Strange Trip

I should probably post more here, eh?

Feeling barren, I open the tap of life to let a story come, and I become swamped in endless floodwaters.

Sometimes I stop and consider, ‘what a long strange trip it’s been’. This is a pleasant thought, not least because the phrase is a lyric in Truckin’ from the Grateful Dead, which is quite a nice song. Here’s that nice number.

At the beginning of 2019, and before for that matter, I declared I needed changes. And changes I begot this year. I look at my feet, and I notice I am waring sandals in December. It was a rather warm day – much more so than last week, but I find I am also in Hanoi, thousands of miles, and slightly more thousands kms from home (where December means bare skin goes in the box for the winter), and no direction home.

I’m also waring a fairly nice pair of pants and shirt. Like 90% of the anglophone, whom I often catch in hair of the dog and canine of the cannabis mode on my daily sojourns (we’ll return to dog sports later), I’ve taken the practical line of teaching English to earn my keep, although my one male Vietnamese colleague at the school, I recently discovered, frequently sports a t-shirt. I suppose he’s also waring ski boots.

               Here am I. When modern tech does me some good, I am wont to remind myself that most of the operations that were done for me digitally likely could have been done through talking to people, at least when that was socially acceptable, which it probably is. Whatever.

Apps on my phone have uncovered little treasures in my neighborhood of late. First is a little Jazz bar less than 9 minutes of un-strenuous walking from my apt. With a brief break from work in play, I followed the directions, and poof! Actually, I was, I figured, almost right in front of the place, though I could see it was rather dark and quiet. Plus, a dog was barking at me (*). Not great signs when combined.

After confirming the address with a passerby, I got the attention of an employee at the bar, and was escorted to a table, where Jon, the South African-born proprietor sat. Sporting an air of George Harrison and of Tommy Chong in his voice, Jon, (who I would discover is one of the most notable virtuoso Jazz guit-fiddlers around here) introduced me to his musical collaborator for the night, Russian via Chicago (with touches of Brazil) singer Lidia. I was also introduced to Rosy the golden retriever, the one that barked at me, who was already contritely leaning on my leg and receiving itches. Rosy’s not barked at me from then on, although I don’t think I’m the only man in her life. Barking, even from a friendly dog is not surprising from my end around here. Sadly, my cane surely resembles something dog’s I’ve encountered have been struck or threatened with. Rosy’s the first dog I’ve had the pleasure of getting to schmooze with round about Hanoi. There’s evidently a lack of Jewish dogs.

               Since then I’ve attended several jams and open mics, and have increasingly engrossed myself in the ex-pat dominated Tay Ho music scene. All I had to do is type in Jazz on an app on my phone, and well – I did ask about places before hand – oh well. Human contact is becoming obsolete, which is why we have dogs.

--Speaking of Language--

               Sadly, it seems only a small minority of folks in the expat land either understand or hope to understand the predominate language of their host country. I realize that most can read English labels and menus, view objects they want from a distance, find locations they seek with their eyes from down a crowded alley, yatta yatta. Things I rely on language to do. Seems like a nice thing would be to learn Tinh Viet.

It is a fairly interesting bunch, this expat crowd. Many Irish, British, and especially South African folk have shown up lately. Unlike in previous, less settled sojourns to Vietnam in 2012 and 2016, I’ve not knowingly seen Canadians yet, but I have not just spotted, but befriended a U.S. American. Similarly, I recently purchased a guitar from an English teacher from Mexico. He seemed vastly fluent to say the least, although it appears a pretty vast array of non-anglophone nationalities are represented among the English-teaching set. The wandering Irish stoner, the Irish gamer, the fella that edited English content for Xin Hua, the Belarussian English teacher, the Dutch English (of course) teacher, the Latvian news editor, the trailing spouse from the states, the Singapore sax slinger, the Filipino fella that talked to me for a while… all you have more stories I’m sure. I should probably acquaint myself with this here country’s folk a bit more as well.

               Speaking of stories, after relocating to the cheap bottom floor apartment in my pencil-thin six-story building, I discovered I’m the only one in the structure not from South Africa. Even did some jamming with one. I’m on to them I tells ya. They can’t just come and run the country like it’s North South Africa, even though they’ve lived here much longer than I, and they’re mostly rather friendly.

               My head has stopped spinning for a moment, so I shall wind it up, and check in later.        

Beyond the Pale

There I am! Let’s try to get some word juices flowing, shall we? Three discoveries…

First unveiled item that I’ve learned over the past month is Vietnamese people that like Pizza often enjoy catchup atop said pizza, as opposed to a non-catchup alternative within the pie. In fact, one of only a couple knowing encounters with catchup I’ve made in the country has been pizza adjacent. Should this be held against me, I’m innocent of all concocted charges of provoking application of catchup on any and all pizza pies. K? Statutory plea of ‘it was like that when I got there’ necessary and applicable. Will my nephew now visit me? These two elements under discussion (catchup and pizza) are his two favorite things to this day. They correlate well with personal qualities, like an observed red tint in his hair (not present in either of his parents, who each have feathers), and general wholesomeness. I’m not sure if he’d be down for the two elements combining. Sounds like a major short circuit.

               Second pale veil/pell-mell – I came across and befriended a not yet stumbling, self-proclaimed drunken Irishman on a morning stroll along the lake. I never said anything about his inebriation or nationality, although I must say friendship in such cases needs to be founded more than once. I found the emerald gentleman in a similarly national and spirited state on Saturday. A benefit of having ebullient friends is they can take on the lion’s share of the charisma in social environments. You can lounge around in a nice pub with such a fella, and bare witness to how interesting attendees are drawn to your gab-enriched compadre’s magnetism, only to stay around for you, seeing as how you yourself are not simply a drunken Irishman. I am genuinely obliged, oh blarney-blessed one.         

               Third discovery of the past couple weeks comes from a native chum of the Ho Tay/West Lake area. I asked him if he ever sees or has seen waterfowl in the lake. What better fish to ask than a chum? He tells me that, while not anymore, when he was a kid just a couple decades ago, the lake was still plenteous with a bird called Sam Kam, meaning ginseng bird. I must assert that this name almost begs a person to hunt the so-named entity to extirpation. That’s why I advise linguistic engineers to begin calling greedy rich folks ‘acai-throated genital-enhancement leopards’. The Sam Kam is/was a seasonal species, migrating from China. It has been storied that the bird fattens up on ginseng in the mountains up north before coming to winter in Vietnam. The bird has apparently long been a favorite, and thus it is curious why it only recently got wiped out in the area. It’s not coveted everywhere however. In England the species is called the Eurasian Coot, and it is extraordinarily abundant in many urban and rural water bodies of Europe. Coots are small, duck-like relatives of cranes and rails that mainly eat aquatic vegetation and invertebrates. I’ve certainly heard hunters in the U.S. say American Coots are no good for eating, although I’m not sure if distaste vs taste for Sam Kam accounts for the birds’ ubiquity in some parts in contrast to others. The species is red-listed in Vietnam, and generally there are multiple reasons why species go into serious decline. It doesn’t take too big an imagination flex to suppose pressure from contemporary commerce, modern hunting gear, regional population growth, and/or food shortage could ramp up hunting to well above typical short-term prey resilience -- don’t know.

Some folks keep ducks around Ho Tay, although besides these penned domestics, and self-proclaimed drunken Irishmen, I’ve not encountered any waterfowl on or around the lake; though fish (harvested by some against warnings not to) are somewhat plentiful in spite of periodic mass death. I caught word on a blog a while back that piscivorous (fish-eating) mud herons can still be found around the nearby Son Hong/Red River. Perhaps they are nowadays really sustained with catchup pizza deliveries (pizzivorous), though they vigorously deny it naturally.

Doppelgangers

Similar niches get filled by what become -- through evolutionary processes – similar looking beings. This is an example of convergent evolution.

Something that leaves me with a modicum of optimism regarding my Tinh Viet acquisition is when the little ostensibly helpful things people tell me as I walk the street begin to register. The other day I managed to interpret it when someone told me when to cross the street, although the impulse the words left were slow to trickle down into the executive decision-making board chambers in my head. I also recently began to realize that there is a man who always tells me “rẽ trái” (or turn left), just before I turn left into the alley that leads to my home. I had been consistently turning left at the right time long prior to this discovery, but it’s good to know when I’m being spoken to I reckon. It is a bit like discovering I am not in fact an autonomous being – or perhaps that some are a wee skeptical of my autonomy; although the latter is old information really. Sorry gents. Xin loi.

Indeed, there were the same people in the U.S. where they were even less useful. Here I remain in a place of appreciation for people’s concern for my safety and livelihood so long as they are allowing me to move about freely. I’m more tolerant of certain things around here than I am in the U.S., including folks getting in my personal space -- and feel I need to be for several reasons, although of course I’d like people to respect my dignity and potential. In a land so new and a language not my own, it is nice to think I have thoughtful neighbors. Like I say, there are those people in the U.S. that give me unsolicited information about how I should move about. Usually the information is useless, plain and simple, but sometimes it can be downright dangerous – people telling me to cross a street when I know I shouldn’t for example. I am thinking it will be helpful to not hold the same disdain for these folks around here, especially as feelings of disdain should probably be kept to small portions for mental health reasons, and because I look like even more of an oddball than I do in the States. That is blind fellas dashing about town seem to be in smaller supply here abouts; plus, I’m mixed up in a surfeit of expats doing all the goofy things they do. One can get a bottle of Hanoi beer for less than $1 around here after all.   

All that said, I’m wondering if my choreography director friends here are similar in other respects. Perhaps in both Vietnam and the US, they share distinctions, like spots on the back, a tufted mane, a malar/moustachial stripe, etc. One doesn’t know what we really are after all. We’ll have to investigate. I’ve often thought of me as a slightly oversized sparrow with a cane in hand, walking down the street, interested watchers alit on powerlines with binoculars.

Indeed, I’ve not been entirely certain what to make of some of the folks that seem to speak to me on my walks home. Frequently I’m spoken to as I pass a small shop a stone’s throw from my door. I bought a bag of mutagen-laced salted sugar crunchies here after brushing against them with my shoulder one evening. I did so after first walking away empty handed, seeming to get some scornful words. I wanted to be a good neighbor and practice my purchasing powers. I don’t blame myself for that; and practicing my Vietnamese with new people feels a speck good, even after the messiest of interactions. The TESOL certificate classes I took online entreated us to encourage students to engage in these types of simple activity Afterall. The crunchy snacks, apparently with the most nutritionally depauperate of flour, was doused with substances designed to send one into a heavily refined spiral of sweet addiction and salty lethargic death without a dash of subtlety to trouble the mind. It might have been a bittersweet experience then if the bitter hadn’t been entirely swamped. I’d say it was worth it.

It’s that turn left guy though – maybe more than one -- who speaks other stuff to me I haven’t fully cogged. As I pass the shop, I hear him apparently address me in a tone that suggests “hey hoser! You gonna stop and buy some of my shit today or what? Turn left.”  

               I decided to humor my man again last evening by asking for some instant noodles. I’d consider it a success. I came away with noodles reasonably instantly, although I need to learn what the options were, and which one I actually settled on. I was slow to recognize it when the options were being actively listed by a woman, and pounced on the first I could repeat. I took two in fact, asserting my numerical Vietnamese abilities – better taste moderately satisfying. I am confident it will.

Some Reflection in the Mirror House

               Is it strange that I bethink myself a big sparrow walking around the city with a cane? When one is disabled, one isn’t allowed the privileges of being an adult human. Instead one is always a child in the world’s eye. At some point it is better to be a bird than a child. Either way, one is a free radical to be contained; something strange to be analyzed, then feared; and something to be disregarded in the congress of societal conception. Someone who has been disabled for a long time surely has evolved to eternalize this somehow, and that person’s behavior one way or another bares the mark of this reality. Even if there is abundant self-confidence, there is the reality of perpetual otherness and infantilization bestowed. One can see this in those in question in ways you mightn’t expect, including experienced reactions to the distinct treatment from the wider world – not reacting with violence to harassment and surprise grabbing for example. In such a world as this, as one navigates the mysterious voyage, the internal dialogue asks “how far have I crossed the line by assuming adulthood manors? Do I dare be so obdurate as to act the grown human bean? When should I take shelter?”

               Indeed, the world, art laissez-faire by design, does not intrinsically cater to the free radicle – the forced eternal infant. The disabled person thus feels like an uninvited guest everywhere. This commonly manifests in resolve, resilience, and adaptability of course – one is forced to shapeshift, shrug off, change colors, and grow stripes, spots, whiskers, and new tails, tail feathers and skin. These must always change as the child is constantly growing afresh. The traveling disabled person is a chameleon, but never the truly honored guest. Constantly in the lion’s den is the chameleon, who remains the chameleon with the clown nose and never really the lion. I’d rather have wings. It is hard to shrug off that child identity. I do notice I seem to have been around a long time. I don’t feel particularly young. In many respects I relate more to my adult colleagues than to my young students; but sometimes it is just the opposite. The crux is like that of the doll – the adult-form child among children.

               It is strange to be other, which is the exact crux. One is strange. “I am a strange loop” as Douglas Hofstadter says -- a strange froot – a strange froot loop. A strange loop is oneself -- a feedback loop generated by one’s ability to infinitely reflect upon one’s self everywhere, like in a house of mirrors. A strange froot loop though? Oddly, there are many such circular beings everywhere; and I’m not sure if I see my face in most of them. While we’re bouncing around – here’s a song.        

A quick bounce back to the beer thing I mentioned – it is a shame I’ve never been much of a beer guzzler -- at least not a gleeful one. Maybe I’ll understand the effectiveness of my messaging when Hanoi becomes flooded with Portlanders.

Xuan Dieu St. Muse

Oct 2, 2019

My snot-nosed news muse knows no noose.

               The Jewish High Holidays, and it is hard for me to get to a city less Jewish. I’m pretty sure parking your entire car, cloven tire treads and all, on a sidewalk isn’t kosher. In my first earshot exposure to an American dude in conversation here, I did get to catch one belting off Auschwitz and Holocaust denial shat next to me at a coffee shop last week. Of course that has to be the American feed I get. I couldn’t tell who he was talking to. His voice was the predominate one in volume and verbosity – surprise surprise. His premise must have been that this backwoods location near central Hanoi must be the perfect place to unleash those forbidden tidbits of knowledge he gleaned alongside millions of other disciples, from free-wheeling, renegade YouTube channels. The more unofficial the story, the better. And the more popular, the more effective. It’s political alt-pop. Not hard to get your hands on this crap if you’re interested.

Speaking of songs from the woodworks -- I’ve been listening to an old friend, Jethro Tull, much this past two weeks, including their phenomenal Minstrel in the Gallery album. Here’s a track. It breathes fire back into the musical aspect of the soul. Playing children’s songs, often as a dancing didactic music box, with three major chords on constant repeat, is a rather bounded universe. Luck be that I get an actual instrument to play, and no drum machines or brick-walling in my teaching. It’d be nice if I could pasteurize, say, a Living in the Past for the kidlums – a nice, up-beat song – and an opportunity to put my flute to work perhaps. Hmmm. I do “walk a” 1.6 km to “drink” their “water” no less. 

‘Kookaburra Sitting in the Old Gum Tree’ is a famous English language kids’ ditty from Australia I have almost no recollection of from my childhood. I can’t say if that’s me not growing up in a commonwealth country where kookaburra laughter is exchanged preferentially, alongside disaster aid and military policy compliance; or if it was drowned out in more memorable songs or what. It’s not a bad one, and it is about a bird, which suggests a gateway to things ornithological. I explained to the 4^th graders at my school how when they hear a monkey in a film or show, it is actually our new friend with feathers.  

This may be a coping mechanism for treating songs that don’t feel like they fit my style, but it helps to evoke the presence of a favorite musician when doing these kids numbers. It seems appropriate then to give ‘Kookaburra’ the voice of Ray Thomas, the recently late and already great co-vocalist and flutist of the Moody Blues, who after all regularly authored children-inspired tunes like “Another Morning” and “Nice to Be Here”, the Tim Leary themed “Legend of a Mind” and other impish diversions notwithstanding. Ray’s gentle, Westcountry-accented baritone bares some ease of access also. Nice to think I’m playing a Moodies number really. Hopefully the kids are getting something out of it besides laughs and pre-digested gumdrops.

Speaking of flute, music, and Jethro Tull, I had the good fortune to catch the great Ian Anderson perform in Portland a couple years ago. Sadly, his voice is nearly completely shot. The timbre sounded like it has for the past 30 years since he received throat surgery, which was fine; but his range was about a half an octave, and he struggled painfully to keep up with the vocal lines of most of his classic toons. Sad really. The demands of singing it all blow by blow on tour certainly mustn’t have helped. Of mixed results, though certainly preferable to hearing the old madman butcher things was the gimmick of piping in pre-recorded guest vocals accompanied by videos. What made the thing pleasurable was the combined fact of the guy’s legend, the inimitable genius of the songs, and that he’s still a fantastic musician, blistering on flute and acoustic guitar at will. His band, falling under his name in stead of Tull, meaning no Martin Barre, was un-slouchified as well, although Mr. Barre would’ve been nice. The tour rather than the band was given the Jethro Tull moniker.

Listening to Tull, I can’t help but draw an apparently unintuitive connection between them and Dire Straits. DS, in my mind, is closer bound with Americana, including J.J. Cale style country rock plus some Jazz touches. Tull on the other hand have been pegged with British symphonic and folk rock, although they’ve rarely shaken an urge to return to Cream-style blues/hard rock; thus, there are the shared Clapton influences. Touches of Jazz and country tiptoe their way into Tull music hither and thither, and there is Anderson’s and Barre’s duel guitar sound, including immaculate acoustic finger picking on the part of the madman I caught in concert. Indeed, DS’s Mark Nopfler has lavished praise on JT’s guitar work – surprise surprise. Anderson and Nopfler are also born Scotsman, with similar vocal aspects, at least in their prime – Anderson generally exhibits a more theatrical and gallant technique, but both use a sort of folksy, facetious undercurrent. We can bookend this by pointing out Mr. Nopfler’s Jewishness.   

P.S.        Things have gotten close to this vibe here in the 3^rd grade class, all be it not just under my watch. I was looking for a better Simpson’s clip though, like a longer one from this episode, or one from when Ned becomes principal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGSB7Ed9dQE .

               Any-who, the muse awakens a bit in my music mojo bag, though we’ll see where it gets me without a guitar.  

 

PPS, Happy belated Birthday to everyone, and see that I just posted something I wrote 11 days ago.

Walk and Talk

This bit is more than a week old, left for masticatory embellishment, which didn’t come to much – so here it be.

Sep 21, 2019

 

If you don’t walk, and you can, you should try it. It is one of my favorite things to do, but it is no passive sport for my likes – no walk in the park. This is true anywhere. It demands that I always be aware of my exact location, and who and what is there with me. Failure can mean going on the wrong path, but worse, and more commonly, it means triggering the deepest darkest fears of the sighted world. To see that a blind person is out on its own, and, oh so much worse, may lack certainty in its trajectory, is a nightmare worthy of the most piteous of wrath.

My inability to communicate extensively with local residents here doesn’t make it kilometers worse than the way things were in the Anglophony world. There I could expressively tell people to let go of me, and they would either ignore me, or swear at me before storming off. Here, I can’t do that beyond perhaps feebly attempting something that might sound like “no problem” … ok”, possibly making the situation worse.

So far, I’ve been mostly passive, with deference to the people that generally allowed me to go about my daily business, I’m happy to say. I suspect that many other blind people that have gathered the courage to assert themselves in life, also bare the cross of sensing that the world’s constant impulse is to have their pesky blind asses dragged off to where they can’t be seen. Surely an unblemished world full of truth, justice and equitability would proceed from there. Some day someone will have to make that tough but fair decision to lay down the law on these miss-folded, free-radicals of immortal sin.

“It is unpopular to say I know, but we are all thinking it” is what those sighted onlookers say. “I’m sorry honey, but we just can’t assist you every time your cane is about to touch the leg of a chair. I’m sure you’ll be much happier back where ever blind people come from.”

               When this one such caned person walks the street, thoughts often linger in the aftermath of having just been grabbed or pushed without warning. Round about here, it commonly happens with a particularly strong, unspeaking, and sometimes sharp-fingernailed hand. Coming down from this place is a principal challenge. So why do I say walking is one of my favorite things? I’m not totally certain, but there is the sense of accomplishment in the worst of times, and the urge to move against forces of stagnation.

Indeed, peace and calm should be a couple of the great merits of walking, and it doesn’t sound like they are for me, yes?

“So, explain yourself! Is it unnecessary torture?”

If I didn’t walk, you wouldn’t stop to ask. All the sights and sounds of the world at least conspire to make new experiences. I am on a journey to learn, so just as well. The alternative, to lock myself up, so as to not offend the simpler senses of reality bore by the great un-caned, is much more pitiful. I learned that in depths of depression in my life. They of the media also say that walking is healthy in ways that, if present only to help me fish for self-justification, make sense to me. Walking assists with the replenishment of neurons, memory, and calmness I read. I told you that 80 years ago, and you didn’t believe me, and I’ve been cuckoo as a pigeon since.

I do hope that I can encourage my fellow blind people in HN and VN to take the plunge, and walk about unassisted to the extent they can. It is one of those things that you lose if you don’t use. If no one sees a blind person walk outside, they will assume it can’t happen, and this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The busy streets are already not exactly red-carpets for any pedestrians, save for the lovely grand face of Hanoi around Hoan Kiem Lake. Tree plantings, lovely as they are, oddly consume the whole diameter of the other off-road walking spaces, obliging one to step onto the street to get around them. Where these aren’t present, surely in surplus are parked motorbikes, whole cars (nice parking job buddy), and seating areas belonging to the local eateries (luckily still often including the little Fisher Price-type plastic stools designed for one adult butt-cheek at a time). This is where “sidewalks” exist. On the nice streets where they abound, as near Ho Tay, or West Lake, regularly they terminate in an instance, replaced by salient buildings, descending stare-wells, or miscellaneous nothings. The pedestrian around here so often thus makes due with the shoulder of the street, where the honks and splashing of vehicles gives proof through the day and night they are not alone, much as an echolocating bat reminds a moth. It is not a first-class existence, but you manage. I’ve not been squished once, and I intend to preserve my 3-dimentionality as long as I’m around. People deserve to be able to move freely without vehicles everywhere on equal terms. I predict that at some point in the next couple decades Hanoi and many more major cities will go the way of other great tourist-ravaged urban centers like Barcelona, and greatly expand genuinely lovely pedestrian-exclusive, or car-free zones. There’s no better mutagen than tourism, as exemplified by the burger restaurants along the West Lake front near me, where aspiring pop-stars work their chops on soul-lite, Anglophony music, bereft of regional flavor or human provenance. It isn’t that bad really. Life goes on in a world where you are not squished. I am thankful for that life. Whatever keeps you out of a black hole can only keep you sane.

Actually, a pleasant facet of the sonic environment here is the infusion of certain lovely traditional instruments and melodies that locals continue to enjoy. The Dan Bao and Danh Thu for instance flourish in the melancholic tunes I hear coming through shop windows. The traditional instruments are slightly electrified, and sometimes placed on a synthesizer background, but they are alive and well. I’m thinking it’s not the Australians or Americans doing that. Those mates of ours are far from repenting for their demands that restaurants either play Justin Timberlake incessantly, or perfectly imitate him with another humanoid singing unit, and apparently to not take down the sign that says “Happy Wednesday!” Everyone around the world risks becoming a happy consumer of such things though, as they make their way on the shoulder of the Thorofare.

               Now to take on a week of teaching and learning. Hopefully I can find an uncaged bird or two singing along the way also. The trapping of wild songbirds remains an ish around here and in neighboring countries, extending beyond SE Asia. May we not be caged inside or squished on any surface.

 

     

Moondance -- Music Tastes Sweeter with Plain Black Tea

Sep 12-13, 2019

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! There is the booming voice of a young American dude on the phone filling up this café as I edit this entry.

One week down as a Thay, or teacher in Hanoi. Not only does the spot require me to be a chameleon, I have to be a one-man stage show, an author of children’s games, poems, songs and stories, and Raffi. Children as old as 11 poke and climb on me. It’s hard to say if I’m not just an exotic animal to them at this point. I’m not sure how much deep creative energy is utilized – it is a very formulaic, ad hoc business, but it is a mechanism of creation I’ve not utilized much I suppose. I’ve not been a musical ESL Teacher before after all.

There’s a singular odor Hanoi exudes. It’s pervasive where ever I dare tread, and it’s the smell of my sweat.

Last week a ceremony to kick off the new school year brought parents and kids alike to my little place of work on the premises of the Victory Hotel on Ho Tay. Perhaps as a reminder of my advanced 36 years, or of the youth of elementary school children’s parents, or of the fact I still live on the exact same planet, one father I conversed with complemented me on my given name, telling me that it is the name of his favorite character in Grand theft Auto. My own father introduced me to GTA about 20 years ago. I’m thinking this father I spoke to is not the same one from 20 years past; but there’s something remarkable about finding commonality so far from home. In places like the U.S., sometimes when we scrutinize our own culture, and admonish ourselves for eccentricities, excesses, and abjections, regularly rightfully, we exoticize others through idealization or simplification/essentialism. Indeed, children here have cognitive and behavioral disabilities in my school, not because American social engineers planted them hereabouts, but because the exact same types of human traits that normally show up in Connecticut and Oregon also tend to pop up here and everywhere else in the world. Same goes for blindness, sightedness, being a police officer, and chronic exposure to GTA syndrome, which I presume is heightened deference to people named Trevor. Lisa in Sweden informs me there is a Harry Potter character named Trevor also -- I’m going to get around to investigating this very soon.  

On a related note, I recall that someone in the U.S., upon hearing how I was going to go teach school children in Vietnam, told me of how kids in the country really respect their elders, and teacher’s in particular. I’d like to get some video footage of our 3^rd grade class from any time of day, and send it to him, begging him to account for his misinformation campaign. In deed it is true to say Vietnam’s extent Confucian tradition persists in its demand for reverence to elders, and celebration of learning and educators. But traditions are traditions, contemporary or not, and school time is traditionally a time of suffering for all parties when bucking broncos are brought in from prairie pasture. Much of my goal then is mitigation of suffering.

Moondance

Sep 13, 2019

Just the Same

               One thing that invokes some faith in humanity is the fact that there are awful people and dreadful behavior in plentitude everywhere you go. There are also tall people, kindly people, fat people, people that refuse to pick up after their dogs on the street, etc. The latter may just be American or Parisian expats though – I’m sure the trend is getting around, along with throwing KFC packaging on the ground for dogs to sniff and eat. People are people, although I admit I am always slightly surprised at how dogs across the world bark in pretty much the same dialect and accent (see someone in England who believes he can tell the county home of a dog by his or her bark for a different opinion).

               Another thing that happens in this brand new ancient city, just as elsewhere, is that I can walk for miles and miles (Kms and kms * 1.6), including trudging through puddles, rubble piles, up and down dozens of flights of stairs, and on the noisiest of streets, then encounter a befuddled Samaritan who springs into action upon seeing me approach a set of five steps. Yes, we got that in the U.S. too. Just like in the U.S., when I stop to greet English speakers with a “how’s it going” etc., the response is usually something in the key of “can I help you find some place?”

An admitted obstacle remains my very basic language skills. Many speak English somewhat in this part of town, but I know that once I can speak Vietnamese fluently, I will know what directions my fellow pedestrians are shouting to me on the street. If it is not something like “careful! Careful! Careful! ok, ok!” then I’d be happy to stop and investigate what they are selling.

Many internationals are here to teach English, whether it is something they aspired to do before they were well into adulthood or not. Many of the same people live much more comfortably here than they ever could in their home countries despite making less money. Now I know that unless I take a longer route home from the school each day, I will run into the same South African couple that I stopped and chatted with two days ago, sitting at a bar/coffee place across from the lake, fueling up on some beers before teaching their English, to adults I presume.

“Hey! Anglophones! How’s it going!”

“Can we help you get to some place?”

The convo took off from there.

               A propensity I’ve encountered in even the earliest of English language learners in Vietnam is their use of the departure phrase “see you again”. It’s unfamiliarity to me must account for the fact I forget it is no more meaningless and undeniable a phrase than “see you later”, or “see you next time”. But who is convincing Vietnamese folks that this is what we Anglophones say when we give our goodbyes?

When I bad farewell to my new South African expat mates/specters, the gentleman, who seemed to be in a sleeveless shirt, shook my hand, saying with utmost assuredness to my face, “see you again.”

Unflinching, my retort was a swift “later bro!”

On my way home from the market last night I heard a familiarly structured English line: “are you trying to get to some place in particular?”

It was an American accent. The oddest thing about this part of town is the American accents. I never heard them in Vietnam in my two prior, more touristy visits.

“My home” I said, “but that’s a ways away yet.”

“Oh, I thought I could help you find one of the restaurants … ha ha… ok.”

I gave her a reassuring laugh, and said it was quite ok. But she was more than a kilometer and a half off by then.                     

Just the Same

On a Natural Education

Sep 4, 2019

There are plenty of children’s songs and poems written to instruct on and build appreciation for nature. One issue is a great lot of these are clearly written with temperate landscapes in mind. So often we see trees with leaves that turn color and fall in the Autumn, followed by winter snow, spring flowers, the arrival of spring birds, etc. Moreover, didactic songs and literature concerning the months and seasons are clearly from a Northern Hemisphere perspective.

This relates to a broader issue I’ve known about, in part thanks to Portland State University Anthro Prof Jeromy Spoon, who clewed me into the fact that international environmental education efforts are often severely lacking in local knowledge. Children are taught about globally renowned and charismatic species like lions and elephants, but less about the creatures they are likely to encounter in their local setting. This has been connected with declining interest in local environmental stewardship in places like the Himalayas. 

               Children’s songs about nature, flora and fauna, even when not concerned with endangered, charismatic big game, are still distinctly products of their place of authorship. This is acute in the context of English instruction. English language folk songs, unless composed ad hoc or from good translation, are almost certain to come from an English-speaking country. Not surprisingly, the British Isles, with their lengthy English-speaking history, are probably the most bountiful source.

This isn’t all bad mind you. One asset an international foreign language instructor like yours truly brings is the fact that this person carries a cultural experience. When children learn my native tongue, they also learn about my culture and background. This can help with memory, and gives the children a broadened perspective of the globe. But environmental knowledge need not be language specific. There’s no good reason why speakers of English as a second language should necessarily be unable to think or communicate about their own native environment when talking to me in my native tongue. This little private school in Ha Noi I’m working at just now is a “Waldorf Steiner” school, which means a particular enthesis on nature education and naturalistic learning. Yet in Vietnam, the “caw!” of a crow, is not the ubiquitous thing it is an many countries, the eponymous call of a Common cuckoo is not a harbinger of Spring or summer like it is in England, swallows do not disappear in the winter, and one is far more likely  to hear a red-whiskered bulbul in the garden than some of the celebrated figures of English song and heraldry, like the European Blackbird or European Robbin.

There are plenty of examples of how certain creatures have expanded their notoriety well beyond their natural range or even body. That’s to say nothing of the problem of spreading invasive species, which is a significant issue of global concern about which books have been written, but purely species expantion through media and culture. Think the disproportionate ubiquity of the sounds of the red-tailed Hawk, the Great-horned Owl, or the Pacific Chorus frog. These are creatures whose voices you can almost guarantee are being misapplied when heard in media. The consequences lie where we actually want people to know, respect, and discuss the living things that inhabit the space around them. International language instruction unfortunately has the potential to promote Environmental ignorance on a local scale, where it is typically most important. For someone like me, who still has much to learn about his host country’s natural environment, it is a quandary indeed.   

Chameleon

Sep 3 2019

Chameleon

Interesting times.

I find myself needing to test my chameleon abilities in order to do what keeps me here in Ha Noi – my impending job as an ESL teacher for elementary school kids. I knew I could be a chameleon at least. Even when I was a child, I was never particularly in love with children’s things that weren’t or wouldn’t soon be my very own. Children are interesting, but have never been a principal passion. It is a widespread demographic, and needless to say, their needs invoke opportunities like what I have now.

I’ve taught kids before – small groups of blind kids each time. And I’ve had at least one nephew for the past 15 years. Sad to say I wish I could have gotten more emersion with this last specimen source than I did, but there it is. I was also a child for at least a decade.

 For a little while at least, I’m going to try to make the reptilian shoes fit. I’ve researched and recited children’s rhymes, songs, and stories, and have even done some of my own composition. Reconnecting with the children’s classics has been a funny thing. Some recollection of the fact that I didn’t always exactly dig being a child is present. There’s a lot of partial familiarity with the games, which I credit to the fact that often no one bothered to verbalize the rules for me, and thus I never actually fully learned how to play. Memories of ostracism pounce where I seem to recall these were games that other kids played, but which I was rarely if ever invited or allowed to join in. “The Farmer and the Dell” – I remember the first refrain of the song, but I have no recollection of actually learning the game. I think the potential thrill is gone sadly. “The Bride Cuts the Cheese” – there’s a children’s song.

               Anyways, chins up, and with rewriting the past unlikely, I can at least make a decent chameleon in Mother Goose’s nest. 

Still this evening, Aug 25, 2019

Quite a nice album that was from Robert Wyatt also, with Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Dave Sinclair all appearing.

I was hoping I could convince my friend to make me get out and explore, so I could greedily exploit her eyeballs, but alas we just chilled at my apartment, relatively speaking. Come to think of it, Chi N was looking for her glasses for quite some time. I think the occasion was she needed to see better so she could more efficiently look around for her glasses. Always keep a second pare for this purpose if you are burdened with high-functioning eyes. That’s what four eyes are for.

After we said goodbye, I made some progress with my bold independent exploration, I am happy to let you know. With the help of Google Map and my ability to say “coffee, no?” in Vietnamese, I managed to mosey down the western West Lake-Skirting Quang An street to a 24-hour coffee place. I’m starting to think it would’ve been good to have some idea as to what to say after I got there, but I did score a Dong 25k ice coffee (slightly more than $1). The cup of ice cubes they gave me with the coffee liquified in 10 minutes or there-abouts.

I can thank Gabby Morritt for teaching me post hoc how to order what I actually got at the place. At least I know how to count, and I know how to navigate a coffee cup.     

‘Nothing too gracefully’ has been my philosophy when it comes to my resignation to just push myself out the door and explore places and buy things in spite of my timorousness, everyone else’s discomfort, and, perhaps most of all, my extremely bare-bones Vietnamese. This may just take the form of me showing up at a shop, and having very little to say before an assumed proprietor determines to provide assistance. I did have the gumption and wisdom to think of what I would purchase at the supermarket before an excursion several days ago, and to get Google’s translations of the items onto the screen of my phone to present to a store employee. There were embarrassed giggles and chidings among a few employees at the supermarket, but I did come home with most of what I sought to buy, the novel journey, and the material success -- the humble booty -- has been adequate consolation. As I’ve told folks, shopping in the U.S. with native English speakers that apparently never shop at their own place of employment as my assistance, isn’t robustly more comfortable. “Nothing too gracefully” kind of stems from these roots, and really it is my self-exoneration in situations where I have limited ability to make actions and interactions, wheeling’s and dealings look all nice and tidy and elegant. If I can bring home some kind of tea, who could ask for much more? I even brought home things I can survive on when the tea-euphoria wares off, like greens, mushrooms, tofu, sauce, noodles... I realize I cannot wash myself with this plastic soap dish though – that was supposed to be a bar of soap.      

Anyway, as per the coffee shop – a reasonably lickadee split walk strait down a main road from my apartment block for perhaps 1.5 kilometers. Had a peaceful stare out over hồ Tây– the West Lake for a while. My previous two strolls along the lakeside, and apparently still decent spatial memory meant I made it back directly with no hiccups. Didn’t get lost once. Didn’t die once. Not too bad. It’d be nice if streets had actual pedestrian paths here, but I’m sure the embrace of their absence will get pounded into my head severely over time.  

Note to smash up some sesame, peanuts, and sault for food purposes, and also to buy a mortar and pestle.