One Room
Share Article I found a private room in a densely packed Hanoi neighborhood near Lenin Park.
It was filled with narrow twisted alleys, dead ends, byways, rusty gates, spilling bougainvillea foliage, curious kids, workers pulling wheeled carts filled with discarded bricks and mud and tube homes on narrow land for tax reasons. 4-5 floors is the max.
I had two roommates. A mellow Frenchman working for a private agricultural farm three hours north who returned to Hanoi on weekends.
The other guy was Mr. Condescending, a young frantic Vietnamese speaking neurotic smart ass Canadian teaching English and playing weekend jazz music with his band of wandering minstrels. He was a native head case.
He’d been in-country four years, was a slob and greedy for money like the locals. He’d drifted from a language factory job to a university language factoid situation. His favorite phrase was in theory.
Give him the hook, said a Khmer playwright.
Sequestered with palm trees and small ponds, my room was a respite from streets and noise with gentle wind. A balcony vision offered red tiled or PSP roofs, jumbled homes, distant flashing light communication towers, clouds and sky.
Narrow alleys were packed with residents on sidewalks eating white noodles, spring rolls, fresh greens, drinking green tea.
Just like crowded Utopia cities, said Leo. Old dusty pagodas wafted incense offerings.
Life on Hanoi streets means 5,000,000 zooming motorcycles, hawkers of red star hats, t-shirts, bags, reproductions of famous oil paintings, silk, traditional medicines, shoes, bamboo baskets and labyrinthian lanes of aroma and mystery. Designs of family life and eternal relationships lived the blues.
Wear and tear shed a heart travel tear with shimmering noodle passion, a broth of conversation’s hunger, said Tran.
A male street hawker spoke with flair and conviction, If you don’t buy my cheap cotton hat with a national flag red star, or a cheap wooden bracelet made by an orphan, then the next time I see you while I am walking hot Hanoi streets in the middle of a broiling day with sweat streaming into my eyes trying to make a living, then I won’t know you.
My eyes will be dark and lost in my pitiful future. I won’t remember you. Ever. I will continue to walk all day in heat. No water. No rest. I walk work meet tourists. This is my social and economic reality. I ignore you when I don’t have a sale.
I began a gardening project on the balcony bringing up trees, plants, flowers and dirt. Good dirt. We have lots of dirt in Vietnam, said Fat Chance the landlord’s son. He had big plans for expanding the property after his father died.
Monsoons arrived. My dear friend a Poet knighted by William Butler Yeats in Sligo, living on San Francisco Mountain near the Grand Canyon asked about floods. Am I drowning?
I sang, row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, life is but a dream.
I am floating. Cleans the air. This is the rainy season and you know how the media likes to sell disasters, epic dramas of humans battling nature, conflicting themselves. Gotta keep the viewers amused and distracted. Media marketing never dies.
I floated with a clear awareness, sitting, writing, exploring, aligning stars and exploding galaxies, nebulas and infinite diversity. A respite from civilization’s abyss.
Garbage in garbage out