The Grits Racket

The Screen Door on E. Burnside might have the Portland monopoly on grits, but $3.00 a bowl? Good Lord, people!

Some Southerner is exacting a slow and curious revenge on unsuspecting yankees. Allow me to give you a lesson about grits: they are extremely cheap. Unless they had to build a grits pipeline all the way from Memphis to Portland, $3.00 for a bowl of grits is ludicrous.

Screw you and your Alabama Scramble, Screen Door.

My's hair

My put cornrows in her hair. I guess the boredom of Quang Ngai is getting to her. She looks positively Jamaican. Boogie on, reggae woman! She's a chameleon like that- sometimes she seems Brazilian or Aztec or even African too. Sometimes I totally forget she's Asian.

Sorry I didn't get a screen capture of her hair.

Woo's Photos

My friend's photos are soooo worth a look. Really great stuff, Woo.

Classism in War

The Vietnam conflict has been widely ridiculed as a racist war. One historian wrote that it was a war where "white people sent black people to kill yellow people in an effort to supposedly protect a land that they stole from red people."

One black soldier, upon realizing that the treatment the Vietnamese received from the Americans was much like what he himself received back home, said to his commanding officer, "A gook is just the same as a nigger, right?" The officer slapped him on the back- "You're a smart nigger."

But he wasn't being racist. He was proving the soldier's sordid point.

Racism is born of classism. Modern war, by nature, is classist. The wheat of society administrate a war that the chaff go and fight. It's the old army game, from here to eternity.

Kids that had grown up begging and scraping for their existence in America were suddenly confronted by a people who saw them as unimaginably rich. These poor American kids were then the objects of all the hate and pain that they themselves felt back home. The children that begged the soldiers for food alternately needed and despised them. Some soldiers simply couldn't handle the constant reminders of their own pain and what waited for them when(if) they got home, and resorted to frustrated violence against these children. Cans of army rations were hurled at kid's heads from personnel trucks.

I was deeply moved when I read of one of these soldier's return to America. He sat at the kitchen table talking quietly with his mother. His mother apologized that there was no food in the house. The boy jumped up in a frenzy, flinging open cabinets and drawers. Within minutes the table was heaped with boxes and cans of edible things, and he stood red-faced in front of his mother.

"No food, Mom?? NO FOOD?!?"

My Korean Soap

I've really been missing my Korean soap opera. I need to make a search to see if I can watch it online. I hope Ugyeong doesn't run off to Vietnam, and he can put aside his anger towards Gukcha. I hope Pungyeong someday finds her mother.

Apparently Korean programming is gaining popularity internationally. It is definitely entertaining. But also for some reason all the dramas are subtitled in English, which could further explain the popularity. They love it in Hawaii. If interest keeps growing, KBS might be included in your basic cable someday.

Hooray!

Oh Snap.

Portland folks practice an almost paradoxical blend of politeness and informality.

I was eating at Pho Van and was intently drawing my water glass when the water kid came over. Then he noticed I was drawing the water glass.

"Excuse me sir- If I fill up your glass, is it going to fuck up your drawing?"

Classic.

Insubordination

I was reading about how near the end of the Vietnam conflict, US soldiers were refusing to fight in increasing numbers. They flat-out refused orders. One soldier was asked if he feared punishment.

He said, "What're they gonna do? Send me to Vietnam?"

Seven Steps to Hell

I was walking around town early in the morning the other day looking for breakfast, when a man stumbled out of Hal's Tavern, which apparently is open at 6 AM (?). He was wearing an army hat with a patch which said "Seven Steps to Hell". I learned that he was stationed in Hue after the Tet offensive as part of the effort to retake the city from the North Vietnamese.

I've only read about how hellish the all-out urban battle was- this man lived all 25 days of it. The once grand imperial city was virtually destroyed during that month, as shells rained on the old citadel, and intense, unprecedented house-to-house warfare made every building a potential target. As in the case of Fallujah in Iraq, Hue had to be destroyed in order to save it.

The man told me of the disorganization, the constant firefights, and the ineptitude of the commanding officers. He said they lost officers on an almost daily basis. Sometimes two a day. Nobody had a clue what they were doing and men were dying everywhere, adding to the confusion. You get a sense of the mess in Full Metal Jacket. The last third of the movie when they are searching for the sniper- that was Hue.

I asked what Seven Steps to Hell meant. He said that since the fighting was so heavy and the bodycount so high, once you were dropped off at the landing zone in Hue, you took no more than seven steps before being thrust headlong into hell.

I've since learned it means something altogether different, but if he believes it, I'll let that one lie.

More about My

I miss her very much.

1.) The concept of sarcasm is lost on her. It's refreshing to know that she means everything she says.
2.) She doesn't drink or smoke. Also refreshing.
3.) She insists on hand-washing her clothes. She doesn't trust machines to do it well enough. Such a purist.
4.) She's always doing mischievous yet innocuous things. One time she basically stole (borrowed) a woman's bicycle fruit stand and rode it down the street a bit, ringing the bell, trying to drum up business. I was left behind, awkwardly shrugging at the fruit lady.
5.) She's largely untouched by American culture, and she doesn't care. While i was watching Different Strokes in my jamjams, she was listening to communist propaganda on a loudspeaker. She doesn't use slang (sigh), either.
6.) She has an uncanny sense of color. She can color-combo really strange or unexpected colors when buying clothes and such, without hardly thinking. Great eye on this girl.

Settling in

Fixed the car. It's almost laughable how simple a machine a VW Beetle is. I got my phone turned back on, but I lost all my numbers, so if you'd call or text me, I'd have your number again. Thanks.

Vietnamese Wisdom

My told me a vietnamese saying once:

A woman loves her husband very much, but she doesn't know him very well.
A man knows his wife very well, he just doesn't love her as much.

I know that's cynical, but I find it very interesting. Let it sit for a bit.

Howell Golson, Opium Addict

The customs people took my lovely opium pipes on the grounds that they are drug paraphernalia. I told them to look at the craftsmanship, and I swore I had no intentions of smoking opium in them. They didn't believe me.

Really, guys. Where are the opium addicts these days? Show me! Do I look like I run with a crew of 19th century Chinese railroad workers?

"Oh man, the boys in the den are gonna be soooo jealous of these...."

Stateside

I'm back in portland. I have no address. My phone is not working right now. My car doesn't work. So please don't worry if i don't get in touch right away. I'm alive and well.

My first feeling of reverse culture shock was in the airport when I realized I could overhear and understand people's conversations.

People say some dumb shit, right? I can't believe the brain-numbing things people talk about. Makes me wish I didn't understand again- and get back to what I was thinking about.