Western Ultimate Bliss
[Vung Tau, 9/13/24]
Buddhism has three main branches. Most Vietnamese belong to the Mahayana School. To them, the Land of Pure Bliss, or heaven, if you will, is in the West. Eating lunch at a regrettable vegetarian buffet yesterday, I was reminded of this. At the far end was an altar with five statues. Above them was this plea, “AMITABHA / LET ME RETURN TO THE WESTERN ULTIMATE BLISS.” West of this suffering realm is paradise lost.
Since Vietnam is at the edge Asia, just about everywhere else is West, including Sri Lanka. Stay with me, I know where I’m going.
I have a good American friend who’s been in Vietnam nearly 17 years. Though his Vietnamese is still shaky, he’s learning more each day. Whenever we talk, I teach him new words and phrases. “Đếch cần,” for example, is a colloquialism meaning, “I don’t need it,” but with “fuck off” implied. It’s very useful.
My friend, let’s call him James, has no desire to return to California. He had enough of it even before Gavin Newsom was installed. At age 59, James can see himself in that dragon decorated hearse that looks like a temple on wheels, but first, he wouldn’t mind a stable home life, with a wife to share nearly every meal with. His fondness for Saigon Beer can even be satisfied at home, most nights. Leaning against each other on a couch, they can watch Hellbound Village together. Tết ở làng địa ngục is Vietnam’s favorite Netflix series. In this cursed village, innocents are routinely killed most savagely. Everything here is a horrific omen.
After dating a Vietnamese woman for several years, he proposed to her in 2020, but, to his surprise, she said, “Let me think about this.” Weeks later, she fessed up. There’s a Sri Lankan who had also proposed. Unlike James, though, he’s willing to take her West. He also boasted of having residency in Australia.
“So your girlfriend was also sleeping with this guy?”
“She wasn’t really my girlfriend, just a friend with benefit.”
“But you loved her enough to propose!”
“Yes, I have feelings for her.”
“You did everything right, but she turned you down.”
After saying adios, this woman of 32 disappeared. To James’ surprise, she showed up again in Saigon just two years later.
“He may have lied about how much money he had,” I suggested, “or even his residency in Australia. So many things could have gone wrong. Have you been to India?”
“No.”
“It’s a lot dirtier than Vietnam, and a lot crazier. I mean, it’s exciting to be there, at first, but it’s too much for most people. I hear Sri Lanka is better, but still. Suddenly, she’s in Colombo, which isn’t as nice as Saigon. She knows nobody, can’t eat the food, and she’s fucking a guy she doesn’t love.”
“His wiener doesn’t even work.”
“Huh?!”
“His dick, it doesn’t work, and the guy’s a vegetarian. He won’t eat her out. He doesn’t like the smell of fish sauce.”
“Fuck, man, you lost your girlfriend to a Sri Lankan who couldn’t even fuck.”
“That happened after they got married.”
“His dick didn’t just stop! It was already feeble.”
“He still wanted her. He showed up in Saigon, so they stayed in a hotel. He traveled like a backpacker, so didn’t bring enough clothing.” James cracked up. “He borrowed one of her dresses!”
“This guy’s a total loser! That’s who you lost your girlfriend to!”
“I’m going to commit harakiri right now.”
“But you still want her.”
“We’ve bought two pieces of land together.”
“She’s what, 36 now?”
“An old maid.”
Done with this cross dressing Sri Lankan eunuch who won’t muff dive, she still won’t say “I do” to James because, most likely, he won’t take her West. At least her knowledge of the world has expanded. Even now, she might not be able to find Sri Lanka on a map. Though more affected by distant countries, most people’s grasp of geography has shrunk. Of course, they want you as stupid as possible. Sensible folks don’t support open borders, war against Russia, Gaza genocide or “boosters.”
There are so many tragicomic tales of brides from Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Colombia, Romania and Ukraine, etc. Since First World wages sound heavenly, they will keep coming.
In Vietnam, an unskilled manual laborer who must work his or her ass off, often in extreme hear, makes only $163 a month, with some paid just $122. A street sweeper makes $265. Most desperate are itinerant sellers of lottery tickets. Competing against each other, they must sell 250 just to pocket ten bucks. That’s why they shamelessly nag all day long. Those overly madeup and suggestively dressed are selling instant winners. Their asking price for a full service, room included, is just $20, or $12 for those older or not so pleasant to behold. Such affordability is humane. Penny pinching manual laborers must cuddle also.
Vung Tau’s most unusual resident is Robert Taylor. Born in 1948, this English engineer came here for work in 1989. Nine years later, Taylor married a Vietnamese woman. Intending to stay here permanently, he had a gorgeous house built on a hill. He also fixed a large building to store his world class collection of weapons and military uniforms. Before this private museum could be open to the public in 2012, his wife didn’t just file for divorce, but sold all their properties. Although her life had become opulent, it wasn’t Western Ultimate Bliss, so screw Taylor.
Undeterred, Taylor married a second local in 2015. Together, they’re managing the Robert Taylor’s Museum of Worldwide Arms. This gem makes Taylor Vung Tau’s finest resident, I’d say. Now 78, he still shows up each morning to make sure everything’s running smoothly.
Having traveled the world, Taylor had to settle in this Vietnamese city. He owes it a love debt, duyên nợ, which won’t be paid up until he’s merged with its soil. Though his being grounded here was entirely unexpected, it must have felt predestined.
Back in California after his first four years in Vietnam, James missed it so much he sobbed often. Even without a wife, he’s now home.
[Vung Tau, 9/16/24]
[Vung Tau, 9/6/24]
[Vung Tau, 9/13/24]
[“LET ME RETURN TO THE WESTERN ULTIMATE BLISS” at Liên Thọ Vegetarian Buffet in Vung Tau, 9/15/24]
Interesting story about James. So he moved to Vietnam when he was 42? That sure is a dangerous age. In 1997, age 43, I flew to Bangkok for a 3-week vacation. I spoke a little Thai from a previous life there, which was key. Within a week I had met a 17-year-old (she told me she was 19) who was not only hot but also seemed to have some good qualities. I proposed on Day 4, absolute insanity. Indeed she thought I was a little crazy, but my ace in the hole was that she wanted to leave Thailand. I insisted on meeting her family and we went up the ladder: niece, brother, and finally her mother and extended family in the village (dad was dead) near the Mekong. We did the traditional Thai marriage there. For face I had to give her mother $1,000 so she could show the other villagers, but as agreed she returned it to me secretly the next day. Good thing too as that was pretty much all I had. Guess that was a good sign.
The next year I got her back to the US on a fiancee visa. The reaction among my meager social circle was shellshock: one woman called me a child molester. Everybody predicted disaster and there have been a few close calls but we are still together today and have two great grown kids. Lots of jokes, lots of stares but you get used to it. Almost all the old-guy-young-chick car crashes, as far as I can tell, are caused by money issues. As a working stiff I never had much but she is a very hard worker (I'm retired now) and of course sends money home (an Asian reality) but her main focus is her children, which is the same nice unselfish quality I spotted back in 1997. Right this moment she's working a 10-hour shift at an auto plant while I watch YouTube videos and write this. Not a bad deal.
She won't go back to Thailand to live. I pitched the idea to her when I retired but it was an absolute no go. She intimated that we wouldn't have high status there because everybody would expect us to be rich, and we're not. My Johnson works fine BTW.
In my late-fifties now, I sometimes think I should hop on this Asian bride opportunity while my johnson still works. Horror stories, though, I have heard a few about Philippine brides essentially allowing their families and extended families to borrow liberally and endlessly from their soon-to-be-no-longer-rich Western husband. Head over to sugarbabies.co and it's hard not to despair of relationships altogether. Sure I'm lonely, but do I really want one of these creatures in my home? A guy would count himself lucky to be merely robbed by her.
The female of the species is more deadly than the male. From the Nico wikipedia page:
'Nico's friend Danny Fields, the American journalist who helped her sign to Elektra Records, described her as "Nazi-esque", saying, "Every once in a while there'd be something about Jews and I'd be, 'But Nico, I'm Jewish,' and she was like 'Yes, yes, I don't mean you.'" According to Fields, in the early 1970s, Nico attacked a mixed-race woman at the Chelsea Hotel with a smashed wine glass, sticking it in her eye while saying, "I hate black people." Island Records dropped Nico after she told an interviewer that she did not like "Negroes" and that they had "features like animals". Nico said she had been raped at the age of thirteen by a black American soldier who had been court-martialed and executed; the biographer Richard Witts could find no record of this, even when similar incidents were "assiduously documented". According to Witts, Nico had misogynistic tendencies, describing women as poison.'
Male misogynists are a dime a dozen, but I always sit up when a female misogynist chimes in. Somehow I suspect they have a story to tell worth hearing.