Do you remember the first time?
When Yorkie Pittstop first came to Hanoi his hotel experiences were far from first class, but that’s why he’ll always remember them
Jumping on a mini-van bus at Noi Bai airport a smiling man told me my first Vietnamese word, “chao”, which I discovered niftily meant both hello and goodbye. Immediately, my travelling companion and I started speaking like Italians, shouting “ciao bella” out the window at the cute girls, with handkerchiefs for masks, flitting in and out of the traffic.
Then the smiling man – whose grin looked like it would never fade – told us he knew a hotel we might like. He said those magical words “very good, very cheap”. It just so happened that this official Vietnam Airlines mini-van would be stopping outside this very hotel.
“Fantastico!” we told him.
He said something to the driver, who laughed, and the bus turned away into the old quarter and dumped us outside the hotel. There to greet us was another man, who, coincidence of coincidences, was the chap from the bus’ brother.
“Fantastico!” we yelled, before exchanging a “chao” with everyone on the street.
Inside, the two receptionists stepped out of the shadows with a trust-me-as-far-as-you-can-throw-me-glint in their eyes. Under insidious in the dictionary, I speculated, you might find an illustration of these two. The two brothers disappeared and suddenly, my companion and I decided, things were not so fantastico.
Although we were psychologically backtracking, we played along with the “show us the room, how much, sorry, we’re looking for something a little bit more, shall we say, rustic” rigmarole.
The $30 room swiftly became the don’t-tell-the-other-guests-$10 room. In seconds we were back on the street, shouting “ciao”, giggling mischievously. The receptionist, now not grinning, but looking very irritated, was following us down the road and, we suspected, abusing us in the vernacular.
We spotted a xich lo (cyclo) and piled in with both rucksacks. We told him to take us to the Dong Xuan hotel, which we spotted in a guidebook (someone else’s) on the plane. The words “Very cheap, medieval-style surroundings and diminutive staff” had caught our eyes.
The scrawny xich lo driver grunted through the congested old quarter streets, in the heat, argued with women in conical hats that sat hunched over sacks of grain, raw meat and steaming pots, just to get us through. I started to feel guilty but my travelling companion assured me it was all “very fantastico”.
When we arrived at the door and bundled our bags in the door, no one seemed more surprised than the staff. We had interrupted a harmless bit of mid-afternoon karaoke. The three of them were on average about five feet above sea level. They must have been aged between 13 and 15.
“Is there a manager?” I asked.
“Yes, I am the manager,” said the tallest one, a spotty boy with floppy hair, stepping behind the counter.
“Your second cheapest room,” my companion said.
“All rooms eight dollars.”
“Fantastico!”
In the end we stayed for a month as we searched for work in the city. We sat with the boys. Ate a lot bananas and cheese triangles. Drank suspect Chinese beer. Sang karaoke and smoked VND1,000 packs of cigarettes that tasted of burning pork fat.
Years later I returned. The boys were still there, a little taller than five foot above sea level. The eldest had no spots and a girlfriend and played it real cool – just like we taught him. But, all in all, it seemed as if the whole street hadn’t changed – in fact, in about a hundred years I dare say it will be the street that changes the least in all of Hanoi. I hope so – that means I will always be able to travel back in time to 1999, the year I first arrived. And that, my friends, is “very fantastico.”
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Beware of the weather
The change of the weather in Vietnam can be downright wicked, says Teddy de Burca Jnr., so keep one eye on those dark and ominous clouds
“Beware of the moon, lads” is a common quoted line from a classic werewolf film, but as the full moon, marking Tet Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival), swelled to completion, there was something else in the air. Something far more chilling. Perhaps what Vietnamese fear most, even more than a dinner with no rice: the dreaded change in weather.
It started with a whip of a breeze from the west. Then the air pressure dropped, as if the weather upon the city was breathing in one last wheezy gulp of dirty air, before collapsing flat on its face. We could start to write the following morning’s obituaries – Summer was dead, long live Autumn.
Then the winds started to howl. The rain seemed to be going sideways. All around the city the temperature dropped, fans slowly whirled to a halt while the beer in the fridge seemed a little too cold for the first time in a long time. Someone somewhere sniffed. (No one ever knows who sniffed first.)
And sure enough, the next morning, half of the office comes in, dragging their feet, with a little cough here, and a little sneeze there, in what could be the opening scene from Dawn of the Sniffles: The curse of the common cold.
Vietnamese people will tell you, like they have told me every year I’ve been here, “beware of the change of weather” as if it were some sort of bogeyman preying on the weak.The local expression is “Som nang, chieu mua, giua trua, sam sui” (Sunny mornings, rainy afternoons, mid-noon cloudy and drizzly.) Basically, the weather’s always likely to change, which reminds me of a Scottish joke – “If you don’t like the weather, stick around for a minute, it’s bound to change.”
Often in Hanoi it appears to be raining on one street, while just around the corner it’s dry as a bone. Recently, a colleague told me his team turned up for a football game but the opposition had stayed at home. It was raining in the west, but not in the east, apparently.
The change of weather can be deemed the guilty party, conveniently, for a whole plethora of ailments – common colds, mood swings, toothaches, spots, bad hair dos and a strong desire not to go to work.
You might see people at the office, looking depressed, leaving early. When someone asks why, I guarantee they’ll say, “oh, the change in weather” and everyone will nod understandingly in empathetic silence as if remembering a loved one lost at sea.
So be warned, from here on out, as you leave the house, keep one eye on that weather, oh ye fickle mistress, as it is much like the sea, always to be respected, but ne’er to be trusted, and quite ungovernable.
The change of the weather in Vietnam can be downright wicked, says Teddy de Burca Jnr., so keep one eye on those dark and ominous clouds
“Beware of the moon, lads” is a common quoted line from a classic werewolf film, but as the full moon, marking Tet Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival), swelled to completion, there was something else in the air. Something far more chilling. Perhaps what Vietnamese fear most, even more than a dinner with no rice: the dreaded change in weather.
It started with a whip of a breeze from the west. Then the air pressure dropped, as if the weather upon the city was breathing in one last wheezy gulp of dirty air, before collapsing flat on its face. We could start to write the following morning’s obituaries – Summer was dead, long live Autumn.
Then the winds started to howl. The rain seemed to be going sideways. All around the city the temperature dropped, fans slowly whirled to a halt while the beer in the fridge seemed a little too cold for the first time in a long time. Someone somewhere sniffed. (No one ever knows who sniffed first.)
And sure enough, the next morning, half of the office comes in, dragging their feet, with a little cough here, and a little sneeze there, in what could be the opening scene from Dawn of the Sniffles: The curse of the common cold.
Vietnamese people will tell you, like they have told me every year I’ve been here, “beware of the change of weather” as if it were some sort of bogeyman preying on the weak.The local expression is “Som nang, chieu mua, giua trua, sam sui” (Sunny mornings, rainy afternoons, mid-noon cloudy and drizzly.) Basically, the weather’s always likely to change, which reminds me of a Scottish joke – “If you don’t like the weather, stick around for a minute, it’s bound to change.”
Often in Hanoi it appears to be raining on one street, while just around the corner it’s dry as a bone. Recently, a colleague told me his team turned up for a football game but the opposition had stayed at home. It was raining in the west, but not in the east, apparently.
The change of weather can be deemed the guilty party, conveniently, for a whole plethora of ailments – common colds, mood swings, toothaches, spots, bad hair dos and a strong desire not to go to work.
You might see people at the office, looking depressed, leaving early. When someone asks why, I guarantee they’ll say, “oh, the change in weather” and everyone will nod understandingly in empathetic silence as if remembering a loved one lost at sea.
So be warned, from here on out, as you leave the house, keep one eye on that weather, oh ye fickle mistress, as it is much like the sea, always to be respected, but ne’er to be trusted, and quite ungovernable.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
I eats my spinach!
In his homeland sugar-craving children do battle with parents over the dinner table and real men don’t even eat quiche, but Teddy de Burca Jnr. discovers in Vietnam, digging veggies is nothing to be ashamed of
As a young whippersnapper my mother simply referred to spinach as “delicious”. “Eat your delicious darling,” she’d say, as I stared suspiciously at the soggy, green and oh-so-healthy vegetable in front of me.
When I wouldn’t play ball she’d remind me of the Herculean feats of Popeye, but I figured that to be just one big mothers-in-arms conspiracy to try and get fussy scamps, like myself, to eat it up. She had other lines – “Eat your greens and you’ll have rosy cheeks” or “it’ll put curls in your hair”, but what child would bite that bait?
Only one line would work, the lowest of the low, in my eyes, the thinly veiled blackmailing sucker punch – “If you don’t eat it, there’s no dessert.”
Of course there was a dessert, I could see it, a plump apple crumble by the stove, and I could smell it, a gentle waft of cinnamon and sugary apples hung in the air, the fresh cream, already whipped, sat by its side. But the way she said “there’s no dessert” seemed as if she could make it simply vanish into thin air, with a “now you see it, now you don’t” magician’s flourish. My mother had that sort of power, I had no doubt.
Within seconds my plate was licked clean, although I would try – to lessen the pain – to swallow the lump of remaining vegetable in one, so I could barely breathe let alone chew. Moving the vegetables from one side of my mouth to the other, gulping for air, I would watch my brother holding his nose, mouth agog in the air, dropping Brussel sprouts (his own personal bogey-food) down the hatch, as though trying to dispose of incriminating evidence.
Now, thankfully, my brother and I lived to tell the tale, and grew to be men, with no fear of vegetables, and there is no deep emotional scarring to speak of, though I still have a lingering doubt as to Popeye’s credibility as Brutus’ superior and my brother curiously never opened his mouth while visiting Brussels, years later, during a brief visit to the Belgian capital.
But the question is what do mothers do in Vietnam where – if you are a child you should sit down and take a deep breath – in homes there is often no dessert served, with the exception of fresh fruit. You can twist my arm with puddings and chocolate, sure, but a slice of watermelon or a bunch of grapes? I mean, perhaps, a slice to clean the palate before a triple layered chocolate fudge cake with crème anglaise and sugar on top – but nothing but?
Well, the answer is, they do nothing. The children, believe it or not, in my experience, eat the spinach, along with every other green on the table, even pickled cabbage. Now, try comparing that to my homeland – where meat and spuds are the staple, where continental cuisine is frozen lasagne, a fish supper is fish fingers, vegetables are spurned by children and everything they eat gets washed down with copious amounts of fizzy pop, before jelly and ice cream rears its wobbly head.
Or how about the men – at the bia hoi in Vietnam, if you look, you can find two tough looking locals, complete with tattoos and grimacing faces, sharing a beer, a cigarette and a plate of tofu garnished with freshly plucked sprigs of mint and finely chopped spring onion. Any man seen doing this in a pub back home would be accused of being, how shall we say, a little bit light on the loafers, and there would be tears before bedtime no doubt.
In these parts, while I tuck into breakfast I have seen parents buy children chocolate cake at nine in the morning, but that’s understandable considering that a) they’ve been up since five and b) they eat their greens. Let them have cake, say I.
So if my mother comes back in her next life as a mother, I hope for her sake she is one in Vietnam, a place where delicious is just plain spinach, and the children even cry out for more, and to prepare dessert all she’d have to do would be peel an apple. Then she could put her tired feet up while the children washed the dishes.
Quotes on spinach
“On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five of six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.”
Delia Ephron from How To Eat Like A Child
“One man’s poison ivy is another man’s spinach.”
George Ade, American humorist
“Spinach, for decades, has been the Waterloo of kids all over the world, the one food no mother will take a ‘no’ for.”
Kanika Goswami, journalist
“Never eat spinach just before going on the air.”
Dan Rather, broadcaster
“No matter what my mom does to it, spinach always tastes awful.”
Kelly, an American girl aged 11
“Spinach is susceptible of receiving all imprints: It is the virgin wax of the kitchen.”
Grimod de la Reynie.
“I’m strong to the finish, ‘cos I eats my spinach, I’m Popeye the sailor man.”
Popeye, sailor
In his homeland sugar-craving children do battle with parents over the dinner table and real men don’t even eat quiche, but Teddy de Burca Jnr. discovers in Vietnam, digging veggies is nothing to be ashamed of
As a young whippersnapper my mother simply referred to spinach as “delicious”. “Eat your delicious darling,” she’d say, as I stared suspiciously at the soggy, green and oh-so-healthy vegetable in front of me.
When I wouldn’t play ball she’d remind me of the Herculean feats of Popeye, but I figured that to be just one big mothers-in-arms conspiracy to try and get fussy scamps, like myself, to eat it up. She had other lines – “Eat your greens and you’ll have rosy cheeks” or “it’ll put curls in your hair”, but what child would bite that bait?
Only one line would work, the lowest of the low, in my eyes, the thinly veiled blackmailing sucker punch – “If you don’t eat it, there’s no dessert.”
Of course there was a dessert, I could see it, a plump apple crumble by the stove, and I could smell it, a gentle waft of cinnamon and sugary apples hung in the air, the fresh cream, already whipped, sat by its side. But the way she said “there’s no dessert” seemed as if she could make it simply vanish into thin air, with a “now you see it, now you don’t” magician’s flourish. My mother had that sort of power, I had no doubt.
Within seconds my plate was licked clean, although I would try – to lessen the pain – to swallow the lump of remaining vegetable in one, so I could barely breathe let alone chew. Moving the vegetables from one side of my mouth to the other, gulping for air, I would watch my brother holding his nose, mouth agog in the air, dropping Brussel sprouts (his own personal bogey-food) down the hatch, as though trying to dispose of incriminating evidence.
Now, thankfully, my brother and I lived to tell the tale, and grew to be men, with no fear of vegetables, and there is no deep emotional scarring to speak of, though I still have a lingering doubt as to Popeye’s credibility as Brutus’ superior and my brother curiously never opened his mouth while visiting Brussels, years later, during a brief visit to the Belgian capital.
But the question is what do mothers do in Vietnam where – if you are a child you should sit down and take a deep breath – in homes there is often no dessert served, with the exception of fresh fruit. You can twist my arm with puddings and chocolate, sure, but a slice of watermelon or a bunch of grapes? I mean, perhaps, a slice to clean the palate before a triple layered chocolate fudge cake with crème anglaise and sugar on top – but nothing but?
Well, the answer is, they do nothing. The children, believe it or not, in my experience, eat the spinach, along with every other green on the table, even pickled cabbage. Now, try comparing that to my homeland – where meat and spuds are the staple, where continental cuisine is frozen lasagne, a fish supper is fish fingers, vegetables are spurned by children and everything they eat gets washed down with copious amounts of fizzy pop, before jelly and ice cream rears its wobbly head.
Or how about the men – at the bia hoi in Vietnam, if you look, you can find two tough looking locals, complete with tattoos and grimacing faces, sharing a beer, a cigarette and a plate of tofu garnished with freshly plucked sprigs of mint and finely chopped spring onion. Any man seen doing this in a pub back home would be accused of being, how shall we say, a little bit light on the loafers, and there would be tears before bedtime no doubt.
In these parts, while I tuck into breakfast I have seen parents buy children chocolate cake at nine in the morning, but that’s understandable considering that a) they’ve been up since five and b) they eat their greens. Let them have cake, say I.
So if my mother comes back in her next life as a mother, I hope for her sake she is one in Vietnam, a place where delicious is just plain spinach, and the children even cry out for more, and to prepare dessert all she’d have to do would be peel an apple. Then she could put her tired feet up while the children washed the dishes.
Quotes on spinach
“On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five of six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.”
Delia Ephron from How To Eat Like A Child
“One man’s poison ivy is another man’s spinach.”
George Ade, American humorist
“Spinach, for decades, has been the Waterloo of kids all over the world, the one food no mother will take a ‘no’ for.”
Kanika Goswami, journalist
“Never eat spinach just before going on the air.”
Dan Rather, broadcaster
“No matter what my mom does to it, spinach always tastes awful.”
Kelly, an American girl aged 11
“Spinach is susceptible of receiving all imprints: It is the virgin wax of the kitchen.”
Grimod de la Reynie.
“I’m strong to the finish, ‘cos I eats my spinach, I’m Popeye the sailor man.”
Popeye, sailor
Monday, September 12, 2005
Look out - he's right behind you!
A man follows Teddy de Burca Jnr. everywhere and then passes by, but with pantomime flair, he is right behind him again
We all know him, but not by name. He has driven right behind us, so we couldn’t quite lean back and see his face. He has whipped straight past us, but far too quick for us to catch his license plate number. Or, am I the only one getting in his way?
I don’t know what it says on his birth certificate but we shall refer to him henceforth as the man who is in more of a rush than the other three and a half million people in this city. (A bit of a mouthful, I admit.)
He could also be called the man who confuses his motorbike horn for a laser gun or some kind of force field. He zaps all who confront him. Even if you’re at a red light. He flies through crossroads like Evil Knievel himself. Even on empty roads I suspect he beeps
Perhaps, he is thirsty, hungry, hot or tired, or has ants in his pants. Perhaps, he is a fireman, minus a water pump, off to stop a fire or a detective in mufti, chasing a crook. Perhaps, he has just realised he should rush home and tell his wife she is the axis upon which his earth spins and without her, life would have no meaning. Or perhaps, he just needs to go the toilet really, really badly.
The odd thing is, he seems to be following me. Even on my street, I hear him barrelling down the quiet lane, as though it were a grand prix circuit, banging his horn to kingdom come. So, I step into the gate to let him pass, though the only other person on the street, a three-year old spinning devil-may-care on a tricycle, pays him no attention.
Then, as I leave, driving out to the main road, suddenly he is behind me again. I guess he forgot his phone, or left his wallet behind, and had to go back home. I pull to the side and let him pass, for the second time.
But, trundling down the dyke road, he appears, as if by magic behind me again. Did he stop to put air in his tires, or smoke in his lungs? Once again, I let him pass, but how come when I pull up to the red lights he is lurching behind me, beeping at me, revving up his engine as though we were all about to race like bats out of hell to, well, the next set of traffic lights.
Stranger still, quite regularly he is on a motorbike, but he changes model, sometimes it’s a Honda, other times it’s a Yamaha. He also likes to drive a car, and also enjoys a spin in a truck. He is a bus driver, a xe om, a commuter, a young rapscallion, an old doddery retired civil servant, a doctor, a delivery man, and the little boy who lives down the lane. He is all men, and everywhere and no matter how many times he passes, he reappears. Look out – he’s right behind you.
A man follows Teddy de Burca Jnr. everywhere and then passes by, but with pantomime flair, he is right behind him again
We all know him, but not by name. He has driven right behind us, so we couldn’t quite lean back and see his face. He has whipped straight past us, but far too quick for us to catch his license plate number. Or, am I the only one getting in his way?
I don’t know what it says on his birth certificate but we shall refer to him henceforth as the man who is in more of a rush than the other three and a half million people in this city. (A bit of a mouthful, I admit.)
He could also be called the man who confuses his motorbike horn for a laser gun or some kind of force field. He zaps all who confront him. Even if you’re at a red light. He flies through crossroads like Evil Knievel himself. Even on empty roads I suspect he beeps
Perhaps, he is thirsty, hungry, hot or tired, or has ants in his pants. Perhaps, he is a fireman, minus a water pump, off to stop a fire or a detective in mufti, chasing a crook. Perhaps, he has just realised he should rush home and tell his wife she is the axis upon which his earth spins and without her, life would have no meaning. Or perhaps, he just needs to go the toilet really, really badly.
The odd thing is, he seems to be following me. Even on my street, I hear him barrelling down the quiet lane, as though it were a grand prix circuit, banging his horn to kingdom come. So, I step into the gate to let him pass, though the only other person on the street, a three-year old spinning devil-may-care on a tricycle, pays him no attention.
Then, as I leave, driving out to the main road, suddenly he is behind me again. I guess he forgot his phone, or left his wallet behind, and had to go back home. I pull to the side and let him pass, for the second time.
But, trundling down the dyke road, he appears, as if by magic behind me again. Did he stop to put air in his tires, or smoke in his lungs? Once again, I let him pass, but how come when I pull up to the red lights he is lurching behind me, beeping at me, revving up his engine as though we were all about to race like bats out of hell to, well, the next set of traffic lights.
Stranger still, quite regularly he is on a motorbike, but he changes model, sometimes it’s a Honda, other times it’s a Yamaha. He also likes to drive a car, and also enjoys a spin in a truck. He is a bus driver, a xe om, a commuter, a young rapscallion, an old doddery retired civil servant, a doctor, a delivery man, and the little boy who lives down the lane. He is all men, and everywhere and no matter how many times he passes, he reappears. Look out – he’s right behind you.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
You’ll never eat alone
As a lone diner Teddy de Burca Jnr. is the object of sympathy from waiters who tell him he shouldn’t be doing anything alone, not even writing
You do well to be alone in Vietnam, with a population of some 80 million and such overcrowded cities. But, rather than pine for a little “me” time, most Vietnamese commonly advise that you also shouldn’t even be alone.
So much so, waiters often crowd around me as I sit by myself in a restaurant, donning the lonely cap, to cheer me up.
Of course, generally, I’m quite content sitting there, daydreaming, reading or even penning my thoughts on the mild to extreme romantic longing that weighs upon me. Or so I like to think.
But ne’ertheless, the last time I was out, the waiter stooped over as he served my soup (Irish people love soup you know) and whispered tenderly into my ear – “Eating alone is very bad for you.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I insist, but he shook his head, as though he knew I would say that, “really. It’s not that bad.”
Believing I was in the depths of depression, the waiter never strayed far. Perhaps he was worried I might have ended it all right there in front of him. A quick hari kari with the chopsticks, perhaps.
So to pass the time – his or mine, I’m not sure – we traded wayward sentences in each other’s language. I learnt there was even a phrase in Vietnamese – an mot minh dau tuc, which means, literally, eating alone hurts. Which I told him was “a bit harsh.”
“Yes,” he replied, clutching his chest, “big heart.”
Slightly paranoid that I was in physical danger, I wondered, could it be true? Was there a chemical process created by solitary eating that is detrimental to my cardiovascular system? If so, what of the opposite, is group gorging (group gorgy anyone?) the way forward?
I decided to tell him, to explain why I was alone and to ease his pain, that I was working. But that didn’t impress him one bit. He taught me another expression – “Lam mot minh cuc than”, which means to work alone will cause you trouble.
Which made me reflect on the words I wrote, as if to work alone is also bad – perhaps you, dear reader, can see a tinge of sadness between these very lines – should I try and find a writing partner?
In the end, desiring to be alone, I decided to tell him I was a poet. That would excuse the solitude, surely. I watched his face, expecting it to brighten like sunshine pouring through the gloom, but no, he shook his head, pulled out a cigarette, offered me one and said, miserably, “Em ngheo nhu thi si.” Which in Vietnamese, means, I’m as poor as a poet.
As he slinked away I felt pretty guilty. It seems, even talking to someone eating alone will cause you pain in Vietnam.
As a lone diner Teddy de Burca Jnr. is the object of sympathy from waiters who tell him he shouldn’t be doing anything alone, not even writing
You do well to be alone in Vietnam, with a population of some 80 million and such overcrowded cities. But, rather than pine for a little “me” time, most Vietnamese commonly advise that you also shouldn’t even be alone.
So much so, waiters often crowd around me as I sit by myself in a restaurant, donning the lonely cap, to cheer me up.
Of course, generally, I’m quite content sitting there, daydreaming, reading or even penning my thoughts on the mild to extreme romantic longing that weighs upon me. Or so I like to think.
But ne’ertheless, the last time I was out, the waiter stooped over as he served my soup (Irish people love soup you know) and whispered tenderly into my ear – “Eating alone is very bad for you.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I insist, but he shook his head, as though he knew I would say that, “really. It’s not that bad.”
Believing I was in the depths of depression, the waiter never strayed far. Perhaps he was worried I might have ended it all right there in front of him. A quick hari kari with the chopsticks, perhaps.
So to pass the time – his or mine, I’m not sure – we traded wayward sentences in each other’s language. I learnt there was even a phrase in Vietnamese – an mot minh dau tuc, which means, literally, eating alone hurts. Which I told him was “a bit harsh.”
“Yes,” he replied, clutching his chest, “big heart.”
Slightly paranoid that I was in physical danger, I wondered, could it be true? Was there a chemical process created by solitary eating that is detrimental to my cardiovascular system? If so, what of the opposite, is group gorging (group gorgy anyone?) the way forward?
I decided to tell him, to explain why I was alone and to ease his pain, that I was working. But that didn’t impress him one bit. He taught me another expression – “Lam mot minh cuc than”, which means to work alone will cause you trouble.
Which made me reflect on the words I wrote, as if to work alone is also bad – perhaps you, dear reader, can see a tinge of sadness between these very lines – should I try and find a writing partner?
In the end, desiring to be alone, I decided to tell him I was a poet. That would excuse the solitude, surely. I watched his face, expecting it to brighten like sunshine pouring through the gloom, but no, he shook his head, pulled out a cigarette, offered me one and said, miserably, “Em ngheo nhu thi si.” Which in Vietnamese, means, I’m as poor as a poet.
As he slinked away I felt pretty guilty. It seems, even talking to someone eating alone will cause you pain in Vietnam.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
