Visions
Share Article Two Hanoi visions wearing crash helmets collided along the road to the airport
A confident looking man walking near a lake tripped on cracked broken tile, didn't break stride, kept his eyes ahead, w/o losing face, stoic, passive, marching.
A young girl, 10, sat slumped against a blue stone crevice. She held a small box with something to sell. Her eyes contained world secrets.
Is this suffering, being abandoned her destiny, an illusion for a Dream Sweeper?
Will she wither away and die here, lost, alone, forgotten?
She is one abandoned child among billions in the world, said Rita.
Saigon, Fall 2009 by Tran
Saigon or HCMC is short for Ho Chi Minh City. One door closes and one door opens.
The last time here I was leaving the war at twenty going on 100 to fly over the pond to The World meeting apathy and quiet rejection. I was transformed. I became a happy ghost. See ART.
Now I am out early drinking java in the Cholon marketplace, a throbbing mercantile zone near sewage, garbage, vegetable sellers, screaming motorcycles carrying precarious precious loads of food, towering stacks of plastic sandals, wholesalers, hustlers, beggars, thieves and market women who, after the initial suspicious glance thinking, What in the hell is that guy doing here, continued their daily business of haggling, selling, gossiping, cooking, scheming, dealing and living.
I wander down no-name streets to a Chinese pagoda, light incense, make offerings and meditate.
I enjoy Indian mutton curries at a mosque built in 1932. Serenity with repose and spirit.
At night in a park across the street is live music and a carnival as Saigon hosts the Asian Games. Iraqi and Chinese kick boxers practice in fractured darkness shielded by the moon. Gaping residents watch men and women punch and kick training partners.
I am in heart of darkness. Predators wear skintight translucent red dresses and black stiletto high heels. A woman must make a living.
Are you the hunter or the prey, said Tran.
Foreign tourist tribes move through on a quick three-day visit before swimming with alligators to Cambodia. They carry tattered guidebooks and wear rubber beach sandals. They are having an adventure. Traveling is hard work when you’re a stranger in a strange land.
Travel makes you.
Tourists collecting vague specifics of language and humid heat memories look distraught, lost, angry, hungry, confused and content like people they know and love and have forgotten in their eternal quest for an identity theory.
Old expats wear masks. After fifty you get the face you deserve. One step from the morgue. They struggle forward seeking food, water, emotional connections and meaning. There is NO EXIT.
