Still Serene on the Eastern Front

[Kracheh, 10/8/23]

These days, I get up before 3AM, so it’s a huge challenge to get my first cup of coffee. As with beer, I prefer to get my java in public. My first morning in Kracheh, I went to its central market to find nothing open, only shopkeepers setting up. This morning, I headed to the bus station. Since buses and vans can arrive in the middle of the night or before dawn, there must be some drink stand to serve weary travelers. Sure enough, I found a brightly lit, busy cafe with at least 15 men noisy in conversations.

In Cambodia, “café” means coffee, so I could make myself understood, but the owner went blank when I said “black” and “no sugar.” He understood “đen” and “không đường,” however, so I asked if he was Vietnamese? No, he wasn’t. Like many Cambodians, he knew a few words. Many have studied or been trained in Vietnam. Their long time leader, Hun Sen, was installed by Vietnam and speaks Vietnamese fluently.

On a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh last November, I sat next to a young Cambodian who spoke Vietnamese more graciously than most Vietnamese, for there was no “fuck mother” [“đụ mẹ”] sprinkled throughout. He sounded like a Hanoi patrician.

In very well mannered Vietnamese, you’re supposed to say “yes” before you say “no,” so as to be super agreeable. An example:

“Are you sleeping with my wife?”

“Yes, no” [“Dạ, không”].

Sitting at the bus station cafe among regulars, I fit right in, except I couldn’t understand a damn word. Across the street was the city’s main temple, where emanated the chants I had mistaken for a Muslim prayer call. Huge, ostentatious stupa graves ring that house of worship.

That’s not very Buddhist, I thought, but nothing beats London’s Westminster Abbey, with its +3,000 graves inside the church. Let’s invade God’s living room with our sinful corpses and grandiose monuments, but only if we’re rich. Paupers can leave their shattered bones on distant battlefields.

It’s hard to beat a Houston “bishop” for violating a sacred place. Over 15 years, Robert L. Carter raped a relative nearly 600 times, including at his Sanctuary Church of Christ. This monster has a wicked sense of irony. Carter started when the cursed girl was just seven-years-old.

Surrounded by boisterous voices, I was again reminded of how crucial are direct interactions. Without them, men go insane or become insufferable assholes.

Five yards from me, a fat, old dog plopped himself down. From his girth and expression, I could tell he had had an easy life, relatively speaking. He had eaten his fill and caroused with a few bitches. When the ice man honked to get him out of the way, this dog stood up to indignantly bark. Settling down again, he drifted into paradoxical memories and philosophical musings. Humans are such a pain in the fuckin’ ass, he was probably thinking.

Have you ever seen a skinny butcher? Of course not, they’re all fat, and so are dogs belonging to restaurant owners. Since there’s so much leftover to consume, don’t you wish you were such a blessed creature? Between burps and farts, you can bark away to mimic being useful. In your next life, perhaps, so keep praying.

Writing this article, I moved to Phum Cafe. Two kids from yesterday were now in white and blue school uniforms. Looking quite spruce, the boy sported a tie, and the girl a bowknot tie. After they left, a customer asked where I was from.

“Vietnam,” I said, “but I spent many years in the US.” To make sure he understood, I spoke very slowly.

Nodding, the young man grinned, “US.”

“Yes, the USA. America right now very bad.” Lapsing into pidgin plus sign language, I gave two thumbs down. “The economy very bad. The homeless, people without a house, they’re everywhere. They sleep outside!” I pointed to the sunny sidewalk.

Not answering, he kept grinning.

“Soon, Cambodians, Laos and Vietnamese, they’ll come back this way. Cambodians come back here!” I pointed to the ground. “From California!”

I said California because it’s practically synonymous with earthly paradise, but only to those who have never been to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento or Stockton, etc. Oakland’s mayor is a Lao-American, by the way. Though as incompetent as Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, Sheng Thao is not nearly as arrogant, not that it matters.

With no idea how much he understood, I had to add, “Homeless! Outside! America, they lie about everything! Unemployment! Inflation! You know, how much something costs.” To illustrate, I pick up my Sony camera.

Poor fellow! All he wanted, probably, was to practice his rudimentary English.

It’s nice to meet you! I study English. I hope to visit, no, move, to America! It’s a country with freedom and democracy. Joe Biden is very good. He is a kind man. I want to move to America!

Taking brief breaks from writing, I answered personal emails.

Told by my buddy Jonathan that he and his wife would love to visit me in Vung Tau, I said, “I’m vaguely thinking of going to Manila before returning to Vietnam. It’d be ideal, though, if we could meet in liberated Palestine this January.”

With a laughing emoji, Jonathan replied, “My wife and I were thinking of renewing our vows in the rubble of the Dome of the Rock.”

Though we all need a new beginning, on our own terms, Jews better not destroy that most sacred shrine.

Leaving southern Lebanon at the end of 2020, I told my dearest friend, “Taxi,” that I would promptly return when the liberation of Palestine was near, so we could drive to Jerusalem together. Together, we’ll down many glasses of champagne! Since I haven’t heard from Taxi in a while, she must be sick. Most alarmingly, her Plato’s Gun is still dormant.

Minus Israel, Lebanon and Syria can finally heal, and the entire Middle East will breathe easier. Some countries, though, may be beyond salvation. Killing for Jews all these decades, they’ve brought it upon themselves.

Last month, I emailed Beth in Philly, “You should stop deferring to Jews and their outrageous crimes. By fearing them so much, you are complicit in what they’ve done to Palestinians, other Arabs, Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans. Stop siding with these genocidal criminals. By making excuses for them, if only in your mind, you become a criminal.”

By Jews, I mean those who embrace and deploy Jewish thinking. It’s an insanely racist, deviously divisive and genocidal ideology. The last is its bedrock. If you’re born Jewish, who cares? If you’re a Jew in spirit or honorary Jew, may God help you.

Syrian Girl has just posted a video of Jews urinating on Palestinian corpses, whom they had just murdered, then stripped naked. Favored by a most spiteful, genocidal god, they’re free to grab land, massacre, swindle, poison and orchestrate wars, so a bit of corpse abuse is hardly worth noticing. Only hateful anti-Semites niggle.

[Kracheh, 10/9/23]

[Kracheh, 10/8/23]

[Kracheh, 10/8/23]