Two years ago, I was having dinner in NYC with a group of Japanese writers. Next to me was Mieko Kawakami, who's also known as a pop singer. Since her English was very limited, we conversed mostly through another person. Seeing that my beer glass was empty, Mieko filled it.
Earlier this year, I found myself in Tokyo with nearly the same group of Japanese, and next to me, again, was Mieko. Seeing that my bowl was empty, she used her chopsticks to replenish it with some fatty pork.
In Saigon a month ago, I was having dinner with a bunch of Taiwanese businessmen, whom I had just met. Next to me was a 36-year-old who had been in Vietnam for six years, was married to a Vietnamese and had two kids with her, so he spoke Vietnamese quite comfortably, even rapidly, though I must I admit, I only understood about half of it, such was his accent. Seeing that my bowl had some food scraps, he picked it up, cleaned it out with his chopsticks, then filled it with a couple of shrimps.
Decades ago, I was at a Chinese restaurant in Northern Virginia with a close friend, Brian Robertson, and when our two dishes arrive, Brian instantly divided each in half, right down the middle, and scooped his shares onto his plate. Had I used my utensils to pick out food for Brian, he would have cringed and protested, I'm sure.
East is East, and West is West, and though the two do overlap, you will always know whether you're in Intercourse or Phuoc Hai, and that's good. Though relentlessly assaulted, the local endures, but it must be fiercely protected and nurtured.
Repeatedly, I have pointed out how boundaries are often blurred in Vietnam, but this also means that personal space is not as respected as in the West. In 1957, Gontran de Poncins published his excellent From a Chinese City, which documents his year of living in a residential hotel in Cho Lon, Saigon's Chinatown. Other occupants were disturbed by De Poncins' habit of keeping his door closed during the day, so they would just open it. Seeing that De Poncins was always alone, they asked if he needed a woman, and when he said no, they offered to bring him a boy. As De Poncins sketched, someone might snatch his notebook from him, to see what he was drawing.
Saigon in 2018 is much more Americanized, so there are gated communities, condos with security guards, restaurants behind plate glass windows, ubiquitous English schools and aggressive rap music being spat at you by street performers on Bui Vien Street. At a wedding, I noticed all the young people at my table were staring at their smart phones for nearly the entire evening. American styled swagger or aggression is also being aped, so on a truck in my neighborhood, I saw, in English, "CHOOSE LIFE / DON'T TOUCH MY CAR," with the image of two hand guns being pointed at the viewer. In several Vietnamese cities, and even Singapore, there are Lià ªm barbershops, where all the hair cutters are all tatted up and dressed as cholos. Speaking to packed rooms of young Vietnamese, Lià ªm passionately teaches them on how to properly wear a bandana, flannel shirt or Ben Davis pants, etc.
Since I live five miles from downtown, however, the texture of my daily life is still very much Vietnamese, even if there's a McDonald's, Popeyes and KFC within a ten minute walk. Riding a beat up bicycle, a knife sharpener offered his service. Passing a funeral, I saw the pallbearers tilting the coffin three times, to make it bow to its old house, then three more times at the head of the alley, to say farewell to its neighborhood.
This morning, I had a 47 cent cup of coffee at a cafe' in an alley. People streamed by, on foot or motorbikes. Within sight was the neighborhood Buddhist temple. Although hideous looking, it does have a shady and somewhat quiet courtyard, so sometimes I'd go and sit on one of its cement benches, near a bunch of wizened monks.
Vietnamese know their neighbors. The cafe''s owner is a taciturn middle-aged dude who keeps half a dozen lurid fish in a couple of tanks. His grown son is a heroin addict who's been in and out of jail. The smirking young man has never had a job, only lots of tattoos.
On my right sat office workers in white shirts and black pants, and to my left was a man, called Mr. Mulberry, who had a stroke a decade ago, so now must inch around with a walker. Even before Mulberry got debilitated, his wife left him to marry a Vietnamese-Australian.
Mulberry has six brothers and two sisters. Two brothers are in Australia. The sisters were infamous in this neighborhood as "horses," the Vietnamese term for "sluts," because people could ride them.
Mulberry's dad used to beat his mom, and complain that her skin wasn't as smooth as his mistress'. Despite all this, they're still together, and live with Mulberry and a daughter, a single mom, of course, in the house across the alley from my table.
Hearing anyone's life story, I'm always filled with amazement and admiration, because I'm not sure I could have endured so many sucker punches from random strangers, God, my family and the weather.
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