Saigon

Seek out what magnifies your spirit.

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"I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole." - Elias Canetti

Die Twice

Before going to Cambodia I discovered a Saigon museum named for Uncle Ho. He’s the patron saint of Diehard Marxist Mania. It is a popular location for virginal couples posing for wedding photographs using expansive interior halls and sweeping stairways. Happy grooms escorted joyful brides in rented sparkling jewelry trailing gowns, frozen on stairs, in corridors, on window ledges. Jump!

In a dusty display case along a forgotten corridor were piles of medals, stamps, currencies and Zippo lighters. A Zippo was ubiquitous among soldiers with engraved inscriptions. One lighter said:

There are two times you face death.

Once when you’re born and once when you face death.

Hala, a Muslim girl I knew in Lhasa said, There are people who are born laughing and people who are born crying, I was born laughing.

Parked outside the museum was a U.S. Air Force F-16, ambulance, jeep, Huey helicopter and the tank North Vietnamese forces commanded to flatten gates and liberate the South. Rows of antique French cars used to ferry the wounded and ammunition around Saigon during the war collected dust in meticulous gleaming historical automotive fashion.

Hexagram 34 - The Power of the Great

Perseverance furthers. Ask what is right. Be in harmony. Movement. Not stubborn. Yielding quietly preserving work to remove resistance.

Book of Amnesia, V1

Life Gift

To feel better, clean my heart, purge old fears and improve the quality of life I climbed down to donate a pint at The Blood Bank. Good old hemoglobin.

Suffering from cancer, a hospitalized child I will never meet, know, or love needs platelets more than I do. It’s been sixty-four clicks of Earth’s rotation between donations. It’s the best re-cycling program on the planet.

Give the gift of life that keeps on giving.

My calmness meets a scared mother pacing sterile emergency rooms at Sacred Heart Hospital wondering if her daughter will receive essential ingredients in time. 

A solemn-faced, stressed out cardiovascular lab tech with his personal set of challenges and opportunities, said to her, “At this moment we have no matching donors. We’ve released a global search engine to see what’s available on the market. People are selling short to cut their losses. It’s all about supply, demand and the fear of poverty. Scarcity. There are indications of further interest rate cuts to stimulate consumer confidence. We have no immediate indication of a stimulus. We will keep you informed.”

The mother doesn’t need to hear this prattle from a white lab coat.

Fingering her bone prayer beads, skeleton heads shake, rattle and roll. Fingers caress thorns. Everything happens by accident on purpose in her life, speaking of destiny, fate and chance. Life for her and millions in the land of the free, home of the brave and broke is free will versus random chance.

Everything’s already happened. People need to experience it while confronting their shadow and alienation, loneliness and loving community in a corrupt, cynical, hysterical greed-based world where people try to Control their fear.

Write FEAR & ANGER on a paper napkin.

Burn it.

Let go.

Citizen sheep believed in fear and unsustainable consumption because they were afraid of being lonely and poor.

Happiness is a myth. The wish of desire said so.

Humans were willing victims of their fear, healthy uncertainty, and doubt. Their amygdala, a small almond shaped brain structure creating fear and emotional response fired up. Fight or flight?

Are you the hunter or the prey?

Manipulated by the collective unconscious and a pervasive system of socialization control mechanisms, consumer sheep were happy. The subtle influence of right wing conservatives and media addiction bought idiots. Facing their mind-numbing daily grind with heart breaking choices sheep needed someone/something to Control them.

Accepting responsibility for their freedom was scary.

Intelligent centered ones feeling gratitude and empathy in their heart danced with Death. Everyone lives and dies.

“You work, breed and get slaughtered,” said an Asian child with a junior philosopher badge.

It’s essential to die once while you’re alive. Get it out of the way.

Saigon amputee, knife sharpening man.

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I carried a copy of Omar’s book, A Century Is Nothing from Turkey to Indonesia to Nam in 2009.

Together with Omar we used fire, this crucible of alchemical combinations, diversities, sweat, blood and tears to create it so I’d use fire to release it. Save books, build a library.

Books are universes of ideas, experiences, feelings, visions, paths, and destinations obliterated through discovery, reminding memory. They are worlds of dreams, stories, dramas, plays, songs, histories and guides into new visceral experiences.

Pages sing their laughter with wisdom, song, and poetry. Preserve memory. Live forever with paper’s tactile voice. Voices of reason, comedy, and tragedy are skintight drum stories. They are oral transmissions recorded on parchment, vellum, and illustrated manuscripts in Irish Gaelic talking tongues, Sumerian clay and Asian scrolls.

I didn’t burn it, a way of sacrifice offering and letting go. Down the road in Saigon I gifted the brick to three Asian women. They had Chinese ancestry from Hong Kong and lived in Australia.

I said a friend wrote it so I signed it and laughed letting it travel with them. Thanks for the book. You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy it. It took all three to carry it. They staggered up guesthouse stairs with the tome.

After breaking down a wall they struggled to get it through an opening. People need to break down before they break through. Maneuvering it into a bag they discarded cheap Vietnamese souvenirs. We’ll have to check this monster all the way to Sydney.

ART

Saigon piano practice

Labor to eat

Cash For Trash

Greetings,

Saigon, wandering and sitting in markets, pagodas, mosques, enjoying Indian and mutton curries, Italian lasagna, clean green salads after simple street food up north.

Images and serenity inside places of repose and spirit. 

At night across the street is live music and carnivals as Saigon hosts the Asian Games. I made images of Iraqi and Chinese kick boxers practicing at night, in the dark, shielded by the moon. Gaping residents pause and watch men and women punch and kick their training partners. Images will follow after editing.

Saigon (young, vibrant) is a complete delight after the hush of conservative Ha Noi (old, dull). Up north I lived in a normal neighborhood away from backpackers and neon for five months. I had a table, palm tree and balcony.

I'd sat in the Old Quarter for two weeks after Indonesia, more like Amnesia, then moved into a room in a house in a family compound. Dogs, yelling crying babies, construction workers, a "service" girl working the construction laborers under the cover of night, taking care of their desire, relieving them of cash. 

Here it's a different reality. Or, as the popular t-shirt says, "Same-same. But different."

I am in the heart of darkness. After sunset all the predators are out. Many are wearing stiletto high heels.

Are you the hunter or the prey?

On the street of dreams. Cheap digs, variety of food joints ranging from street eats to places with tablecloths. Plenty of foreign tourists moving through on a quick three day visit before taking the boat or bus to Cambodia. They move in tribes carrying worn guide books, wearing out thin soled flip flops. They are having an adventure.

They are gathering memories of weight and language and humid heat. Some of them look distraught, lost, angry, hungry and confused, just like people they know and love. Some older ones are long time residents. Their faces and posture are one step from the morgue. They struggle forward searching for who knows what.

Only The Shadow Knows!

Two visions in Ha Noi along the road to the airport. A confidant looking man walking near a lake tripped on cracked broken tile, didn't break his stride, eyes straight ahead - don't lose face - stoic, passive, marching.

A young girl, maybe 10, sat slumped against a blue stone crevice. She held a small box with something to sell. Her eyes held all the secrets of the world. Where is her family? Will a neighbor woman or a kind person extend their hand, open their heart? Is this suffering her destiny?

One child among millions in the world. 

Metta.

Spooky Veil Night

Greetings, 

I am now in Saigon or HCMC which is short for Ho Chi Minh City. An old name and a new name. One door closes and one door opens. But, as they say, "the hallways can be a bitch."

The last time I was in Saigon I was on my way out, over the pond to what we called, "The World."

I've been on the ground for 24 hours. My initial feeling is that it's more relaxed, open and looser than the conservative north. A most pleasant exchange after 4.5 months. Attitudes, life styles and progressive vibrancy.

As usual, up and out early. I spent the morning sitting in the Cho Lon Chinese marketplace in throbbing mercantile zones near sewage, garbage, vegetable sellers, screaming motorcycles carrying precarious precious loads of everything from food to towering stacks of plastic sandals, wholesalers, hustlers, beggars, thieves and market women who, after the initial suspicious glance or stare thinking "what in the hell is that guy doing here?" they went on about their daily business of haggling, selling, gossiping, cooking, scheming, dealing, and living.

Then, I wandered down no-name streets and found large Chinese pagodas where I lit incense, made offerings, scribbled notes and focused on creating photo magic. Delightful.

Metta.