Where am I going? Who have I been?

You ever start a story, having it already full-born in your
head, and you think to yourself, all that I need to do is listen to my brain,
and I’ll be okay. Except when you get to
the story, when you actually start writing down the words, it turns out that
the story is garbage. Its like your
brain has put on beer goggles and is desperately trying to feel up any story or
idea it sees.

It is convinced that it is infallible, and everything it
does is brilliant, deep and insightful. 

My brain does that to me all the time. I won’t pretend like we’re part of the same
being. It’s clear that we’re not. We
fight altogether too often for us to be together. If we were married, we would be separated
(though not divorced, because we wouldn’t know what to do with children). My brain keeps writing checks that the rest
of me can’t and doesn’t want to keep.

Take for instance today. Before sitting down to this keyboard, I swear I had this great idea for
a story that could be both funny, moving and poignant. All of the ingredients are there. I just know they are. I’ve got the equipment ready, the oil is
heated, and all I need to do is add some nouns, verbs, adjectives and (God
forefend) adverbs and I should be cooking.

But it’s not going like that. I’m freezing up, and when I get anything on
the screen, it looks like something my English students would turn in for an
assignment. My brain is disgusted.

The rest of me is too.

You can rest now, Philip.

This is a disclaimer.

It sits at the top of the page.  A disclaimer disclaims.  It tells you what not to assume about the contents of what you are about to see. 

I am disclaiming that I understand how these things are important, how they fit. 

But I do however claim that they are in fact important.

******

Half of Ho Chi Minh City is on vacation this morning.  The power is out throughout half of district one, the heart of the city.  Even my office is without power, but for a different reason.

It burned last night. 

That isn’t the beginning though.

Today is Thursday.  Yesterday was Wednesday, and on Wednesdays, much like on most Thursdays and Tuesdays, you will find me in my office reading the newspaper.  That is my job.  I sit and read the newspaper and occassionally take time from my busy reading schedule to write articles of no-great import on the tourism and travel industry in south-east Asia. 

Having worked there for four months, I realized about three and a half months ago that there isn’t that much to write about in the tourism and travel agency.  My stories can be summed up in three words, New.  Hotel.  Opening. 

My writing tries to be informative and inviting, without being simpering.

It actually turns out dry, like a roast left too long in the oven.

My director is leaving, and has been leaving from before my joining the company.  He should’ve told me that fact before I was hired.  He didn’t.  I staed anyway, and so, I sat reading the paper, believing that I’m doing a poor job.  I’m counting the days until I am fired.

At five pm, my director, and the general director of the company worldwide called me in for a meeting.  I tensed up. This was it.  My ass was gone. Instead, it was a meeting about my work for the next four months, complimenting on what I’ve done so far, and that

I should go to Myanmar soon to meet with the other regional directors. 

I felt sick.

I didn’t get sick though.  I ran out of my office, late for a teaching class because of the meeting.  Because I haven’t told my company that I’m still teaching because they frown upon it, frown upon me splitting my newspaper reading time with my English teaching time.

I arrive for my class late.  Taught for two hours, and realized that I’d left my mp player at the office.  I returned to get it, only to find the roads blocked on all sides.  I parked a couple blocks away and investigated on foot.

Upon arrival, I found billows of smoke issuing forth from the my office building.  People were sitting around the building, smoking and looking unconcerned.  None of my co-workers were in evidence, I figured that my mp3 player would probably not get stolen that night.  Nobody seemed to concerned.

The tallest building in Vietnam continued to burn.

I hadn’t been to trivia night for a while, so I went, and in the middle of it, I received a phone call from my mother.  My cousin told me that my mother had gone to the hospital, and was on an IV drip.

Now normally, this would be a big deal.  This past Saturday morning, a co-worker’s mother told her daughter that she was feeling faint, and in the afternoon, her mother was dead.  So this was not a "normally" moment.  I should have worried more, but I worried less.   I told my cousin that I was teaching and I would be there as soon as I can, and turned around to continue with quiz night.

Am I a monster?  Probably.  Most assuredly.  My only defense is that sometimes actions and events can reach such a volume that nothing seems real anymore.  That the concrete details that surround us in our daily feel more like the arbitrary decisions of an inferior being, myself. 

My team went on to win the trivia competition.  I won a bottle of wine. I went to see my mother, who had just left the hospital.  I met her at home.  She was weak, but okay. 

She told me not to tell my brother, so I just e-mailed him to say that he should call Mom and that it was very important.

I was still feeling sick.

******

I didn’t have to work this morning.  The office smelled like smoke, the air was wet and the foundations were warped.  The office was twisted with the smell of smoke and the humidity of the air and the warp of the floorboards. 

So I left the office, visited my mother, and sat out on the street with half of Ho Chi Minh City to watch the world pass us by.

Ahimsa is something I struggle with.  It is the Buddhist belief that the intention behind an action is just as important as the action itself. 

For example, killing you without malice is the same thing as wishing you were dead.

Yesterday, I hurt someone I don’t care about, never cared about, and now will definitely never care about.  The act  itself was simply without malice.  Yet, the person was hurt.  I know this from the messages that I received, that flew over the rainbow and across the ether and landed squarely on my cellphone screen.

There was a time when I felt the wounds and the pain of every stranger as keenly as my own. watching a television show with terminally ill patients, I would point out to my friends and say, "As I’m talking, those people are already dead."  A part of me would die with them, guiding them on the journey from this world to the next. I felt that the world was full of victims that needed protecting, and I was one of the guardians they could trust.

So yesterday, I instead just shrugged, and deleted the messages.  I think about repeating and continuing the action that injured that person on the other end of the sky.  I don’t know.  It felt good before, and probably will feel good again.

I didn’t and don’t mean to hurt her.  But I probably will, and I probably won’t care.

I guess I’m just getting older.

I’m sure I’m misremembering this story, but it’s fun to tell, nonetheless.

**************

Durians, the stinky fruit.
I hate them.  Well their smell at least.  In Vietnam, Northern
people hate Durians and Southerners love the stuff.  You can tell
when and were someone was born by their taste in fruit.

In my own family, this
rule applies.  My father and aunt were born int he north, and so hate
it.  Whereas my mother who was born in Saigon loves the stuff.  She
also loved my Dad too though, so when she had cravings, she would be
careful to eat the durian in the kitchen late at night when everyone
else in the house was asleep.  With the lights turned off. 

Singaporeans are also big
fans of the stinky fruit.  When I lived in Switzerland, I worked with
a couple of Singaporeans.  One day, on a walk around the local (and
only) Asian grocery store in town, I found a single durian for sale
at the outraageous price of 30USD.  I would like to say that I had
bought it because I thought that my friends and co-workers would
enjoy it, but the way things turned out, I’m not so sure I was that
altruistic.  30 USD is a lot of money after all.

So I got to my office, on
the 5th floor of a Swiss bank no less, and displayed my durian to the
whole office.  We workeed in a "war room" format back then,
which meant that the 40 of us had no privacy.  We just worked on long
wooden tables that tend to remind you of your high school cafeteria.

So, I held the durian
above my head and said, "Look what I have."  The
Singaporeans eyes lit up in greed and anticipation.  Someone who also
took notice was my friend Andy, who had spent some time in the far
East.  He knew full well of the full destructive potential of a fully
operational durian.  As quickly as my Singaporean friends moved
(think greased pig), Andy was faster. 

He jumped up, grabbed the
durian, and shot out the door.  The Singaporeans followed soon after.
I just shrugged, and figured my good deed of the day was done.

About half an hour later,
I was up on the 6th floor, the top floor of our building in a
meeting.  As I am wont to do, I spent most of my time and all of my
concentration on the clouds outside my window.  Out of the corner of
my eye, the door to the roof of the adjacent building shot open, and
out ran Andy with the Durian.  The four Singaporeans were close
behind.

Like out of a Jackie Chan
movie, they soon had him cornered on a rooftop, retrieved the errant
durian, and ate it on the spot, right there on the roof.

As some of you may know (or have suspected), I was recently in America for a short time.  I didn’t get to see anyone, spending all of my time at home.  My nephew doesn’t have much time left. 

As I write this, I find myself wanting to use the past tense, when referring to my nephew.  He’s still alive.  I keep telling myself this, but my relationship with him is finished.  He’s in a state now where he barely takes much notice of the people around him, let alone those of us a phone call or an instant messenger away. 

He’s in an incredible amount of pain right now.

While I was home, I spent time with him.  A lot when compared to the amount of time he has left.  Compared to the time the drugs allow him consciousness, but in the grand scheme of things.  Compared to the length of a full and fulfilling life, I spent no time there at all.

I tried to make him laugh, and more times than not, it involved me telling stories. Food stories.  He even had one or two of his own to add.

****
On my way to the airport, I found a box of my business cards, the ones that I took with me to Japan, but forgot to bring with to Vietnam.  I have them with me now.  The ones that label me "Storyteller."

A couple years ago, before leaving the US and
going abroad, I had made a tour around the east coast of America.  I
went to Toronto for a wedding, Boston to visit with college friends,
NYC for my best friend from high school, and a close friend from
California, Miami for another college friend, London for old work
friends, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

I went to Raleigh because of family.  I first wrote about it here.

What
I wrote before detailed how I found out about the poor guy.  Since
then, he’d made a full recovery by the summer of 2006 was running
around with a full head of hair, a dog, and absolutely no cancer.
That’s what the doctors told us, anyway.

He
had osteosarcoma, a tricky sort of cancer that attacks the bones, and
can travel all around the body.  We had thought we were finished with
cancer.  When we found out about Phillip, it was just a couple months
after we had buried my father, from lung cancer.

And now, the lung cancer is back.  Last night after driving Vivi home, I received this e-mail. 

Not having
children yet, I love all my nephews and nieces like my children.
Though a lot of them feel like I’ve abandoned them with my travels, I
hope they realize that they’re never far from my thoughts.

Phillip
is my third nephew.  He was born after Liz and Joe, and I remember
thinking that I’d adopt him.  Liz and Joe at that point were already
much like my children anyway, and I like to take credit for any
mistakes they have or will make with their lives.  As a result of me
wanting to adopt Phillip, I think his parents were very careful to keep
him away from me.

Which didn’t work very well. We’re both very
rambunctious, and enjoy a good ninja tail.  So when he had gotten sick,
I made it a point to sit on the internet and chat with him when I
could.  He’d be disappointed on days when I couldn’t chat with him.
He’d be disappointed when I would interrupt our conversations to do
"renshu" or training, as they say in Japanese.  I would often stop and
do pushups or go run a mile or so during those days.

And when I
went on my travels, he was jealous, and then he got a dog, and he
forgot about me.  And he got healthy and he didn’t care about me
anymore.  And now, he’s in a hospital, undergoing surgery and I’m stuck
over here.

************

This morning, I sat and watched a
little of Grey’s Anatomy with my roommate, and we talked about DNRs (Do
Not Resuscitate), etc.  I forget what in the show triggered it, but
Karlie took the moment to tell me that her aunt had been in a coma for
a week.  She told me it felt a little unreal, and she was powerless to
do anything.  One of our friends lost his father last week, and had to
go up to Hanoi to take care of his mother, and the funeral.

Take care of your loved ones, friends.

Me and the party people were sitting around at our friend Jan’s place last night, playing board games.  We dipped our big toe into the world of Pictionary after stealing/scarfing down her left over lasagna, and we found that it was pretty cold.  The game dynamics of Pictionary did not suit us at all.  Not one iota.

So instead, we played some Scattegories.

Early on in the night, a couple of us were talking about the election returns, when it dawned on me that not everyone in the room was a Democrat.  Or as I like to say a Progressive.  I like progress and moving forward.  Those other people, not so much, me thinks.  But this is my own unfair and personal bias.

Turns out that Jan is a Republican.  She leans a little to the right, so we decided not to talk politics.

A little later, in the midst of our Scattegories gaming, I remember that there’s this question I’ve been dying to ask Jan.  She works at the consulate, and as a result has a cushy cushy apartment.  I ask her, how many times do people try to bribe her, and what happens to them in general.  We talk about it for a bit, and its interesting, and the conversation drifts as conversations are wont to do.

This one drifts over to Welfare fraud by Vietnamese people in America. It happens a lot.  I don’t know if the Vietnamese do it more than other minority ethnic groups, but I doubt that there are any groups that do it more.  We talk about how funny and wrong it is, and how members of my own family engage in it also.  I don’t condone it, but I can’t do anything to stop it either.

And here’s the kicker.

At this point, Jan said, "That’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans.  We Republicans believe in paying our taxes."

Which is a bunch of horsecrap.

It’s Jan’s apartment, and I’m sure she didn’t realize how sanctimonious she sounded.  "I’m sorry, but Democrats believe in paying taxes too.  I think you’re being unfair by saying that."

I could’ve said more.  I should’ve maybe said more, but I decided against it.

But I wonder, is that the popular Republican view of Dems?  That we just build the Welfare system up so we don’t have to pay taxes?

My opinion of Republicans is that they are either freedom lovers going so far as to taking away other people’s freedom’s to protect their own, or religious nut jobs going out of their way to convert people to their own specific brand of Christianity.  It’s not to say that I know very many of either, and most Republicans I know are reasonable people.

This is all heresy, but in this case, I cannot help but feel like Jan’s opinion of me was based wholly on her perception of me as a Democrat.  That I, unlike her, don’t believe in paying taxes.  I guess behind my innocuous exterior  beats the heart of a tax evader not seen on this earth since the time of Al Capone.

Since then, I have been thinking about what I could have said, or what I should have said, if only to make sure that I don’t commit the same error, and that if I encounter other people doing the same, that I make them see the error of their ways and persuade them to be a little more even handed in their application of stereotypes. 

I haven’t been able to come up with a good answer.

I so would sneak this graph into one of my presentations…

Peter was one of the coolest guys I met while traveling in Europe.
He’s a former architecture student, future eco-warrior.  We worked on
rennovating an old Japanese farmhouse together, and spent a lot of time
bitching about the laziness of the owners.  He spent most of this past
year in Sri Lanka, working on his degree on Sustainable Development.

He was the guy who introduced me to Permaculture, which according to
Wikipedia is, "a design system which aims to create sustainable
habitats by following nature’s patterns ."
In English that means, for every problem caused by nature (i.e. pest,
drought, etc.), nature has already provided a solution for it somewhere.

You’ve got a problem with field mice in your, um, field?  The
Permaculture solution for that would be to attract some owls to your
farm using an owl box.  (which btw, an owl box is just like a big box
you hang/set on a high tree.)

Too many mosquitos around your pond?  Try to get frogs or fish in
there to eat the mosquito larvae before they hatch.  Or, if it’s a
really big problem, try to get some bats to move into the area.  In
HCMC, the nights are filled with bats as they clear the skies of those
dirty little insects.  A bat will eat 3000 mosquitos in a given night.
In ONE GIVEN NIGHT.  (The appropriate technology solution would be to
use some yeast, sugar and an empty 2 liter soda bottle to build a
mosquito trap).

Permaculture largely depends on using biological agents to solve local ecological/agricultural problems.

Now, I present to you today’s problem.

New Delhi has a monkey problem.  A bad monkey problem.  Monkeys from
neighboring areas apparently hitchhike on trains and buses in the city
and create chaos for Dehli’s innocent citizens.  I guess they ride
around, call people rude names, pick people’s pockets and play their
new-fangled rock’n'roll music REAL LOUD.

And the Permaculture solution?  You got a mosquito problem, you get bats, fish or frogs.  You got a mouse problem, you get owls.

And a monkey problem?  You get BIGGER MONKEYS.

Link: NEW DELHI, India - They say it takes a thief to catch a thief, but
India’s Delhi Metro has hired a monkey to frighten off other monkeys
from boarding trains and upsetting passengers.

Link: …. it’s no surprise to find government
buildings overrun with monkeys.  But the officials who work there are fed up. They’ve been bitten, robbed and
otherwise tormented by monkeys that ransack files, bring down power lines,
screech at visitors and bang on office windows.