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.
