Poo Pillow

There is a stereotype in the South about Hanoi people that they are incredibly cheap. It's such an enduring and pervasive sentiment that I have just collapsed it with our stereotype about Jews. Hanoians are Vietnam's jews.

I have had my own run-ins with Hanoi folks, and I must say, perhaps there's something in this stereotype. The ones i know are INCREDIBLY, irritatingly cheap. My absolutely HATES Hanoi people for this among other reasons. I mean, they steal, kill and eat dogs so they don't have to pay for food- really. What kind of likeable person does THAT?

There is a saying about cheap people in Vietnam. "So-and-So is so cheap, he hoards his feces to use as a pillow". I choked on my soup when i heard that. That's pretty damn cheap.

Runaway Monk

When My was thirteen, she ran away from home. She did it to get away from her brother who disciplined her too harshly. To be truly fair, he beat the hell out of her. Her parents seemed to condone it through their inaction, so My felt she had to remove herself.

Runaway kids in America go live with friends, or hitchhike to Hollywood or something punk like that. My, however, made her way to a buddhist monastery outside of Saigon, where she asked the monks to take her in. She decided she wanted to be a monk, and she started the path to monkhood.

In the tradition of inducting new monks in the monasteries, one must prove oneself over a long period of time. When you pass a certain benchmark, the monks shave a part of your head. Then you are easily identified as being whatever level you are.

For nine months My worked and prayed and did all that monk stuff, until the day when she was to become a full-fledged monk. But before she could have her proper monk haircut, she needed to have her parent's permission. So, for the first time in nine months , she contacted her parents to ask them if she could remain at the monastery.

They said hell no, get your ass home.

Since she couldn't stay at the monastery and since she had nowhere else to go, she went on back home in her robes and half-shaved head, and never got so close to that kind of life again.

The Loony Bin

The other day we had to take Hien to the mental hospital to answer questions to prove she was mentally fit to marry. They ask questions like, "which is brighter, the sun or the moon?"

The place was choked with heavily medicated vietnamese mentals wandering around or being led. The doctors run the hospital much the same as eveything else is run here- hectically and messily. No rhyme or reason that i saw- some orderlies were running around in a frantic, while others sat around and did absolutely nothing.

Suddenly My realized the time. We needed to get back so we could get Hien's fiance to the airport, pronto. So we literally hoofed it out of there, running full speed through the halls, virtually leaping over stunned, blathering patients. Everyone stopped and stared at the big white man and the viet girl with cornrows racing through and out of the mental hospital.

I'm still laughing about it. It couldn't have been scripted better.

Antique Street

60's Viet Sheet Music
Originally uploaded by toy ghost

Last week i discovered a goldmine of great old stuff. There's a hidden side street in downtown Saigon that is all antique stores.

Most of the stores carry items that were looted from the French when they left- beautiful phonograph players, antique rosewood bookcases, candelabras, silver, wooden screens, and all kinds of artwork. I bought several sweet french antique oil lamps. The glass isn't uniform in its thickness, so you know it's old.

Other stores are more like "junk" stores, except that's where all the really cool stuff is. Old metal signs, vietnamese records, instruments, photographs, tons of printed material. I bought a bunch of old vietnamese sheet music.

It was disturbing to see how many cameras are in the stores. They are cool and all, but I can't help but think that most of them were stolen from American soldiers and correspondents. There are also many engraved zippo lighters and wristwatches, definitely stolen from American soldiers- possibly taken from dead American soldiers. I even saw highschool class rings from highschools in Iowa. Creepy.

Suoi Tien on Cracked.com

I was looking at cracked.com randomly and noticed that Suoi Tien in Saigon is #5 on cracked's Top 9 Most Baffling Theme Parks From Around the World.

Way to go Vietnam!!

Phai di honey do di do.

My prefers that i drive everywhere, because she feels people think she's a prostitute if she drives me. I wish sometimes she'd drive, because she gives vague, and sometimes late directions.

Today I was driving along and My suddenly slapped me and pointed furiously and said what sounded like "fie-dee-honey-doody-daw!"

I had to stop the bike entirely. "Fie-dee-honey-doody-daw?" What the hell is a DOODY-daw?

I figured out what she was saying. "Phai(right) di(go) honey(me) do(do it) di(go) do(there)."

I've been laughing about it ever since. Fie-dee-honey-doody-daw, indeed.

Phun

I really could've saved my parents a lot of time and money if this was out when i was a kid. All i ever really wanted for christmas was a 2-D Physics Sandbox . I can't stop playing with it. I made a steamboat that runs, and a waterfall that replenishes itself. So much phun.

See the video here.

I killed it with Whiskey.

Yes , it's dead. And I killed it with whiskey. Could've just been it's time to go, but I'm giving the liquor the glory. It was a sweet pill too.

Let this be lesson. Whenever you're in doubt or waivering, whenever you've fallen to your knees because there's been no where else to go, use your last ditch effort to say "Yes, I CAN!"

and kill it with whiskey.

General's Letter From the Field

March 1, 2008. 6:43 PM

The disease has dug in deeper than I had thought, and defies our every attempt to remove it from its position. I have never encountered so crafty- so resolved- an enemy. Stocks are dwindling, morale plummeting.

But before I surrender my sword to this vile enemy, I have one last plan of battle:

HEAVY DRINKING. That's right, I'm calling in General Johnnie Walker. Firebomb the foxholes. If doctors and medicine can't help me, I'll kill it myself, goddammit! It can't make it any worse.

The enemy is in front of us, and behind us. They are to our right and on our left.

This time they will not get away.