
Disappointed, spurned and frankly crapped on by the Osho lady, I turned my attention to the seller of hot tofu, perched on a tiny plastic stool by her Chinese bicycle. No urban sophisticate would dress like that, and I don’t just mean her conical hat. Her green, red, yellow and black pants had a Mickey Mouse and “Paris” pattern. To those who stood in mud just yesterday, the West is a magical realm of playful rats and legendary cities. The most awesome is New York, still. Even cave dwellers and rain forest cannibals wear that NY logo on their loin cloth, I’m sure.
Across the street was a Colonial era villa, now occupied by Coffee House. Having never gone in, I don’t even know how overpriced their drinks are. Right outside was a masked woman sitting alone in her car. Made of cloth, it covered everything but her bespectacled eyes. Not judgemental, I won’t say she’s insane.
The teenaged barista’s black T-shirt had a cartoon bear head and “COLLEGE DROPOUT.” Each time her boss shows up, she’s yelled at for no reason. Everywhere you look, there’s sorrow and sickness, if only under the surface.
In the Golan Heights, 12 Druze children have just been murdered by Jews, so Lebanon could be blamed. Jews need a pretext to increase bloodshed. Like Uncle Sam, they’re accustomed to sloshing in blood. Think of how many wars that Satanic couple have caused.
Everywhere you look, there’s also strength, dignity and, often enough, laughter, though the last is hard to come by in places where inmates are locked inside, alone, for hours each day to be entertained and educated by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg.
“Come on, y’all. It’s the Olympics. Stop! They’re not trying to do anything except talk about the history. They’re showing you the history.”
That’s right, Whoopi, they’re not trying to do anything except teach us some basic history. Scale breaking lesbians, bearded ladies and prancing queers are the pillars of civilization. Let’s admire some naked freak painted blue with his dick in a peek-a-boo. Why evoke Flaubert, Maupassant or Simone Weil when we can be ushered into the future by Nicky Doll, Piche and Giselle Palmer?
With Vietnam not expected to win squat, hardly anyone here is watching that Parisian circus. Instead, they keep on playing, so to speak, as they mingle, talk or just look. The ordinary is marvelous enough, so play where you are.
There’s a happy ending. The sidewalk cafe’s owner is catching on her yelling is chasing away customers, so, let’s hope, her crankiness will cease. The young barista has just thanked me for interceding most diplomatically.
[Vung Tau, 8/2/24]
[Vung Tau, 8/3/24]
[Vung Tau, 7/25/24]
[Vung Tau, 7/28/24]
I have always been an avid reader, and now that I am retired, I can spend as much time doing it as I like. I not only read at home, I take a book or my e-reader with me whenever I go somewhere that might require me to wait, like the doctor, dentist, barber; or on a train, plane, or bus. In years past, seeing people reading during their "down time" like that was not uncommon. But now it has become so rare that it actually draws comment from people--"Oh, you're READING something?" Even in Taipei, when I look around on the bus or the MRT, almost everyone has their attention on their phone, and from what I've been able to see over peoples' shoulders, it's not to read a book like Jimbob. (I used to read on my phone, but I like physical books much better, and also eventually grew to dislike trying to read anything serious on a little bitty screen.
Interesting observation about the Vietnamese use of the verb "play." My Mandarin Chinese skills are limited, but I have noticed something similar. The verb "play" is not only used when referring to a sport. For example, when referring to making a phone call, they say "play (on) a telephone." Certain cultural aspects of regional languages often find their way into their neighbors, so who knows?
When was the time that reading "serious" literature was common?
When I was a kid my mother was the only adult I knew that read books. She loved mysteries. Everyone else watched TV.
My highschool group found out that I liked to read. They were shocked. One kid was so puzzled that I would voluntarily read that he talked it over with his dad. His dad said any male that read was a homosexual and he banned him from any further association with me.
Now that was in a largely working class community but in university one of my neighbors was a man in his 60s. He was thrilled to come across me because I liked to read. We would exchange novels and chat briefly about them. This was early 1970s and he didn't know anyone else who read.
Since then I have found some men who read scify or self improvement books but only one who read non genre novels.
The only novel during my time as an adult which I knew other men to have read was Bonfire of the Vanities. I was in business school at the time so maybe that had something to do with it.
I have read that The Great Gatsby got a new lease on life when the army included it in the books given to soldiers in WW2. It was reportedly very popular. I doubt it would be these days.
I know other men who are interested in politics. They will willingly watch a 4 hour documentary on YouTube but give them an article that takes 10 minutes to read and they act like you just sent them War and Peace.