haiku 30 Mar 2018

Old trails, ancient towns
Still healing from Ynki’s war
A winning people

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 9 Mar 2018

A bowl of hot broth
Tripe and noodles, fresh-cut herbs
Joy, from Vietnam

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

meeting uncle Ho

In March, 2016, my third attempt to see Ho Chi Minh was a success. I’d tried twice before then, but the first time I wasn’t wearing pants or close-toed shoes, and the second his mausoleum was closed. An intrepid young lady and I had left our Hanoi hostel early in order to arrive a few minutes before the shrine officially opened. We got to the grounds, walked through the unoccupied ticket booth, along the paved lanes, out into a large courtyard, and up to the very front of the line.

To our left rose the leader’s black-marble resting place. Ceremonial guards in white uniforms stood at its corners, guarding the entrance too. A man with a clipboard who was setting up queuing barriers looked over at us, glanced briefly at our clothing, then gestured toward the entrance, which we took as an invitation for us to enter.

Moving from the bright hot morning sun to the cool dark interior was fairly shocking, but we kept our composure and climbed the marble stairs. At each landing stood two white-clad guards at rigid attention. We took a right into the central chamber and caught our first glimpse of the deceased patriot lying within his glass and metal sarcophagus. In the viewing chamber with us were at least six guards. My companion and I were walking around the preserved statesman when an urge came over me and I paused, briefly, to give Ho Chi Minh a full bow from the spot where viewing him seemed best. As I was closing my eyes with my hands at my chest and beginning to bend forward, I saw the eyes of all visible guards go wide and snap onto me. The need to honor Vietnam’s erstwhile leader satisfied, my friend and I then quietly exited and went to find breakfast

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

for far longer

On my trip through Vietnam last Spring, I went out of my way to eat primarily local food, specifically roadside bánh mì đặc biệt - bread filled with a special combination of ingredients. Whenever hungry I would seek out a person selling sandwiches from a push-cart and let him or her pile on the ingredients, whatever happened to be on hand that day. If they had spicy sauce, I would ask for it, although I have since forgotten the word. A local sandwich of this type usually cost less than two dollars.

It is difficult to describe the joy that would overcome me from quieting my hunger on the side of a busy Vietnamese street whilst eating a slender baguette filled with liver pâté, sliced meats, slivered carrots, parsley, &c. If the vendor spoke some English, we would chat. Otherwise I would eat in contented silence, my presence occasionally drawing in additional customers, it seemed.

My most memorable bánh mì experience occurred in Hoi An, an ancient seaside city of culture and beauty. The evening before my bus left I had come across a woman selling sandwiches from a cart parked in a quiet side-street a few blocks from the farmer’s market. I had parked my rented bicycle and ordered a sandwich, eating it on the sidewalk whilst sitting on a colorful, child-sized plastic chair. The next morning I had checked out of my hostel, gathered up my ruck, and was waiting for the sleeper bus near the market when a pang of hunger hit. Walking down the block I discovered the same cart parked in the same spot, recognizing it from its unique banners and construction. Since the bus had not yet arrived I went quickly to it. The woman’s bánh mì had been the most delicious I’d tasted to that point, and I was excited to sample another.

Rounding the cart I found a man standing there, roughly the same age as the woman of the night before. I greeted him in his tongue, bowing to him respectfully. “Bánh mì?” he said to me, his eyes twinkling merrily. I nodded emphatically, answering him accidentally in Indonesian. He didn’t seem to notice but raised his right hand, first showing one finger, then two, his face mischievously crinkled, a pantomimed query. I raised two fingers, whereupon he nodded and bent to work, using the same hand to grab a pair of short baguettes from a wicker basket resting in the glass case in front of him. After putting the baguettes on a cutting board he picked up a chef’s knife in his right hand, then bent forward so that the stump of his left arm, which had been crudely severed below the elbow, could keep the baguette from rolling away.

Upon seeing the numbers tattooed into the skin near the stump I was instantly reminded of images I had seen in of War Crimes museums of Hanoi and elsewhere that chronicled the punitive, wartime practice of hacking off hands. Since my bus was set to arrive shortly, and figuring it would be rude to do so, I did not inquire as to the nature of the man’s wound. Given his age of roughly 65 years he would have been in his twenties at the start of the American War, however, meaning that he’d been tortured, branded, and disfigured by the invading forces, their allies, or the North Vietnamese Army. The sandwiches he made were as delicious and fortifying as any I have ever tasted. Memories of his twinkling smile, though, and willingness to engage kindly with an American tourist, will nourish and sustain me for far longer.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

me cycling past

In Hoi An, Vietnam, I learned to balance a bottle on my head - while bicycling. The year was 2016. Before then, I’d trained myself to balance things on the top of my head while just standing or walking slowly around. The stars aligned, however, in that ancient and beautiful port city when I moved my halfway empty 1.5 liter bottle of drinking water from the bicycle’s front basket up to the top of my head on the last turn before reaching the local market, down by the river. Riding slowly through the milling crowds, I drew cries of praise, looks of astonishment and dull stares alike. I waved to a few people then kept riding, crossing a busy intersection before pedaling some kilometers out into the suburbs. Occasionally, kids’ minds would be blown upon seeing me cycling past with the bottle balanced on my head; the children, almost always boys, would come running out into the street, pointing at me and laughing, shaking their heads, and giggling as they tried to emulate my efforts with their own bottles. In my experience, there are few methods for bridging cultural gaps as effective as lighthearted self-denigration; people around the world quickly accept into their midst someone who can prove he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And, the day after my discovery, I noticed that the residents of Hoi An seemed to recognize me personally. One or two got my attention, pointed to the tops of their heads, and smiled. A handful of others seemed to nod at me. Of all the things I’ve learned whilst traveling, this skill is both useful and useless, depending on the situation at hand; it’s helpful for making friends with kids but should be avoided around police officers and when wooing attractive young ladies.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

on Vietnamese hitchhiking

A woman flags me down at the top of a mountain. Her name is Bom Gom. I pick her up at the apex of the Hai Van Pass in central Vietnam, or, rather, she climbs on the back of my motorcycle once we've established that I'm driving into Da Nang. A few women come running out of the nearby shops, waving their hands and shaking their heads, indicating she should climb back down, but Bom Gom dismisses them and slaps me on the ribs, telling me to go. She is at least 70 years old and just over half as tall as me, and while we're driving down the rain-slicked and twisty mountain roads, she keeps rummaging around in her handbag and yanking at my poncho. I think it's somewhat strange that this old hitchhiker has trusted me to transport her safely into town, but I cannot see what she is rummaging for, and figure if she stabs me or something, she too will be injured in the fall. “Children?” she asks. “No, no children.” We laugh. Then it's into some sharp cutbacks, which I've never negotiated before, and our halting conversation stops. Through the rising mists I see promontories and beaches spreading along the coastline far below, but cannot risk more than a glance for fear of hitting a pothole and crashing. We enter the outskirts of Da Nang city, cement plants and tiny shops, a school, some houses. A few minutes down a divided highway Bom Gom slaps me on the shoulder, saying “Stop, stop.” I down-shift and pull over, and when she gets off, she says, “Now, you give me one dollar. I have no food today, no money. One dollar.” With a chuckle and a shake of my head, I hand over a little more than the requested sum, thirty thousand Dong, then bid farewell with a butchered “Hen Gap Lai.” The old woman walks away, I insert my swastika-shaped key into the swastika-shaped keyhole, start up my rented motorbike, and continue on, heading south.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥