Suffering Thus Guilty

German warships will pass through the Taiwan Strait. Chinese troops have conducted drills with Russians and Belarusians in Belarus. Russian warships will join Chinese ones for war games in the Western Pacific.

For Americans, though, a much more urgent issue is, Should the Falcons bench Kirk Cousins for Michael Penix Jr.? Now that Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala, will millions of Swifties be depressed for a week or two? Like their moms, many are already hooked on Zoloft, Lexapro or Prozac.

Needing to make another visa run, I will head to Taipei in ten days. Hopefully, I won’t be stuck in Taiwan should war break out. If a Dongfeng hits me between the eyes, I will have deserved it. Though I’ve checked out prices for Kinmen Islands, I’ll probably play it safest, so won’t stray far from Ximen and Zhongzheng. You don’t know what any place is like, though, until you hit the ground. There are always surprises, mostly pleasant.

Still in Vung Tau, I sketch. The big news in Vietnam is Typhoon Yagi. At a sidewalk coffee stand this morning, I chattered with its proprietor and a street sweeper. For breakfast, they shared a homemade ball of sticky rice with peanuts.

Sweeper, “This morning at Front Beach, I met a woman who was crying over what happened in her home province. What suffering! Oh, that boy with a broken arm! It took ten people to dig him out! Poor thing.”

As noun, adjective or verb, khổ means suffering, causing suffering or enduring suffering. It can even be used jocularly, as in, “I hear you, I suffer much, you do go on.”

Poor thing is a terrible translation. Tội, you see, means pity, sin or guilty. Even one most deserving of pity is being punished by Mr. Sky for his catalogue of sins or, simply, for being alive.

“What’s odd to me is what happened in Lào Cai,” I said. “It’s way up in the mountains. If you’re along the coast, yes, you’re affected, but way up in the mountains?” Forty-one landslide victims have been recovered. The final death count will be several times that.

From Vĩnh Long in the Mekong Delta, the street sweeper had no notions of Lào Cai.

“It’s right across from China,” I continued. “Chinese would come over for day trips, then Covid came, so suddenly, no business. Now this.” Then, “During the war with China, the entire city had to be abandoned, for several years! There were too many landmines planted. It’s just one thing after another, in Lào Cai.”

She may not have heard about that war against China 46 years ago. She has her mind full just taking care of her husband, children and sweeping so much garbage and fallen leaves daily.

She makes about $265 a month. No one breathes down her neck constantly to keep moving, however. The most miserable workers are those on assembly lines. Men aren’t machines.

“What’s wrong with your legs?”

“I have diabetes,” my own diagnosis. “They looked much worse last year.”

“You should take pills. They don’t cost that much.”

“I don’t like pills or doctors. Avoiding certain foods, I’ve gotten much better.”

“Eat mango. I’d buy three kilos at a time.”

“But it’s so sweet.”

“It’s not that sweet.”

“You know what’s really toxic? MSG!”

“I can’t eat without MSG! I put it into everything.” The Vietnamese word for it sounds so innocent, bột ngọt [sweet powder].

The coffee seller jumped in, “My father ate so much sweet powder and was fine! He only got sick at age 77, then died a year later.”

She’s from Thanh Hoá, way up north. The more prosperous South attracts many migrants. Don’t confuse it with illegal immigrants.

Coffee seller, “On TV there was a woman who had lost all her pigs, chickens and ducks. She was sobbing and sobbing.”

Street sweeper, “Poor thing.”

Also pitiful are the sellers of mooncakes. Six cheerful stands were set up near my room 16 days ago. Walking by them constantly, I haven’t seen a single purchase! With Mid-Autumn Festival just four days away, the slow sale of these cakes is even in the news.

Yesterday, I saw a thin, old woman kneeling on cement, praying frantically for minutes while pleading with the sky. Front Beach facing her was filled with frolicking swimmers, as usual. Within sight was an older man massaging his arms. After she finally left, a dozen women showed up to rehearse a fan dance. Preoccupied with petty matters, it didn’t occur to me that desperate woman likely had relatives missing from the typhoon or landslides.

In Taiwan, it will be difficult to chatter or overhear, so I’ll ogle, mostly. Fresh sights are always stimulating.

One’s native language is more than enough for most people. Yesterday, I did talk to a Chinese Vietnamese whose daughter who picked up Dutch while getting her master’s degree in the Netherlands. Now, she’s teaching in English in Ireland. She’s also fluent in Chinese, and conversational in Japanese and French. With her native Vietnamese, that’s six languages.

Her dad, though, mispronounced Ireland as Iceland. He’s never been outside Vietnam. He only came close once.

“I was in the army, but they kicked me out before we fought Pol Pot, because I was Chinese!”

“You lucked out! So many died. Even now, we don’t know how many.” Then, “You should visit your daughter in Europe. You can’t tell how amazing it is from looking at photos.”

“Maybe when she gets married.” She has an Irish boyfriend.

Since he won’t even take a quick trip to Cambodia or Laos, I doubt he’ll fly all the way to Dublin. Each morning, he sits across from the cafe on General Uprising. He’s content to see and faintly hear us while sipping his coffee. His suspicious dog usually lies beneath his heavy wooden chair. If prone to hyperboles, I would have typed “throne” or “throne like.”

This used laptop I’m renting from him while he fixes my old one. Though it’s driving me a bit crazy, I must keep things in perspective. Right in front of you, others are suffering.

In Vietnam, your punctured tire can be fixed immediately by some guy on the sidewalk with his vintage air compressor. If business is too slow, he might be tempted to scatter a few tacks a block away. No man can stand seeing his kids hungry.

At one such business, a woman in her 50’s stopped this morning to curse out the man, “Fuck your mother! People may be afraid of you, but I’m not afraid of you! Fuck your mother!”

Hearing much worse many times, he kept eating his sticky rice, with meat floss and pork roll even. Her screaming didn’t even last 30 seconds.

Nguyễn Du, “Người còn thì của hãy còn.” If you still have your body, you still have everything. Spoken by a madame to a whore, it’s still applicable to us all. Simone Weil also said that if you’re not in physical pain, you should be happy.

Let’s end, then, with four gorgeous lines by Wallace Stevens:

The bareness of the house returns.
An acid sunlight fills the halls.

Before, before. Blood smears the oaks.
A soldier stalks before my door.