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Entries in Vietnam (111)

Tuesday
Nov102009

One man

Greetings,

One morning after noodles I wander down an alley. I make an image of a man, maybe 60 - hard to be precise - in an alley sitting alone, sharpening an edge, redefining the steel. His labor, simple tools. No left foot. He curled his leg stump back to rest it on a boot. He went to work.

In the afternoon I'm sitting along a sidewalk near the market. He walks past with a shuffling gait. He's wearing a green fatigue shirt, hat, motorcycle helmet, carrying his red plastic bag with his simple tools.

I watched him walk. Knowing his truth, not knowing his story. Perhaps a land mine or a stray bullet. His left boot is an old combat boot issued to soldiers. A discarded war object. It is splitting down the front.

It is brutally hot. The sun is behind him. I wonder how he feels? Where is he going? Home for lunch and a rest? Looking for more dull edges?

I am surrounded by amputees here. They come to me on their crutches, their hands out. They wheel themselves down the street on little trolleys. A one-armed young man wears an old blue baseball hat. He sees local businessmen approaching. They are wearing white pressed shirts, leather shoes and shiny silver bet buckles. He takes off the old hat. Holds it out. It is empty. They ignore him. He puts it on his arm stump, runs his one good hand through his black hair, puts his cap on and moves down the street.

The legless, armless armies of physically wounded humans. They know you and you know them.

Metta.

Monday
Nov092009

Live Twice

Greetings,

"You only live twice. Once when you're born and once when you face death."                                                   - inscription on a Zippo lighter at the HCMC museum.

 

I see history. Struggles, wars, debris, artifacts, diagrams, maps, tanks, planes, final assault plans, old cars used to haul the dead, dying, wounded, ammunition; statues of men making making pistols, old medical equipment, typewriters for propaganda material, flags, posters, pamphlets, burning monks (1963), photos, villages, corpses, soldiers, politicians, dog tags, gas masks, knives, weapons, tools, radios, helmets, baskets, pots and pans, shoes, shirts and...

Metta.

  

Means of Production - knife, hoe, scythe, axe, hammer control elephant, stick

 

  

Thich Quang Duc protesting against the policies of President Ngo Dinh Diem, 1963.

 

Monday
Nov022009

Sapa stories conclude

 

 

 

Greetings,

Here are my final raw Sapa notes. 

 I am sitting in a V street stall for breakfast. A sticky rice pancake filled with onions. Covered in a brown curled fried garnish.

 I am one eyed blind to the suspicious woman RICH in her boredom, this cold mountain town as she bosses boys and girls around inside green vegetables, working the wok, dancing her empty eye on a Chinese businessman wearing filthy dress shoes recovering from a night of drink and girls and black by the “Hello” of a one-eyed H’mong women offering me her a hand-made key trinket, her labor during dark night. Using her hands to embroider her daylight hope. Transitions.

 Across the way a young boy plays with his plastic toys; action man, a green bulldozer, a sharp knife is rusty near the handle of lost youth. He tries to figure it out, sitting alone while his mother prowls the market seeking vegetables and his father bangs his mistress. All the pieces fall into place.

+

Around the Sapa traffic circle - near the church, above the tented park-like commercial zone under blue tarps where V sell kitsch are 16 motorcycle honchos. Easy rider. They are waiting for: tourists. Any tourists. Some tourists. One tourist. Maybe a H’mong woman with her heavy basket or infant on her back needing transport back to her village or at least within walking distance after a day of selling, buying, visiting friends. Maybe. Waiting.

A thick white fog rolls in, obscuring all vision. Visibility drops to perhaps 200’ in the mystery mist. A shroud shout. 

“Hustlers, Inc.” - you are the mark. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

Get a massage. Looking for for the totality of phenomena, this completeness. 

+

From the 4th floor balcony I can see the yellow elementary boarding school building. All the elementary schools here are a thick yellow. The red flag with the yellow star is silent. 

The Educational drum at the school plays a long deep resonating thunder sound. It is large and stretched tight. Remember all the amazing drums at the Ethnology Museum? Drums have been here for centuries. Essential for communicating long distance. American Indian connections.

The drummer pounds out the message. Thum! Thum! Thum! Three heavy beats. Vibrations echo across open space, curl around the lake and rise toward eastern mountains. It calls all the younger members of the tribe. All the children gather.

It is the season way in the mountains; plant, create art, make children, work in fields, a gathering (Black, White, Flower H’Mong, Red Dzao, Tay. All.) 

Community.

Spirit. Storytellers. Animism. 

Integrity. Authenticity. Nature is your inspiration. You are living in an amazing art museum. Everyone is an artist.

Cheap “plastic” Chinese material made on machines vs. the natural fibers.

“The Cloth Sellers.” - I hang out in the old fabric area of the market. The H’mong and Red Dzao women in the cloth market tell me they walk in from their villages and stay in Sapa for 3-4 days. If they don’t sell they return to their village.

+

Hello Chicken Soup.” - goes the market women’s mantra song as tables wait for customers. Basic English is all you need to sell chicken soup. It is served with long white noodles. I take my young H’mong friends there everyday. Delicious.

This market reality. The food women work from 5 a.m. until 8 p.m. seven days a week. Busy sellers, shoppers, locals, a few tourists with their guides or in pairs, comfortable with market food come to eat.

What is the profit margin? Food cost. Labor cost?

I see two foreigners who live here. 

One is Frenchman in his mid-20’s with a brown ponytail. He speaks fluent H’mong. He stands on the cement staircase between the cloth market and sprawling food tables. He stares at people eating. I never saw him smile. Sa tells me he was married to a local H’mong girl, 19. She had a baby. Two years ago he left her. He pays support. Now he is chasing a Red Dzao girl. Maybe he works for an International Relations business. 

A thin foreign man in his 20’s wears large framed glasses and eats in a V place nearby. He carries a worn knapsack and speaks the language. He walks fast. He has bought greens and tofu. He goes into an all-purpose V shop for cooking oil and staples. He leaves and walks fast over broken disjointed concrete blocks covering the central sewage system. If sanitation and hygiene concerns foreigners they’d eat in a “real” restaurant on main street. There is only one main street. 

The Red Dzao woman are really persistent sellers. “Buy from me!” Repeat. Repeat.

They never give up. Mo, my 10-year old friend gave a good lesson in how to handle these sellers. We were somewhere, maybe the street, the plaza, eating. 

“When the woman ask you to buy something, don’t say ‘maybe,’ or ‘later,’ or ‘not now,’ or ‘tomorrow.’ They will remember you and tomorrow they will tell you, ‘you said tomorrow!’”

"Just say, 'I have no money.'"

“Thanks for the knowledge.”

“Yes,” she said, “I don’t know but I understand.”

+

The exploitation of local people in Sapa. Vietnamese control the tour groups.

Local guides make $5 a day. All the money goes to Vietnamese businesses.

No autonomy for the minority hill tribe people.

Tourists and travelers need to meet and arrange individual Sapa travel plans. Independent. This way they support the local people. Lodging is controlled by the Vietnamese tour companies. Travelers need to be made aware of this reality. 

Most foreign visitors stay 2-3 days then out.

The local government tour office controls the “home-stay” options which limits the economic potential of the local people.

+

 I walk out of the hotel to the park filled with baby roses. A historical statue is covered in dust. The fountain water is brackish. Six Dzao women with their bags and threaded for sale samples spread out on the ground stand talking.

“Do you want to buy from me?” said one. She is smiling. 

“Yes. I want to buy the mountain.” I point to the rising green western forest, steel gray granite slabs, rolling deep shaded mysterious valleys, rolling gray clouds skimming the surface of peaks, dancing around the edges escaping from one high and deep side toward us, rolling.

“Ok,” she said. “I will sell you the day mountain for 10,000 and the night mountain for 10,000.”

“Ok. It’s a deal.”

We laugh in the beautiful moment.

+

 Most tourists , perhaps some, most travelers do not really meet the local people - some will mind you. They are slow, involved , patient, caring, kind, curious and they take the time to sit down and absorb the lessons they need. This is a good thing.

Predicting the future is hard work. It’s a dynamic equilibrium. 

Natural energies the ancient drum call the children to class, to a gathering of laughter, echoes rising on the water. On a bamboo leaf. This quiet. Water music. Patience. This Zen moment.

 

I Had a Dream

 I had a dream filled with rainbows of light, all the H-mong, Dzao, Tay and friends, walking, singing down along the mountains; filling the air and skies with their song, their stories.

This endless procession, all the voices.

This direct immediate perception. Mountains filled with mist, water flies into the sky!

Clean fresh air - a natural luxury. 

+

LITTLE CAT GOES TO HA NOI

‘I feel embarrassed, when I go to Ha Noi,’ she said. ‘They call me “Little Cat.’” 

Her name is Ku. She comes from the Black H’mong tribe near Sapa.

‘I am confused there. Too many cars and buildings. It’s hard to see the sky. The city is too big. It is noisy and scary. I get lost.’

She smiled. ‘Do you know what we call the city people? Talking monkeys.’

‘They live in Ha Noi. They go to Sapa to buy cheap Chinese junk. They miss the noise, motorcycles, tall buildings and endless clatter and traffic confusion. They run into buildings. They are afraid of nature. They complain. They don’t fool me.

‘It’s too cold. It’s too hot. It’s too weird, all these savages trying to sell us things like bags and embroidery. Yes, ‘they are strange animals. Of course, because I am smart I can speak many languages, our H’mong dialects, Dzao, Tay, Vietnamese, Mandarin (learned from traders in the mountains) English, all the European words, even some Tibetan. Cool eh? Yes, I love languages, especially nature’s language, like animals, mountains, clouds, rivers, sky, wind and...’

‘Some people just need more life experiences,’ she said. We were sitting down on a cool rainy day in Sapa overlooking valleys hearing birds sing about authenticity and integrity.

‘My name is Nature. I am your inspiration.’

+

Leaving Sapa-Lao Cai, train....

I am sitting near the Lao Cai train station. It’s 5 p.m.

The van left Sapa early, meaning yesterday was the day when you said goodbye to kid and adult friends and strangers. I’m reminded of the quote by Georgia O’Keefe, ‘There are times when one spends an afternoon with someone whom they will never see again.’

Then we rolled out and down through through flying clouds caught inside deep mountain passes, heavy brown running rivers, sculptured terraced rice paddies, (some cut, others waiting for sunny days) passing thin bamboo walled hut homes, teams of boys driving water buffalo home, endless valleys, forests shrouded homes tucked into hills, peaks obscured by fast rising clouds, road construction crews living in hovels with only one  extra change of clothing filled with hopes, dreams, and water, past women nursing infants near wood fires inside dark dirt floored interiors where smoke curls, escaping through porous bamboo splinters greeting air, the Dzao women smiling, thumbing a ride with us to another destination, passing heavy trucks laboring up and we rolled into Lao Cai.

It is loud. Noisy. A miniature Ha Noi. You notice the heavy air, polluted by vehicles dancing their commerce, irate impatient motorcycle beepers, horns, whirling traffic, people fighting and competing for space. 

We pull up to a restaurant near the station. There are three packed together. It’s part of the supply and demand exchange. Hotel drivers from Sapa get a kick-back from the owners. Same-same but different all over the world. One hand washes the other.

We pile out and the touts are on us like flies on shit. They scramble.

‘Here, here, you can leave your bags here. Sit down. See the menu,’ says a suave young hustler boy. 

Some do some don’t. I’m easy to please. The sidewalk is littered with tables and chairs and I’m not particular. I put my bag inside and grab a chair. The woman owner offers me green tea. 

Japanese, French, English, and Vietnamese spread out, decide on  a place for food and drinks, drop their packs and sit down. There are three evening trains. Blow whistle blow. Southbound.

A nearby series of tables are filled with middle-aged tourists speaking a new language. At first I don’t understand it. Then their music makes sense. It’s Thai. 

The men wear expensive wrist watches studded with diamonds. The womens’ hair is carefully styled. One woman is the jokester. She teases people. She laugh long and LOUD. 

The men swill beer, the women green tea. They talk loud and fast. They are a tour group on a four day buying mission from Bang Cock. 

Their many bags and suitcases and boxes of appliances fills the restaurant and spills into the street. Their cargo will later fill the passageway of the train compartment.

Suddenly a pregnant, maybe seven months into it, Vietnamese woman serving the people moves toward the sidewalk to get around tables and slips on the downside cement. She hits the street. Pflat!

Right on her belly. 

People rush to help her. They help her up. She’s shaken, not stirred. She recovers her composure and sits down in a flimsy plastic chair. I wonder if she’ll have a miscarriage. I hope not. 

A shoeshine boy in his late teens wearing a dirty white shirt and baseball cap approaches. He points at my dirty climbing shoes. ‘Mister, your shoes need cleaning.’ He waves a white plastic bottle of liquid in the air. I stare at him. No words. He tries again. 

‘No.’

He doesn’t understand ‘No.’ I repeat it. This is English class 101 on the street of dreams and expectations, hustle, sell, and hope. He waves the bottle, pointing at my shoes. His confidence is beginning to waver. He loses eye contact. He knows he has no sale but starts to try again...’Your...

Before he can repeat his pitch, I level his glance with a slight tonal variety. ‘No.’

He wanders to bother someone else. Someone trapped in a plastic chair waiting for food, waiting for their train to leave. Waiting for their next stop on the tourist trail of tears. Smart ones avoid his words, his eyes. This always works. Avoidance. Pretend someone doesn’t exist. Get over it.

A young angry spoiled girl in the diner with her grandfather plays with a mechanical Santa Claus sleigh toy. He winds it up, sets it on the floor and lets it go. It plays “Jingle Bells...” as it rolls along the floor until it crashes into an open glass door. The sleigh rocks back and forth as Rudolph bashes his red nose into a solid surface, wheels spin and “Jingle Bells” plays. The girl plays with this toy for about three minutes, gets bored and starts whining, Her grandfather picks her up babbling. Two kitchen girls sit at a table shucking green beans.

The seating attendant guy comes in and tries to make small talk. He pulls out an 8GB iPod. He fiddles with the dials, displaying photographs. ‘Want to buy this? Cheap. $200.’

‘No thanks. I have one.’

‘’Yeah,’ he said, ‘this is new. I bought it from a tourist.’

‘Great. Good luck.’

 

HERE COME THE HUSTLERS!

‘Just say no.’ Stare out into space. Deep vacant space.

The international shoeshine teams form an Olympic event. Teams are gathered from every country in the world. Tools: a box, colors, a rag, a brush.

Ladies selling flashlights.

The one-legged man selling books. What are the titles?

I have the shortest attention span known to biped mammals.

‘They’ll look and leave,’ - a Nepalese Pashima seller in Lhasa regarding wandering burgundy wrapped monks one bright sunny day in his shop on the Barkhor. 

Escher’s perceptual art.

Elements of line.

ARRIVAL

A train arriving in Ha Noi at 4:30 a.m. I am the dream sweeper, the sleep dream sweeper. I collect all the dreams from the talking monkeys. Down deep narrow alleys their dreams come crawling, flying, dancing into my dream sweeper machine. 

It’s a new day. The first day in my new space, new neighborhood, this hutong like twisted dream alley. Walls. Barb wire. Thick rusty window gratings. Dark. Silent. 

The ‘Stream-winner’ - cessation of sensation, perception, - no desire, hatred, ignorance.

I edit a 227 page Ph.D thesis written by a monk in India. I pass it back to Thanh. 

Sapa was high and Sapa was deep. 

 

ONE MORNING

In the morning at 4:37 a.m. I wake up. I like waking early because:

-It’s quiet. 

-Everyone else is sleeping and dreaming. I start my quiet “Dream Sweeper” machine and collect dreams. I sort them out by type, category, allegory, myth, symbolic meaning.

-I make green tea and visit the balcony. The pre-dawn sky is filled with stars. The plants, bamboo, cold wind feels great.

-I can see and hear all the little animals. First the fruit bats come home to roost under a large coconut palm leaf where they hang upside down. This morning when they came back one of them emitted a shrill, high pitched echolocation squeek sound. It was amazing to hear this, perceive and sense their return. It was a sharp sound with a definite edge to the beginning - through the middle range to the end - like a welcome, or maybe a warning, or a signal to the other bats saying where they were in space-time. I imagined they were saying “Hello, I’m back,” announcing it’s a pleasure to find comfort after a night of flying. I was grateful to be alive and paying attention to the bat’s music. This is one advantage of waking early. 

-I witnessed 10 large seagulls high above, flying toward the lake at the park. This silent vision was really a gift. Before dawn, the wings, the freedom and the sky.

Metta.

Monday
Nov022009

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.

 

Saturday
Oct312009

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.