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.