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

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.

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.

Loose change in tight pockets

Teddy de Burca Jnr. praises the glory of his morning cigarette and a cup of coffee, purchased for a paltry VND6,000 ($0.40), the only problem is he never has the exact change

Every day I stop for a coffee and a single cigarette in the same café. It is a highlight of my day, being an absolute skinflint, but for the cantankerous looking uncle who serves me, it often seems to be the opposite. The problem is, you see, no one has invented a note to the tune of VND6,000.

He is a troubled old soul at the best of times, I suspect. People – known in cafés as customers – are never very warmly received with their orders, requests and complaints.

His gripe with me is I never have tien le (small change). Like yesterday, when I went to pay, first, he stood aside and grumbled to the doorway, as though calculating an equation that would confound professors. Then, when I pulled out a fresh washable pink VND50,000 note, his eyes rolled back into his head. “Who on earth,” I imagined him thinking, “pays for a coffee and a single cigarette with that?”

He stared at the note, as if it were the note’s fault, shook his head, looked at me again with a pained expression, and then begrudgingly rooted around his money-basket for change.

To exact revenge, he plucked out the most God forsaken notes: VND1,000 or VND2,000 ones of the 1984 vintage (frayed at the edges, browned with age, and scented with mildew), a VND5,000 note sellotaped together with a phone number and em yeu anh mai mai (I love you forever) hand written in the corner, and a reassembled VND10,000 with a bit of a VND500 taped conspicuously in the corner.

I spent the rest of the day trying to off-load these notes. Paying bills, debts and tipping delivery boys. Without fail, I rid my pockets of old cantankerous’ notes, which meant this morning I arrived, once again, ordering my usual, only when I stepped up to pay I only had a crisp lime green VND100,000 ($6.6) bill. I might as well have stabbed him in the heart. He stumbled out of the café, put his hands on his hips and gazed at the unmerciful heavens. Then, he walked back in muttering to his chest. He was thinking long and hard. The world turned but we felt nothing, standing man to man, waiting for the other to make the first move. It felt like a Wild West sort of moment. He would tell me to leave town, or cough up the small notes I was hiding in my cowboy boots.
“Okay,” he said, squaring me up, planting the note back in my hand. “You can pay for it tomorrow.”

Of course, my bill would then be VND12,000, and there is no such note, so he’ll have to face my VND100,000 once again. The only other option is I turn up with all the coins left over from a visit to the Hilton Hotel (Why is it the only place that uses them?) – would he be happy with that kind of tien le?

There’s only one way to find out. I’ll be wearing spurs and whistling as I walk into the café tomorrow. It’s a showdown – skinflints at high-noon.

Old hairy arms is here to stay

In Hanoi Teddy de Burca Jnr. can stop the traffic, not with his looks, but merely with his shaggy-haired arms. But will his descendants be able to “hang on” to this eye catching feature?

The first time it happened I was at a red light. The throng of motorbikes sat behind me. My eyes were fixed on the light ahead, and, like everyone else in this city, I was impatiently waiting for it to turn green. That’s when I felt a slight tug.

I could feel a pair of naughty little fingers pulling the hair on my arm. My head rolled around, I like to think, with the air of Schwarzenegger’s terminator, what with the shades, the motorbike, and the bad-to-the-bone attitude.

But no one cowered. No one became embarrassed. A young boy sat on the back of his sister’s bike, and the two of them continuously giggled, as the boy tugged on the mane of hair that covers my left arm, as though it were just too silly to be true.
“Like a monkey,” sniped the boy, as the light went green, and the girl zoomed off, leaving me behind, lost in a din of horns and revving engines.

The very same day, I found myself at a petrol station, and I could see the squat woman, from behind her handkerchief, was grinning madly. As she filled my bike her dainty little hand brushed down my arm.
“Beautiful hair,” I heard her say, and it can’t have been my head hair, as I was wearing a helmet.

Since then, my arms have been admired by men at the bia hoi, I’ve been asked if I wanted them shaved in a hair salon, told the hair was like golden tobacco by a flirty waitress, asked if they keep me warm in winter by a thoughtful mother; shoeshine boys, grown men, girls, mothers, fathers, beggars, doctors, urchins, even the boy marking me in a game of football – all and sundry have had a little inspection.

And as much as my dear partner may pretend to put up with my Celtic body’s peculiarities, she takes glee in the fact that if we had a child, as she’s Asian, all of my reddish hair, hairy arms, freckles, blue eyes and pasty skin wouldn’t stand a chance against her, rather unfairly labelled, dominant genes.

But she’s as wrong as she is right. Any offspring I produced would undoubtedly appear more Asian – black hair, brown eyes, sallow skin – and they would live happily as sleek and aerodynamic drivers, zooming through red lights without any fondling or derision for gross hairiness.

However, thanks to an Augustan monk, Gregor Mendel, we know a thing or two about genetics, as the big-bearded fellow was the man who married smooth peas with wrinkled peas and discovered that the next generation had no wrinkles.

Now, placing my partner and myself in that context, I would be the wrinkled pea, so if we had kids, would that mean the end of the line for me, my hairy arms and sun kissed-pasty looks?

Hardly, as the third generation of peas, grown by brother Gregor, proved that there would be a one in four chance one could return completely wrinkled.

So, I like to picture a scene, years from now, when I’m an old senile nonagenarian, or worse, and the fruit of my loins, a beautiful Asian-looking woman, is starting a family with a carefully selected other, and on a summery day, in a quiet maternity ward, in a bed surrounded by curious heads, a wailing little red-faced-red-headed boy with hairy arms will pop out from the belly of his mother into the hands of the black haired and baffled father, and the nurses will gasp, and the doctor will raise an eyebrow, and the mother will shrug, and that’ll be my way of saying, old hairy arms is here to stay.

I was the Passenger ('Cos breaking up is hard to do)

Teddy de Burca Jnr. can’t help feeling awkward about crossing paths with his old xe om driver, a man now minus a once-steady source of income

I have to change my route to work. I just don’t have the heart anymore. Every morning I drive out to the lane and there he stands, in the shade beneath the kapok trees, his head hanging on his chest, like a wounded soldier in a heart wrenching portrait, entitled – “Man as bucket of misery.”

As I pass by, I try to catch his eyes, just to be cordial. How could I pretend he’s not there, after all we’d been through, all those mornings we rode together, through the dusk, dirt, smoke and the city lights.

And of course, he knows I’m there. He knows I’m passing by, slowing down to say ‘xin chao’. He recognises the sound of the engine, or saw me coming around the corner, but he won’t look at me, lest I see the tears welling up in his eyes.

He, in case you are wondering, is my ex-xe om driver, a man, who due to some broken limbs, I depended on for the last three months. And as a result of the income I generated, he, no doubt, grew to depend on me. Recently, I noticed he had upgraded his brand of cigarettes to a Singaporean variety.

Come rain, come shine, together we drove over the causeway, around by the mausoleum, along the banks of the murky Red River and down the plush boulevards on Tran Phu. He never drove too fast or braked too suddenly. He even slowed down as we passed pretty ladies, so I could wink and say “Howya”. He also learnt some English phrases, my favourite being – “Where to, sir?” He told me that during the next Tet holiday I would be an honoured guest in his house. He thought this summer would last forever. Perhaps, we both did.

But alas, one fateful morning, weighed down by a heavy heart, I wheeled my bike out of the gate, and drew a long breath. I knew it would be awkward. I knew it would hurt.

As I approached, I saw him glance out of the corner of his eyes. He had been laughing with his friends. Looking forward to another day in the saddle, making a few dollars-worth, a decent day’s wages for most. Little did he know when he rose that morning that the gravy train would drive straight past. Should I have given one month’s notice?

And now every morning, as all the other xe om drivers head off with their regular passengers he is left, in the shade under the kapok tree, no money in his pocket and nowhere to go, a future as bleak as it is uncertain.
So that’s why I can’t take it anymore. Tomorrow morning, I will turn left and drive the long way round to work. Just to spare his feelings. So he can begin again.

In future, there will be other foreigners, he will coo them over and they’ll hop on his pillion, and he will smile sweetly, and say – “where to, sir?” And they’ll laugh at that one, especially if it’s a woman, and being new to Hanoi, she’ll pay double what an old skinflint like me ever did. It’ll be the start of a beautiful friendship. Until she plucks up the nerve to buy a motorbike, that is.

An experiment gone wrong

Teddy de Burca Jnr. just wanted to take a taxi from Phan Thiet to Ho Chi Minh City, but found himself in an experiment to try and travel at the speed of light

It wasn’t far out of Phan Thiet when I realised I was with a taxi driver who had set his mind on achieving what you would think was obviously impossible – to travel down highway one at the speed of light.

It would be nice, I suppose, to arrive at your destination as you left. To be there before you knew it. To see the other side of the galaxy or to go boldly where no Vietnamese taxi driver has been before.

But the car was not modified to any Star Trek specifications. In fact, the whole vehicle was juddering as the car tore down the busiest road in the world, weaving in and out of articulated lorries and buses, like there was no tomorrow.

I thought about pointing out to the taxi-driver-cum-scientist that there were two eventualities to this experiment. Either, we would crash, into one of the other thousand automated vehicles around us, and burst into a ball of flames. Or, he would succeed and we would travel at the speed of light but that, according to Einstein, would mean our molecules and atoms would obliterate in a colourful blaze and we would be nothing but cosmic dust sprinkled upon an earthly road.

Either way, we were doomed. I knew that. But he obviously didn’t. So why didn’t I speak? If I had, I hear you say, nothing would have happened. But hindsight, you will agree, is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

So I sat in dumb silence, well, not quite. I could hear the music in my headphones. Isaac Hayes, crooning about a backstabbing love affair, “If loving you is wrong…” We will crash I thought. “I don’t wanna be right,” sang Isaac.

And then, I thought, enough is enough, I will tap him on the shoulder and say, listen buddy, it just isn’t happening, not today, not with me, I would like to live. But the taxi driver had already seemingly given up on life. He had taken his eyes off the road, despite the fact that we were now travelling at a hundred thousand miles per hour, and his eyes were scanning the horizon, across the lush paddies, his thoughts, perhaps, recalling an incomplete romance from his past, and Isaac sang on, “I don’t wanna be right”, and my eyes looked ahead, and I saw the stationary truck we were hurtling towards and I said an unprintable four letter word.

I will not speak of the impact, my gruesome injuries, or the imminent debacle of getting from a country road to a foreign hospital. Nor will I speak of the operation or the rehabilitation. But, I will recommend that when you find yourself in a taxi or on the back of a motorbike, if the driver is trying to travel at the speed of light, be direct, be swift and tap the fellow on the shoulder and say, “No. Not today. Not with me. Just ease off the gas and let’s enjoy the ride. I’m in no hurry. I’ll even give you the gist of Einstein’s theory of relativity along the way.” Or forever hold your silence.

The vigilante’s guilt complex

Teddy de Burca Jnr. encounters a thief and saves the day for a shopkeeper, but ends up wondering why doing a good deed makes him feel so bad

I look into his eyes. He looks into mine. He has just slipped a large colourful volume under his shirt and down into his pants, quite skilfully I might add, and now he is staring at me, like prey before a predator, wondering – “does he see me here, three feet in front of his face, or am I somehow invisible at this moment in space and time?”

And yes, of course I see him, and he realises, and without batting a eyelid, he whips the large colourful volume back out and then holds it up in the air, squinting his eyes, as if measuring it with great academic curiosity, as though he might be thinking, “Yes that proves it – quod erat demonstrandum! One large colourful volume can slip snugly into a pair of pants. And if I wanted I could, y’know, rob it, but of course I wouldn’t do that, because I’m not invisible, which means that foreign guy saw me.”

I call the shop assistant over, thinking craftily, I will scupper this oddball. He won’t have the audacity to steal anything if she stands beside us. She toddles over, smiling beatifically, and repeats everything I say.

“I’m looking for a book.”

“…a book,” she says, turning towards the shelves, as if to say, well, help yourself.

“By James Joyce. He’s an Irish writer.”

“…Icelandic writer?”

“…” I think about trying to sum up the writer in 25 words or less. Irish. Alcoholic. Blind as a bat. Stream of consciousness. Hailed as the greatest by Irish people who have never read any of his books. Dead.

But then I see the would-be-shoplifter drop to his hunkers and then shunt the large, slim colourful volume up his shirt again, before sliding it down into his pants, and then, after wheeling on the heels of his plastic sandals in the doorway, with a flash he is gone.

“That man just stole a book,” I say pointing my finger at an empty space.

“Yes. Stole a book,” she says smiling, oblivious to the theft, searching for a book entitled Stole a book.

“Under his shirt.”

“Under his shirt?” she says, thinking, such names for novels.

I decide to take the matter into my own hands. I walk out and look down the road. Nothing. No one. I jump on my bike and drive around the corner and start to drive in the direction the man vanished into. I imagine a mini-headline – “Foreigner rescues two-dollar book from destitute man, marries shopkeeper’s daughter, declared national hero”.

About a kilometre away – he’s certainly no slouch with a book rammed down his pants – I find him on Pham Chu Trinh street, pacing furiously with the gait of a man, well, with a large colourful volume rammed down his pants.

“You. You have a book.”

“…” He waves me away with his hand.

“I know you have a book down your pants. I saw you.”

Pedestrians start to look as this odd altercation. His thoughts are visibly turning over in his head. He twitches as he turns towards me, walking while whipping the book from out of his pants and under his shirt, and another headline flashes in my head, “Foreign man bludgeoned to death by large colourful volume”, but instead he just hands it to me, quite delicately. Somewhat surprised by the anti-climax I throw it in my basket and drive away not bothering to explain that I am a good-willed vigilante who plans to return the book to its rightful owner. After all, I don’t know the Vietnamese word for vigilante.

He squawks as I drive away, “Schkou, ehuh,” gibberish for “hang on a minute” and starts to run after me, but not for very far. I suspect immediately that, in fact, he thought I might want to buy it off him. Now, he feels he is the one being robbed. Another headline, this time in the Vietnamese dailies, flashes in my head, “Local thief robbed by foreign thief”.

Unperturbed, I u-turn, drive back to the shop, deposit the large colourful volume in the hands of the proprietor.

“Here you are.”

“…here you are,” she says taking the book.

And that’s that, or is it? No marriage proposal. No medal. Not even a pat on the back. And as I drive away a nagging guilt niggles. Scenarios flood my mind. The man had given up too easily. Perhaps, he had paid and just didn’t like plastic bags. Perhaps, he lived in the worst part of town and his pants were the safest place for a large colourful volume. It was, no doubt, his crippled three-year old son’s birthday and I had run away with his gift.

I drive on, trying not to think about it, but his gaunt face returns to haunt me and spite my arrogant vigilance. I picture him sobbing on the roadside. His incomprehensible words – “Schkou, ehuh” – ring in my ears. Being a vigilante is not all it’s cracked up to be, I decide. I’m quite sure, that’s why Batman is such a dark and melancholy chap come cocktail hour on Saturday night.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Teddy de Burca Jnr. ponders a rather challenging work in progress – the street he lives on

Every time I return from a trip abroad, I wonder if the construction work on my street has finished. It doesn’t matter how often I go, or even how long I stay away. It never does. The road is long. So, so long.

Each house on my street has been built around me, one by one, over the course of two years. Each one, in the spirit of neighbourly one-upmanship, a little bit higher than the last.

Though it seems longer, I reckon the projects take on average half a year. Which means, half a year of secretive midnight truck deliveries, spinning cement mixers and the clanking of bricks. Half a year of labourers grinding, sawing, hacking, hammering, drilling, whistling and hollering “ell-looo!” every time they see me. And, worst of all, half a year with no Sunday-sleep in.

What can you do but thank the stars that even the universe is finite. A piece of string, though you don’t know exactly how long, has a length. Everything must end. The only question is when.

For the time being, I must grin and bear it as the latest work-in-progress, directly opposite my abode, continues.

Construction began, or rather continued, after the octogenarian lady who lived there finally succumbed to the lure of the dollar, sold up and, I presume, moved back to her mother’s in the provinces to count the cash.

The building, replacing her so-wee-you-couldn’t-even-see-it-bungalow, is nothing short than a workingman’s idea of a palace. It seems to have stopped at seven, or is it eight, stories, making it the tallest on the street, if not the district.

You could knock down the neighbouring buildings so it stood alone, put clocks on top, and call it the town hall. Or convert the roof into a helicopter-landing pad. Or, at the very least, enjoy abseiling down to pay electricity bills.

The two-dozen young labourers, which initially seemed an excessive number, now have their own room. Lost within the bowels of this architectural monster, they can only be heard, crooning away, tickled pink by the reverb they get on their voices in the bare rooms.

I suspect the father of the family that is destined to live there, asked the architect for a house so large he could hide from his nagging family and live forever in blissful solitude.

Then again, that’s all assuming there is an architect involved. Judging by the style –the mock-pillared balcony (I say mock, as the gaps are filled with cement, so as, I presume, only to hint at pillars, “thus, I give you pillaresque!”), the monastery round tower windows (perfect for archers defending the site from attacking hoards), the car wash size basement for a fleet of SUVs and BMWs and the papaya-peach paint job – you’d say not.

Of course, I know the construction won’t last forever, one day the world will run out of bricks, or just end. But, the really distressing fact is three doors down lies another house where the oldest woman in Vietnam dwells, alone. I’m afraid, like the last of the Mohicans, her days are numbered.

Someday, I will have my much-cherished Sunday morning sleep-in again. The only question is when.

Invasion of the kumquat trees

In the beginning you didn't notice them arriving. Not really. As you rolled through the city streets little flecks of orange here and there may have caught your eye, but amongst the mass of traffic, fumes, beeps and parade of winter fashions, and what with the biting breeze, and the pre-Tet drizzle, you didn't bat an eyelid.

But now, maybe you are on a motorbike – driving to work – or hidden from the rain in the back of a taxi, or cowering behind your xe om driver. But you're in a sleepy-headed daze, so when you stare ahead and see 50 metres down the road a kumquat tree, bobbling in the buffeting breeze, driving a motorbike at full throttle, you'll shake your head, squint your eyes and look again.

Did you just see what you thing you did? Was that a potted plant controlling a two-wheeled motorbike swerving in and out of the traffic with the devilmaycare nonchalance of the headless horseman himself?

"Anh oi," you ask the xe om man, or taxi driver, tapping his shoulder. "Did you see that?" And he will smile leaving you with the impression that a) he didn't understand your Vietnamese b) he didn't understand your English c) he knows something you don't.

As the days dwindle down towards the Lunar New Year, Hanoi city becomes a free for all. The shopping list grows with each year but, to sum up, a shortlist of essentials includes stocking up on crates of beer, bottles of liquor, sacks of rice, fruit, meat and the mildly radioactive looking stomach-sized Banh Chung.

But you've started to notice something else multiplying. This time you're sure. Everywhere bikes are being driven around by kumquat trees. One tree, its little olive-sized fruits shaking as if the tree itself is laughing, is driving a teenage girl and her mother at 40 kilometres per hour down the dyke road, slaloming in and out of trucks, buses and SUVs.

The road by Quan Thanh park - along with many others - has been transformed into polka dot-orange. Young country teenagers coo at passing bikes, beckoning them towards a string of trees for sale. A middle-aged man cruises past eyeing up the trees. Eventually he pauses by a perfectly symmetrical, squat one. He has found his plant, or, you wonder, has the plant found its pod? The young sales boy skilfully ties the plant on to the man's bike. Then the man clambers on the pillion, pats the pot on its rump as if to say - "Off we go!"

You have an appointment, thankfully indoors, and you hurriedly head to the office. I'll be safe here, you think. But the receptionist shunts you into the waiting room where an enormous twelve-footer of a kumquat tree looms over you. The whole room seems to be caught in its shadow. You run out the door shouting that you'll be back after Tet.

Outside you start to panic. The city is now bedlam. You can't travel anywhere without seeing the scores of kumquat trees that have converged on the city like a scene out of the Day of the Triffids. You can't breathe. You decide to u-turn. You have to get out. The suburbs. The hinterland. Anywhere.

But as you snake your way out of the city you glance down into the fields to your right, and there you see a whole host of kumquat trees in their hundreds, stretching into the eerie West Lake mist. Down amongst them locals twirl, dance and skip, like a scene out of the Sound of Music. And the further you drive the more you see, the more you realise there is no point in fighting. The situation is useless.

Eventually you slow down by a field and dismount. You seem powerless, or compelled. You point at a tree. The woman nods. You fork out some crumpled cash from your pockets. Not too much you hope. Then she orders her son to tie the kumquat tree onto your steed. Then afterwards they place you nimbly on the passenger seat and pat the kumquat tree. Then the tree turns the ignition, clicks into gear, accelerates and drives you home.

On the way back the kumquat tree drives with smooth confidence. You are perfectly relaxed. You feel at peace with yourself and fellow man. You realise the stress of the pre-Tet traffic had got you down. Worked up. Frazzled. You smile, put your arms around the tree, and think - "this is going to be the best Tet ever."

As you enter the neighbourhood everyone sees you - the old granny at the tea stall, the neighbourhood policeman, the 'valet' boys at the bia hoi – and they clap their hands with glee.

When you arrive home, after opening your door, your landlord helps you heave the tree inside and place it in a corner where it twinkles in the rays of a setting sunbeam. He admires the tree, and then admires you: "Bay gio," he says with his hand on your shoulder, "thi em la nguoi Vietnam roi."

If you need a translation, it meets quite simply: Now you are one of us.



Things to do with your kumquat tree during Tet:
1. Take off a few kumquats and learn to juggle, which helps reduce stress and lowers the risk of Alzheimer's
2. Take off a half-dozen kumquats, invite a friend over and play "fruit" marbles, which helps reduce tedium and lowers the risk of eye-related injuries
3. Take off all the kumquats, slice them up with limes, while heating a bottle of red wine in a pot, add sugar, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves with the sliced fruit to the wine, heat until just before boiling point. Pour into a glass, drink. Repeat until drunk. And have a merry Lunar New Year.

A poorly researched analysis of Vietnamese pronouns


I overheard one foreign fellow in a café speaking of how he had become a chu (uncle) in recent times. Of course anyone can be a chu. All you need is a chau (niece/ nephew/ whippersnapper) to call you one.

He was referring of course to the more depressing fact that now he is in his late thirties all the young, nubile ladies around town, serving him his coffee, or beer, (as if collectively) had elevated him, or relegated, or shall we say banished him, to the status of being an older man. To them he was no longer an anh (older brother/ male friend). He was an uncle.

“Hat’s off to the Vietnamese,” he said taking it on the chin, “They know how to make those old rascals with idle hands behave themselves.”

Every man must face the day, some sooner than others, when the grey flecks appear, the crow’s feet deepen, the belly goes and you start buying string vests. Then the young ladies will miss your glances, thank heavens for them, and you must resign yourself to games of Chinese checkers in Lenin Park, shuffle off to the bia hoi or, for the more athletic specimen, whack a shuttlecock in the close proximity of traffic.

The words, or phrasing is somewhat weakened in translation, but allow me to demonstrate the potential power the words Chao Anh (eg: Hello young buck) can have, and by comparison Chao Chu (eg: Hello old fart).

If I am within the age of a woman and keen for a bit of harmless flirtation the greeting ‘Chao Anh’ can mean, in my mind, anything from – ‘Hello tiger’, ‘Hey there good looking’, ‘Let’s get it on’. (I admit to taking certain liberties but if I don’t, who will?)

If, on the other hand, they say ‘Chao Chu’, well, I would understand it as - ‘Good day to you venerable uncle’, ‘Hello middle-aged man’, ‘Are you looking for my father/ mother?’ or, perhaps, just - ‘don’t even think about it’

Hat’s off indeed. Everyone is put in their place. And that’s grand. But can it all be so categorically satisfying? Surely in this mixed up-muddled up world things can’t be so pleasantly simple.

Of course not. Now usually young loving couples in these parts comprise of an anh, who is older, and an em, who is younger. But what if, as in the film Vertical ray of the sun, the boy and girl are born on the same day? Could she be in fact the chi, and he the em? And if she was, and they fell in love would he keep calling her chi?

Traditionalists, oh ye pernickety old souls, would perish the thought. The man, they say, must remain an anh, otherwise they won’t have any relevant songs to sing in karoke, apt love poetry to recite or be able to whisper sweet nothings without slightly shuddering and thinking of their siblings.

I, myself, am partnered by a woman one year my senior (she never lets me forget) but these prickly pronouns prevent us from communicating in Vietnamese, her native tongue, as she refuses to be called either an em, because I’m younger, or chi, because she sounds old. If I dare to be as cheeky to say ‘em yeu chi’ (I love you older woman) she winces as goose pimples break out all over her skin, and says - “Don’t be weird.”

In fact, several older couples have taken me aside and told me to get a nice young pretty wife only for me to discover later the woman in their relationship was older than the man, but it was a fact that was never uttered aloud. Were they trying to keep things simple for me?

Perhaps we’re not so different in my part of the world. My grandfather whose last tuppence worth to my brother was to grab him by the lapels and tell him to make sure he got a nice, young, country woman: fine child rearing hips and they produce nothing but boys, he told him squarely. It was only posthumously did the shocking truth emerge, he was a year younger than my grandmother. (Who also for the record was a city girl and whacked out five boys in a row without batting an eyelid. There goes the theory.)

When speaking Vietnamese we must select a pronoun, especially important when forging a relationship, so I’m told. We are told to pick a title based on our relationship, gender and status. For mother we have a choice of me/ ma/ de/ u and father a platter of bo/ ba/ cha/ tia. For an uncle younger than a mother, we say cau, not chu, and his wife is a mo not a co. And there’s a lot more where they came from.

Confused? Well spare a thought for those children born before their supposed uncles or aunts. (A cousin once removed in our old humdrum language). Imagine the torture of having to visit some relatives, and coming face to face with a child - snot dribbling down his sleeves, chocolate on his cheeks and an evil grin of pleasure as you arrive humbled before your mouth opens. And everyone stands around smiling, prompting you to do your duty, and mumble to the brat - “Hello uncle”

It would be enough to make you stick your head in the sand, I’d say, or at least hit the booze. (I suppose you could take solace in the fact you can drink your uncle under the coffee table) For more desperate measures- get thee to a monastery, as being a monk simplifies things greatly as everyone will refer to you as Thay (master/ teacher/ monk man), and you will call all and sundry - Thi Chu (generous master/ chap/ chapette)

Of course things get complicated when people start messing around with marriage – like when an estranged husband’s younger brother married the estranged wife. Previously the brother called her chi (older sister) as she was the spouse of his older brother - after they wed did he change? And if so, at what point exactly did he change? And what if the husband then married his brother’s ex-wife? And if they all had children? Does anyone know the answer to these questions? Is there a university department calculating the permutations of these eventualities? Is there a hotline for unexpectedly large family gatherings to establish who’s dishing out the rice, and more importantly who’s pouring the wine?

Now, I know this example is a touch extreme but what if Bill Wyman (ex-rolling stone bassist) was Vietnamese?

Bill, 50 million years old, married Mandy Smith, 19 back in 1989. All very well for them, but then his son Stephen, thirty-something, started dating Mandy’s mum, forty-something and things started getting a wee bit creepy.

Of course Bill’s marriage went belly-up before the interior decorator saw their living room, and just in the nick of time, it seems, as his dear son went on to marry Bill’s mother in-law (i.e. his own (ex) granny-in-law). If Bill hadn’t bailed Stephen Wyman would have become his father’s father-in-law and if he’d had a kid he would have been his own grandfather and you’d tear your hair out just thinking about it.

Admittedly that’s a mess in what ever universe you live in but they should be grateful when Christmas cracker time rolls around that they could look each other in the eye, clink their glasses of eggnog and say nice and simply – ‘here’s to you and me’






To avoid further confusion steer clear of graphs:
Figure 1: Verbal Interaction Process

The football is over but who was watching?


The football is over. Vietnam breathes. In England they’re flicking past the back page to the cricket. In Parisian cafes they are turning a blind eye to ‘sandwich au grec’ on the menu. Meanwhile in Athens they’re waking up to a strange feeling: victory. Worry beads have been placed in the jewellery box, for now, while in Lisbon they’re sweeping up, shaking their melancholic heads, wondering - what if…

But strangely enough, in Asia, before the game, as the locals shuffled on the streets waiting anxiously for kick off, the ex-pats seemed to be heading for hills. Why? Too late, they say, too boring, they think. This wasn’t living up to the BBC’s billing: "The nation of explorers versus the founders of civilisation.” (This admittedly made it all sound like a game of Risk tm played by men in velvet pants and feather-peaked caps).

The sore-losing dearly departed, it seemed, had both eyes on a practical Monday morning. The French have already added Greece to their list of disasters along with Waterloo, Japan 2002 and the South Pacific. England can add Beckham and Vassell to the horrifically long list of penalty howlers that re-occur like every good curse should by nature. The Daily Mail blamed the referee and printed his email address for all to abuse. As for the Italians, they were on the bus for home seemingly weeks ago. Rasping their tongues out the window, crying “conspiraziano”. (Totti has laid his demons to rest in front of the Virgin Mary in Rome, pleading for Divine forgiveness for his spittle job on a sweaty Dane.)

So with the favourites out, and playing below expectations, and that’s an understatement, had ex-pat Europeans in Hanoi (except the Greeks I presume…) lost their taste for football?

“I wish England were playing,” said one English fellow, a minute before kick off as he headed for bed. “Football? C’est quoi?” said a French chap. “J’ai ne pas le foot…”

So as my footless-French friend and Englandless-English pal trudged off to their beds I quickly texted others but no reply. Maybe they were right. Too late. Too boring. Tomorrow was the start of another week. I decided to split.

But as I drove off, snaking through the inner-city streets, it struck me how the city around me was still buzzing: grinning teenage boys, let out late for the game, drove the other way, on pavements old grannies served up hot tea while men opened up a new pack of Vinataba, tobacco pipes whistled, TV’s were turned up, Nelly Furtado (half-Portuguese you know) was singing at the opening ceremony, kick off was beckoning but why was Asia waking up while all the Europeans (except the Greeks…) were going to bed?

The Vietnamese are the happiest of football purists, I surmise, as regards Euro 2004 they are basically neutral. Some may consider neutrality as hedging your bets, or sitting on the fence. But it has its bonuses. Switzerland, for example, sat pretty, while Europe butchered itself silly once upon a time. Though what invaders would want to march up a mountain anyway? So too Ireland, we drank the German spies under the table in Cork and told Winston Churchill to leave a message in Dublin, we’d get back to him in the morning.

To be neutral watching Euro 2004 is to enjoy it to the full, as the tournament unfolded and the top dogs went whimpering home, Vietnamese fans sat pretty enjoying the show, whether graced by the fleet-footed Zinedane Zorro Zidane or the pirates of Penzance, they will watch it regardless, let’s face it they even show the German league on VTV 4! Do they care about David Beckham’s absence and how he only scores during Castro oil advertisements? I doubt it.

For them, the Euro is a glitterati event, it’s mini-Monte Carlo, it’s the chance for a sporting flutter, a sneaky night out, girls dress up, couples meander across the Ho Tay causeway on the way to the game, men toast with a bia, the old ladies sell a pot and a half of tea, the late night noodle stalls rack up the sales, afterwards everyone sleeps in, perhaps a few are late for work, but no matter, the boss is too, and in short a Sunday night becomes a Saturday night.

But not for the Europeans. Those tired cynics, (the Greek Embassy excluded), they crawled off to bed. When France played Italy four years ago the bars were packed with ex-pats swilling beer, but not this time, they took the attitude if you’re not winning you’re sulking, while the Vietnamese got comfy in empty chairs across town.

But therein lay the great irony: the Asians would keep the Europeans awake through the night watching the end of a European competition.

I myself stretched out in my bed, deciding I would keep score by counting my neighbour’s cries of ‘vao’ (goal), recognisable by a sustained cheer afterwards, and not to be confused with a ‘wow’ or an ‘aow’, which are near or excruciating misses, I believe.

As I lay in my furnace of a room, itching with hot insomnia, I could feel the tension consume the air. There were whistles from my neighbour's TV. I guessed both teams were struggling to impose their strategy. But mid-way through the second half my neighbours erupted - ‘vao!’ That was it. One-nil. And judging by the subsequent low cheers from the TV it must have been the visiting Greeks who had gone one up. Game on.

I ran downstairs to watch as the Portuguese chased the game. The frustration built for the hosts. The pain etched on the fans faces. They had set out their sails too late. Outside the winds were blowing but in the stadium the air was dead. The Portuguese were left like fisherman running down the pier for fear of missing the tide. The whistles and cheers became a din. They rallied. Too little. Too late.

And that was that. It was all over. All across Hanoi City television sets were flicked off. In Lisbon the Portuguese were crying. The champagne was left in melting ice. Eusebio loosened his tie. In Athens they were on the streets, honking, cheering, kissing. And in Ha Noi, the Europeans were sleeping, the Vietnamese were driving home, getting into bed, Greece were the champions of Europe, but they didn’t really care, after all it’s just a game.

Then Monday arrives. Too soon for some. Some folk drive to work half-asleep. Europeans read about it on the internet. Journalists use pompous classical clichés to describe the Grecian triumph, which is ridiculous and unfair: it took Odysseus 20 years to take care of Troy and get back to his missus with the aid of several Gods; it only took the Greek Football team a German coach, man marking and three weeks to conquer Europe.

And did any foreigners watch it? Well, actually, yes. My antipodean pal for starters. “German efficiency,” said a Kiwi of the Greek demolition on the tournament. “Damn right,” said a Canadian, “Who was Jumping Jim?” (The clothed streaker who ran past Figo and out did the hosts by hitting the back of the Greek net).

And now Greece are on the map, their seven syllable names not quite on the lips of the locals, but who cares, smiling youngsters will ask their fathers if Greece will win the Olympics too, or will the Portuguese exact revenge in the shot putt?

May the Gods bless you Greece, and don’t forget to wave to Italy, France and the English tourists as you coast through the straits of Gibraltar, down the Mediterranean all the way home. You did it.

The Kickstand Monitor

In these days of tender world politics and holy wars the minor and petty tragedies of day to day life have been swept under the carpet where they fester to the point of insanity.

When was the last time some frank but helpful gent sidled up to you and whispered 'your laces are untied' or 'you're flying low without a license?' Or indeed, a loving doting companion flicked the breadcrumbs off your cheeks as you ranted about global terrorism during a pleasant brunch? I fear those quaint days of camaraderie and courtliness have passed into the shadow. And there they will stay unless we take action.

That is why it is relieving to come across the likes of Summertime Ryan. I first heard of him on the internet but was fortunate to have a mutual friend in Hanoi who made arrangements for me to meet this mythical man. Ryan, an ex physical education teacher from Portland, Oregon, is a man whose reputation precedes itself. He has single-handedly taken on a chronic problem in Vietnam: people leaving their kickstands down. There is no hard evidence of what he does, hence the mystery of the man, but local ex pats are fully aware of the impact he is making.
"No doubt about it," says one European coffee shop owner, "he's out there saving lives, dawn to dusk. There's a war out there, and you don't win any medals for fighting. He's a hero."

After his morning tai chi Ryan starts his day with a bowl of pho and an orange juice before he takes to the streets with one thing on his mind: “Those darn kickstands!”

As arranged we meet by Dien Bien Phu and Tran Phu, one of the busiest intersections in town, and one of his choice sentry points. Ryan, who cycled, is already in the middle of the road when I arrive. The bikes hurtle past, like a frenzied school of fish, quite an intimidating environment, but Ryan showing no concern for personal safety moves amongst the madness holding up signs to show certain individuals that their kickstands are down, and remind everyone else to check theirs.

“Look out there,” he growls in his husky Oregon voice, “each one is an accident waiting to happen. They’re like triggers on guns. Everyday thousands of innocent citizens, from housewives to students, crash because of it. The multitudes of masses have one thing in common: negligence on the road by forgetting to kick the stand up! And keep it up!”

Ryan and his striking young wife Lollio launched the “Kick the Habit” campaign this year promoting awareness with t-shirts distribution, posters and even a soon to be released pop song called –“I can’t stand it” sung by Ryan himself. (In the vein of James Brown he tells me.)

“We started like all great things," his wife beams as she speaks, "from nothing, but as sure as my name is Lollio Ryan, I know that from little acorns do grow big ol’ oak trees!”

Like many great enthusiasts their shared passion stems from a bitter personal experience. Several years ago after jogging to town the young married couple were sitting over a restorative fruit shake on Dien Bien Phu Street. While relaxing and watching the traffic they witnessed a horrific collision caused by a delivery boy with his kickstand down.

Ryan talks about the event in hushed tones. “For me,” he explains, “it was a metaphor for life: the tiniest of things could cause so much pain and destruction, like a cancerous cell, or Adolf Hitler. It's what I like to call the bad apple syndrome.”

Together they formed KRAP (Kickstand Related Accident Prevention) and drove around helping people, who they spotted with their kickstands down, bridging the linguistic gap with a simple animated point. Since then Lillio has even learnt the Vietnamese for “Hey! Your kickstands down!” (Anh/ Chi oi! Chan chong!)
“That’s way above my head,” chortles Ryan in embarrassed admiration for his wife, “but that’s Lollio for ya! She’s a one in a million!”

As his fight continues to reduce kickstand accidents (a figure which is sadly unknown) we asked him how we can help.
“First and foremost it’s about desire. The desire to see change. If your heart is up to that then I beseech you to take the streets in vigilance and help us stem the tide of this senseless waste of life.”

However Ryan heeds caution. When he began he was over eager and admits he has caused accidents by distracting people’s attention. (Cynics claim that Lollio's body hugging garish Lycra outfits are a sure cause of double takes by local men driving innocently to work.) There are plans to set up workshops to aid fellow vigilantes, but in the meantime it’s a delicate situation.
“It’s not as easy as running onto the road and shouting ‘Hey dude! Your god darn kick stand is down’. You could startle them, they may end up crashing into the kerb and that would be bad for the programme.”

So the rules, or hints for starters?
“Maintaining eye contact is not essential. There are two key targets: the stand and the driver. How you make it happen is up to you, be it a point, a heckle or holding up a sign. But I strongly condemn the use of inanimate third party tools such as hockey sticks or shepherd’s hooks. They are potentially fatal.”

I pressed a few locals on what their reaction was to an American man running around the streets. Although initially amused they have grown quite fond of him referring to him as the - "Tay bao ve" (the western guard)
"I like that one," Ryan says with a faint smile, "makes me feel like John Wayne."

The future for KRAP only seems to get better. With foreign funding pouring in and media exposure improving general awareness he has started to turn the heads of the powers that be. He already has a proposal ready for submission: a sign on every major artery coming in an out of the city: "KICK IT UP" or "CHAN CHONG OI!” David Beckham’s agents have also been contacted about a possible Southeast Asian Promotional tour – “Can I kick it?”

“But they’re just pipedreams,” Ryan says fondly gazing over the traffic cruising through the dusk, “right now they need me here on the streets; now they need me here more than ever perhaps. Today alone thousands of kickstand related accidents have been prevented, but tomorrow they’ll be down, ready to happen again.”

A hero’s work is never done, I suggest.
“Oh, don’t call me a hero,” he modestly grins, “maybe just a messenger of God.”

As the sun sets his day is over. Lollio is waiting in the gym for a work out. He embraces me, encourages me to spread the word and then takes off half-strolling, half-jogging through the traffic which converges around him then parts, like the red sea onto Moses.

Read the Splurgy Shore by C Stokes on www.barcelonareview.com

Nguyen’s Law

Little do people, myself included, realise the insufferable fate of a foreign man living in a superstitious state. Here I am continually under a curse, perhaps, as I have not laid the appropriate fruit on an altar on a specific day, or I barked at an old woman at a green tea stall, or even completely ignored the righteous ritual rites of ‘room’ days - kitchen god day, broom cupboard day, the place where bikes are parked beside a redundant Karaoke couch day, and so on. Perhaps I’m just a bungling foreigner threading on the feet of ancestor’s spirits left, right and centre. Or perhaps not.

I believe, there is a curse and the curse has a name. It is Nguyen’s Law. It goes along the principle that whatever you want you can’t have, without at least a bit of a struggle. Or at least whatever you do there’ll be something to annoy you along the way.

Take for example the shoeshine urchins. Poking your ribs as you contemplate life mid-coffee, or mid-bia when you chat with your friends, they mutter into your shell - Shoe shine Anh oi. You whisk them off with a flourish. No! Bugger off! Next time, nhe! Or perhaps you have your own adjectival phrase or expletive word of choice. Then, sure enough, a day will come. A day where you have an interview, or a wedding, or a flash function or a hot date. You will go to the café deliberately to get a shoe shine. You will sit. Order a black coffee. Wait patiently. And along will come a cigarette lighter sales man. You will order another black coffee. And a woman selling plastic buckets and mops will appear. Subsequently you arrive to your appointment a jittering mess; caffeine horsing through your veins and your shoes unpolished to the point of being filthy. You lean against the corner wall tucking your shoes under a cloth, incapable of polite conversation, waving people away. Which will lead to another curse, no doubt, including weddings, corners or waving.

How many times I’ve lay in my bed, stomach rumbling, a new day long since on its way. And I hear the soft husky cry – “banh my nong oi!”. I think, hot bread! Now that's a good idea. Yet when I get down to the door only a faint echo of the bread woman’s voice can be heard and a woman with a conical hat stands at my gate pointing at my empty cans, 500 dong notes flashing in her eyes.

So too, the house. Oh! Ye infernal gods! No matter where you live there will be a pea beneath the cushion. Or a boulder beneath the sheet, depending on how wealthy you are. A niggling irritance that, over the course of time, will eat your patience till it’s threadbare.

You find a house. The landlord seems fair. Not too alcoholic, not too greedy. A cute daughter flits about and as she speaks English, conveniently all queries must go through her. The rooms are oddly off-rectangular. There’s a plug beside the toilet which leaks. The stairs are a bit crooked. Not the best place in an earthquake. But you say aye. I’ll take it and hand over the deposit. Then beside your house you discover there are six and a half construction sites. Dozens of plucky little labourers are grinding, drilling or standing around doing nothing except maybe staring in your window. Either that or a karaoke bar you never noticed materialises. At the crack of midnight wailing voices croon like lonely cats. You lie in bed and suffer in whimpering exhaustion. You wonder what else can go wrong. Then the water pump starts up, creaking and clanking like a pre-industrial revolution experiment and you wonder how you’ll ever reach dawn psychologically intact.

Then you wake up with a headache, or a hangover more likely, and you crawl down the road with your gagging tongue. You have noticed millions of Nha Thuoc’s in the city but somehow you picked a street where there are none. You end up sitting in a café crying into your coffee. A boy approaches and pokes your mid-rift.
“Anh oi! Shoe Shine! Ok!”
“Panadol co’ ma!” you scream.
To top it all off, as you walk back to your house a banh my seller will stop and brandish some loaves in your pasty face.

Yes, I can’t think of how many times I have run out of petrol outside a noodle shop. Or had a puncture beside a petrol station. Or how many times I have thought the girl beside me at the traffic lights was checking me out until I heard her say ‘smelly foreigner’ and her friend replied ‘with a ghastly bike’. And why is it that whenever I had a late Saturday night people like to get up and drill at seven the next morning? Why is it when ever I turn up at bars they get shut down? Why?

It is the dreaded accursed Nguyen’s law that thwarts me. The law that states whatever is in abundance shall be perversely elusive. Whatever is most annoying in your present situation shall occur. Whatever irks happens.

Your only hope is to thread carefully. For you thread on the thin ice of calm, below the waters of rage and despair. If, you can maintain a Zen like cool in a crisis, apparently, not only are you some boyo, but the world is your hamster. Or is that oyster? And old Nguyen’s law will have to wait till next time to ruin your day.

Amen.

Glossary
Anh oi - Hey brother
Banh my nong oi - Hey, I've got bread in a basket
Nha thuoc - Chemist

The Spirits of a Christmas past

The rain told cold stories in soft voices and the breeze sliced through the walls themselves that night. The rickety wood panels were shivering. The fan was shifting ungainly, the lights were flickering. On the couch facing a TV that had just turned itself off, sat me, and my two flat mates with trembling paunches, and we were all shaking in our boots.

In fairness, not one of us had lived in a haunted house before.

We pulled on our winter socks and snuggled up, too afraid to go to our separate bedrooms. The pitter-pattering rain had now become a hard pelting rain. Bizarre scraping sounds, like claws scraping metal, could be heard screeching far below and the rafters creaked just above. Shadows danced. I could hear faint groans. An out of sync banging. Suddenly our telephone started ringing but when I picked it up nobody was on the other end. Our computer turned itself on. The internet connected itself. Doors slammed. The kettle steamed. None of us remembered filling it with water. The door on the balcony swung open and the wicked wind swept across the lake though the room chilling us to our bones.

“Jesus,” said myself.
“Perhaps, Si, you shouldn’t have been sleeping in the altar room.” said Jacob with a tremor in his voice.
“Yeah, well you two tip your fag ash in the libation cup,” Si retorted.
“That’s not technically a libation cup…” said I.
“And you burn incense in the toilet to get rid of the smell…” added Si.
“That’s not good?” said Jacob now with bulging eyes.
“No! It’s sacred!” said Si slapping his head.
“The toilet?”
“No!" said Si standing up and walking across the room to shut the windows. "Jesus!”

Just then the bushes rustled, the trees shook and as a whipping wind passed the house, then silence. Then we noticed we couldn't hear the normally ever-present croaks of the filthy frogs from the lake. Only our beating hearts seemed to be audible.

“Do you really think there’s a ghost?” asked Jacob.
“Well we’re not versed in the local laws of ancestor worship, are we?” moaned Si. “It’s hardly unlikely that we could have disturbed the spirits of the house. We sleep in the altar, piss and smoke in the pots and have absolutely no respect for their family.”
“Well”, I rationalised, “If there is a ghost he seems to be alright, all he does is turn things on and off. Maybe it’s the ghost of a remote control.”

Again lights flickered, a rattling of pipes trundled above us, distant groans could be heard and then the creaking came, this time, from below. Once again a sequence of clicks danced around us. The kettle boiled. The computer turned off. The TV went on back on and the door on the balcony closed. That was no remote control.

“…”
“…”
“Cup of tea?”

Then as clear as day to night there were slapping footsteps. Stomping up, as bold as brass. Faster and faster. (Well, if there is a ghost we supposed, it’s his house. Why shouldn’t he make himself at home?)

We were cowering in the blue light shining from the TV. The Spirit’s footsteps were right by the door. The handle turned. The door stood tantalisingly ajar. The dark thick air seemed foreboding from outside. A pale white hand came into sight and pushed it open.
“Jesus!”
“No!”
"Mother of God..."

“Merry Christmas!” shouted our landlord grinning like a loon. He was drunk and swaying with a bottle of whisky and some glasses: “Drink! Scotland!”

We gasped in relief. Lit cigarettes. We sat him down and he opened the bottle. I tried to explain in Vietnamese how we were afraid that we had disturbed the spirits of his ancestors.

“No!” he chuckled. “My family from country! Here new home. No ancestors! No spirits.”

He sat grinning like a child pouring the twelve year old scotch, the one we’d given him, to the brim of the glasses.

“Oh, so did you build this house?” asked Jacob, still with an inquisitive tremor in his voice. “Perhaps... there are spirits from another family?”
“No,” said the landlord with a shake of his head, wincing from knocking back his whisky in one. “It used to be a brothel! Nothing but happy spirits! Down the hatch!”

We sat for a moment taking this in. The landlord swigged back Si's whisky, filled it and skulled that one, too.

As Jacob tried to explain how one is to sip and savour 12 year-old scotch, my thoughts went back to the day our neighbours unveiled a plaque back in Dublin saying ‘Ernest Shakleton lived here: 1880-1887’.

My father stood in the crowd as the bearded Shakletonites toasted their idol and compared exploits from varying trips they had themselves taken around Iceland, to van Dieman's Land and back, around the Cape of Good hope and so on.

My father, out of curiosity to see his reaction, took the city council official aside, and asked if anyone famous had lived in our house, perhaps out of jealously, why can't we have a plaque? The answer was no although the council man told him that our house had been a brothel. My father went back, straight to the shed, whittled up a little plaque and wrote on it: 'Ernest Shackleton shagged here: 1880-1887' and hung it on the inside of the door.

By the time I finished my memory our landlord had finished all the whisky in our glasses and now was just swigging from the bottle. I managed to procure a wee dram informing the landlord I would like to make a toast.

“To the ladies of the house!” I said with a grin.
“Yeah, and the ghosts of a Christmas past!” said Si.
“Cool bananas," said Jacob.
“Tee-hee-hee," tittered the landlord, "hee-hee-hee."

He was drunk, I could see, and as I poured him another whisky I could see him gazing around the room, his thoughts as clear as cartoon-thought bubbles above his mischievous little head, if this was a brothel, and there were ghosts, he was thinking that this could be a ghost story with a good old happy ending.

Dep (but pronounced zep): An insight into mankind via plastic sandals

*Pre-note: Central to a solid understanding of this story readers should be aware that Dep is to be pronounced zep. Practice before continuing.... dzep zep zep zep zep ... got it?


She was pushing her bike as she passed me in an alleyway that leads to a café out the back. The sort of alleyway which seems narrower the further you go in, which doesn’t stop the locals driving down them. We pressed up against the dusty walls, sacrificing cleanliness to avoid embarrassing physical contact, I pushed back and she kept her head down. Both of us trying to avoid her chest brushing off me, which would be doubly regretful if she were looking at me when it happened; there’s no need to personalise such unforseen complications, I’d feel like she’d thought I’d done it on purpose. She must be a nice sensible woman I thought as I pressed myself back some more, making sure the wheels weren’t going over my dainty little toes.

As I scraped my back off the wall I noticed she was looking at my feet. At first I thought out of concern. I was wearing, dare I pun, yes I shall, a fairly pedestrian pair of plastic sandals, known as flip-flops in my part of the world, jandels to antipodeans, thongs to others, plastic slippers in Danish. Here they fall under one handy banner, simply dep.

Dep are a big business in this hot and industrialised part of the world. The sock is a strange foreigner who visits solely in winter. Even some Vietnamese people are unsure of the word sock in their own language. But not dep. Lord no! They come in all shapes, colours, and materials. Made from plastic, leather or wood there are working men dep, office men dep, svelte dep, perfunctory dep, cute as a button dep, gay as Christmas dep, girly dep, Grampa dep, shower dep and the list goes on.

But there is more to it that that. As her eyes rolled over mine, brushing past each other intimately, I saw her take in size, colour, expense and status. I saw her gaze was cold and condescending. I felt a tingle of shame. I had clearly not impressed. Should I be wandering the streets wearing such footwear? Had I miscalculated? Had I barged into the treacherously oblique realm of inappropriacy? Did I accidentally skip the page on the inflight cultural intergration manual that said there are some dep for the streets, some for the house, and some for the little boy who lived down the lane that shouldn’t be seen at all. With this one brief inspection I was instantly undermined. Like a sweeping karate kick I was floored. It was the kind of stare that reduces you to your bare facts. There’s no escaping your profile. It is as clear as Hollywood lights. You have a low salary. Are unmarried. Have scant taste. Speak with your mouthful. Pick your toenails in public, drive a cheap motorbike and probably smell in summer. It is an ephiphany. Now I know why the ladies chortle at me at the reflexology centre and play paper, scissors, rock to see who takes or returns my sandals.

I’ve wasted years in the dark, paddling around in the wrong kind of dep. But no more, I tell you, no more! I turned around and headed back out to buy another pair, right there and then, but of course all these thoughts had happened in an instant, so she was still squeezing past me trying to avoid my oafish frame and scuttle out the door unscathed. As I turned she bolted with fright thinking I was all aroused and up to no good in a dark lane in the middle of the afternoon, looking for an unsolicited rub. I would have explained my revelation if I could have, but she wouldn’t have listened, not while I wore those dep, and there was no time to waste. So I just waddled behind her down the alleyway, my flip-flops flapping in their testimonial performance. I watched her as she trooped off, in her high-heeled brogues that clicked authoritively, demanding attention, like a German Officer. My lord I thought, they’re a fine pair of shoes, and thus, by proxy, she must be a fine woman, with a decent salary, elegant tastes, delicate table manners, be good in the sack and a sweet scent must exude from her no matter whether the weather be hot or not.

That’s as good as a scientifically proven fact.

Is it the end of Hello?

Someone needs to put a stop to it, not that's there's anything wrong with a friendly hello. But my throat is dry, my voice is hoarse, my will threadbare, my alternative sensibilities yearn out for more. Also, my neck is stiff from turning on my bike everywhere I go, as I pass children, building sites, travel into the boonies, down country roads, over the hills and far away. Everywhere I hear "Hello!"

When you first come here you think it would be rude not to reply, yet the numbers are stacked heavily against you. Mark my words you'll rue the day you take on the task of replying to everyone. It's akin to counting the grains of sand on a beach.

Age or status isn't important. Infants, teenagers, shoe shine boys, middle-aged fruit mongers, doctors, pimps, truck drivers and toothpick vendors. As I pass them all they uniformly shout "Hello". When I'm full of vim and vinegar I holler back, yet when I'm exhausted and sunburnt I just raise my eyebrows. Yet you feel guilty ignoring them, just like the Monkeys, they're just trying to be friendly.

Only the old Ong's and Bac's are left out of it. My heart goes out to them. Sometimes they'll catch your arm and chance a risque 'bonjour' when they think no one is looking. These poor souls are remnants of phapophilic past when the country played host to French buereaucrats, dapper soldiers and pernod was downed in one. Then it was de riguer to learn French. Now despite strenuous French investment it is out of favour.

Even more tragically, once sadly, a old man with translucent skin, bewildered eyes, shaking hands and the fear upon him, met me in an alleyway in the suburbs of Hanoi. "Ruski?" he said hopefully and tentatively. Perhaps he'd studied there once upon a time and a flicker of a romantic past was on his lips. Poor chap. Perhaps all he wanted to say was 'Zdrat-s-voyei-tre' Then a bunch of whippersnappers came scrambling out of their boxes roaring "Hello! Hello!" Running through my legs and jumping on my bike. He shuffled away sadly, left out in the cold, now behind an iron curtain of linguistic homengenisation and new fads. Learning Russian now is like wearing leg warmers and buying a hula-hoop to be in fashion. Ah History, ye fickle mistress and cruel temptress! Now he is merely a crumb of the past and a bystander to the grand cult of Anglaise.

The other day, having nothing better to do than wait for beer drinking PM, I decided to count the greetings. There were no less than 72 hellos directed towards my good self in all. So, giving the matter no thought whatsoever, in any non-given SARS mid to peak season with an average of 25,000 Anglo-Tays, from north to south, I estimate there is a staggering one million eight hundred thousand hellos being uttered daily. That is a staggering 45 billion hellos per year.

The country is pushing itself to gross extremities. Exhausting that solitary word. Beating it into the ground of insignificance until it can muster no more. Soon Anglo-Tays will pass the polite hellos, seeming rude, stuck up or indifferent. It shall be nothing other than a faint whisper. Like a distant buffeting breeze unremembered. A sad image you'd have to agree. Like a candlelit dinner for one.

Therefore, I would like to launch the "wahey" programme of cultural integration task force. We shall teach country bumpkins and urbane city folk to shout "wahey!" when they see a Tay pass by their office, door, street corner, hammock, shop, tree, bench, massage parlour in any non-life threatening traffic situation. And when that gets annoying we'll change it to "Good Day to you there!" then "Yoo hoo!" and then "Let there be rock" and so on, so forth.

All in favour say "Wahey!"

May the future be bright and ridculous, amen.

A Walk in the Park

Every now and again I feel an emptiness of habit. The ghost of a former routine creeps up and taps me on the shoulder. There is a voice to it. It will say something like “Not much fibre in your diet these days” or “Fancy going to the cinema, don’t you?”

More often than not, the voice hits the nail on the head. Just like yesterday, when it said, "strolling through a park would be nice, wouldn't it?". At the time I was driving full throttle through the traffic, head down, inhaling my own fumes, gritting my teeth and yes, I had to agree, a stroll through a park was a nice idea. Now normally stuff like this is on the end of the list, down with things to do next month, like get a cool tattoo, ring your mother, buy some Bran Flakes, go to the cinema, but coincidentally I was actually passing one. Although I was driving, like the locals - as if there was no tomorrow, or very hungry - I had actually nothing to do and pretty much nowhere to go. I decided I would break with tradition and take a walk in the park. I had already decided it would be a beautiful moment. Perhaps, I might even write a poem.

I parked my bike by a tree and stepped into the confines of a park, which acts as a large traffic island diverging the traffic, sending one lot west and the other east. At first glance the park is serene. A whirlpool of motion outside. Inside, shaded benches, with geriatric old men sitting in their P.J.’s, puffing on fags, chewing their gums, shuffle around. The fountain sprays over children who frolic around gaily. Groups of men sit on their hunkers, watch and play chess, which I didn’t realise could be a team sport. Other kind and gentile folk stroll around with a dragged step. With the oppressive Hanoi heat, it would be foolish to be excessively lively. The end result is a classic moocher’s motion. A kind of a strolling slouch. Yes, I thought, this is nice. How about that poem? Yet, I needed characters. I needed inspiration.

Two fellows caught my eye. The taller one looked like he’d got out of the wrong side of bed every morning for 10 years straight. A huge frown, a messy hair-do, grimy hands scratching his ribs, he circled the fountain dragging his feet like he was sweeping up dust. He wore an old pair of football shorts and an oversized shirt. Then a friend approached him, a more chipper chap, strutting along like he was flipping pancakes with his dep (sandals). He grabbed the taller one’s elbow and muttered a quick confidence. The taller one’s face instantly broke into an enormous frown. In fact, he triple frowned. “Oh my god!” He said and then they disappeared around the fountain, into the shade.

I sat on the bench wondering what you would have to be told or see to frown so severely. Just then an old woman waddled in front of me, as fast as her million year old limbs would carry her. She perched over her sack of rubbish and produced a potato and sat mumbling to herself, nibbling the potato. I was half-thinking of trying to talk to her. Ask her some questions. How long has she been coming to this park? How many centuries ago was she born? Is the potato tasty? Then suddenly she pulled down her breeches and started to piss in the shade like an old frog with a conical hat.

I stood up and headed for my bike. Passing the two men who are still frowning, I nod knowingly. If I knew the Vietnamese for “Crouching granny, hidden urinal” I would have said it. But they probably don’t go the cinema anyhow. In this city, who does?




Copyright Pittstop Works

The Karoke Professors

A group of people I instructed in a course invited me to a dinner. An innocent forenoon beer binge with random plates of food littered across the table. Like a parish hall disco from my youth, the lads are to one side and the lasses to the other. With myself, like a spectator at a ping-pong match stuck slap bang in the middle. I try my best to be enveloped by the women so as to chat pleasantly about the trivalities of love, death and marriage but over the course of the dinner the men get increasingly drunk and start to strain acorss the table to suck me into toasting and guzzling booze. They stand up like primary scholl students who want to go to the toilet as they clink and slurp. Quite soon the faces are red and their bositerous and cheeky side is unleashed.

The loudest and silliest student, who may also be the oldest, and by virtue, considered the funniest, is the first to get to the point.

“Do you know how to get to Karoke… (pause for effect) by hand?”
He bursts into laughter to such an extent that you’d think the whole restaurant was laughing. As his own biggest fan he chuckles away for a minute or two. The women smile politely and nibble on. Their untouched drinks curdling. I sit expressionless. I think about cracking a reposte: Does that mean you cartwheel to Karoke? But the joke, like all plastic things at sea, would be lost . I sigh and eat on.

Then one man beside me reaches for my arm, pulls me closer and whispers to my ear. “If you like Karoke, you should let me invite you, I am … something of an expert.”

I look at him. He’s a nerdish sort of fellow. Not the type you can imagine in a sleasy embrace in a red-lit leather-couched back room. I think about the grammar, ‘you should let me invite you.’ I stare into space. There I picture a hoard of spotty undergraduates following tutors and professors into seedy Karoke bars over bridges away from the heart of the city.
"Rule 1! Don't be ridiculously obvious!"
Then after two hours of field study they return to the libraries and lift wieghty tomes from high shelves and study the birth of Karoke. Learn how the Japanese invented it. How it means 'Empty Orchestra' in Nipon. They'll learn by heart diagrams, theories and formulas. They'll study how to sing, guzzle beer, cradle a lady and peel oranges simultaleously. The High Art of Karoke is a dextrous affair. Then after three years of intense study they'll sit the examinations which will include a practical assessment by the experienced madames themselves, where theory is put into practice. They'll be assessed on fluency, rhythm, tone and duartion. Most pass with flying coulours. On graduation day the Professors will apllaud and make grand speeches about how the graduates were once boys and now they are men, and how they are ready to enter the world and take their places in Karoke booths all across the nation. They'll cheer in unison. Mortarboard hats will be tossed in the air. And then like a swarm of busy bees in summer one and all shall start cartwheeling off to the North, East, South and West in search of the nearest place to sing and snuggle.

All of these thoughts flash past my mind when I rememeber where I am. The nerdish fellow is still daydreaming, perhaps reminiscing on a particularly fine piece of singing and fondling from his youth. A performance worthy of adulation. An a+ routine where his professor nodded in appreciation and a madame breathed deeply, her heart a flutter, flushed with surprise at his powerful presence. Like Pavarotti with a hard-on stuck in a tin box, he literally burst into song.

“Yes” He continues proudly, pushing his glasses up his nose, repeating for emphasis. “Something of an expert”
"I hadn’t realised it was a field of study," I tell him as if embarssed by my amateurism. "Tell me, how much study goes into this sort of thing?"
“Oh I’ve studied for a long time”
“And your wife, does she like to sing?”
“Oh no”, He says suddenly very seriously, taking the dig in the ribs to be an honest change of subject. “She’s too busy looking after our children”
“Right”
“Yes,” He finally adds before getting stuck into a fresh beer, “We are very concerned about our childrens future”

I lean back and silently raise my glass and toast.

God speed future. You can't come too soon.

The Bao Ve and I set sail

Today after three years of a running pitched battle with the bao ve xe may (parking attendant), at my favourite bun cha restaurant, we finally buried the hatchet.

There is a relief that comes with the end of any war, there is a sadness too. I'll miss the sadistic pleasure of it all. There is fear also, a fear that now I am stepping into a new era yet to be furnished, yet to be thought of.

After three long hard years of subterfuge, deceit and spite comes a ship a'sailing across a calm sea that once swelled with wrath and fury. That ship is friendship. It is a beautiful, if unexpected sight. As if a 16th century Spanish buccaneer strolled into your local cafe and ordered eggs benedict and a rum-cokie-cola.

These long years started from the smallest of sparks. A long hot day had had the better of me. As I arrived to park my bike I saw him, sitting atop of a bike, chewing a toothpick, completely ignoring me. He grumbled, without looking me in the eye, to move the bike behind the tree where a mother is holding her child to pee in the gutter.

After leaving the bike there, I strolled back, a little hot, a little bit bothered, when suddenly I was blinded by a flash of light as a stately bike arrived with two young hip, rich ladies.

The two girls wearing tight pants and enormous sunglasses, slipped off the bike on to their high heels, the bao ve had already leaped into action and without a glance or an acknowledgement from the girls, he whisked it away. The two girls click-clacked inside to take the last two seats remaining.

I now had to wait or leave. The bao ve delicately parked the bike, preciously, pride of place in front of the restaurant, so one and all could admire it as they ate. Then he leapt back on top of his bike and got back to chewing his toothpick while I stood sweating on the street.

The next time I arrived I came with one single purpose: Revenge. I arrived and put my not-so- trusty steed up on its centre stand and bee lined to grab a seat, leaving the bike in place that mant he had to park it for me. I glanced to see the expression on his face as he tried to move my ugly East German 2-stroke. He was disgusted. I enjoyed my lunch. Touche buddy.

The next time I arrived, though, he wasn't there. The ladies all smiled from behind the smoking meat and told me to park the bike behind the tree where the rubbish is stacked during the course of the day.

As I strolled back into the restaurant the bao ve stepped out from behind the bathroom door smiling like a smug villain. He had heard me coming and hid. Sneaky-sneaky.

Three years of jousting followed. Three years of bitterness. I would leave the bike in the middle of the road and block the traffic. He never covered my seat in summer so I burnt my arse. I left the bike in front of the mad lady who sells che next door and protects her space like a wild hyena so he would get a bollicking. He 'accidentally' broke my kick stand and my clutch. I told him straight to his face he was a good for nothing. He told me right behind my back that I was a tay ba lo (backpacker). If I could have parked it upside down with the front wheel locked, I would have, just to see him drag it, just to see him sweat, just to see him work. If I burst into a ball of fire he wouldn't have pissed on me to put it out, but would have lit a cigarette off the flames. We were foes. Adversaries. Sworn to thwart and torment till death do us part.

Or so I thought. As then, out of the blue, a truce was called, just today, when I pulled out and drove away from the restaurant he emerged from behind the tree where the country bumpkins lean their bicycles and the buckets of fat sit, and where he had been hiding from work.

He smiled as I approached him. What ruse was this? He stepped out and as I passed him he pretended to jump out to make me swerve, crash or fall off, and that, as anyone in this city knows, was his way of saying he likes me. As I didn't flinch, immune to such antics, he patted me on the back with respect and shouted "Smelly bike!" and we laughed like old friends.

So now the war is over. Oh, my nemesis, my Kato, my Moriarty, no more! Together we shall set sail upon the unknown seas of peace and tranquility and learn to fault each other less, and bear the fruits of our friendship, till death, or whenever I leave this country, or you get the sack, do us part.

(2003)

The Wheel Perverts

As I pull up to traffic lights I have to, unforntunately, stop. That’s a law which is fairly new and fading in flexibilty. I have, of course, the utmost respect for the Law but it does give the opportunity for the unheralded and silent wheel pervert to run his seedy little eyes all over my beloved muscular German motorbike. As you stop they roll alongside you and stare down at your wheels. I have no doubt there is one thing on their minds.

I strain my eyes into the distance and will the lights to go green. I try to concentrate on my breakfast to avoid this unwholesome fellow with his grubby little features and blank stare.

Some encounters are more bizarre than others. On one occasion after I zoomed off to escape one such character into the glory of the greenlight I ran straight into another red. I shifted uncomfortably, glanced back and sure enough, like all of life’s irritances, back behind me, nudging his way through the traffic, he came alongside me again. His eyes once more checking my wheels out, back to front, top to bottom. A little treat, no doubt, for his spank bank. The sun belted down for what seemed like the longest red light in history. I sat. My palms sweating. The fumes filling my noise. His stare unrelenting. The green came and I gasped, my bike too. We shot off together around the chicane by DBP and Tran Phu. I released and stretched out only to see in the distance the lights play the devil, and turn red.

I sat, head down, my engine rumbling. He slid past and pulled up just ahead of me this time and glanced back. I, with frustration, heat fatigue and general impatience was just about to launch in to a torrent of abuse. Then I looked into his eyes. He was smiling, shaking his head and frowing with twinkling eyes. A cocktail of an expression unique to Vietnamese.

“Are you following me?” Was my toned down response.
He shook his head and smiled-frowned some more.
“No, with all that smoke I thought you were making Bun Cha!”
The lights changed, this time he shot off. The Traffic edged off after him. My stalker was a dot at the next set of lights, I could see they were green and he zipped through. I sat on my xe may bun cha. Was this why fat children chased me through my neighbourhood? As I started the red lights went on. A policeman whistled at me to reverse behind the white line. A new law and flexible depending on the hour of day and whether or not it’s raining. As he watched me grapple with my xe may bun cha to get it backwards, he was frowning and shaking his head disdainfully. “Anh co thich an bun cha khong?” I shouted trying to drop a bit of humour into his day. He stood, expressionless but his eyes were fixed on my wheels. As he stood he swung his baton and stood with legs half-cocked.

Quite clearly a wheel pervert in a uniform.

You’re so early/ late/ handsome/ ugly

“You’re so late!” The cleaner says, as I arrive to work in the carpark approximately eleven minutes later than I did yesterday, which is I presume what she’s judging it on. I picture what I might have done in my erratic routine that might account for it and satisfy her bland curiosity. I stopped for petrol, my bike cut out twice at traffic lights, the internet was running slow and I couldn’t find my keys and my landlord was harassing me for money. Who could I blame?
“The traffic is shocking”, I said.
She appreciates this answer.
“Yes” Now she frowns like she just ate a large lemon. “Yes, the traffic is terrible”

We stand for a second. There is nothing else to say. Now she’s smiling. I smile back. The sun is shining. I can imagine birds singing, despite none being in the vicinity. It’s a nice moment, I think.
“You’re very ugly!” She says.
“Thanks” As I head for the door I'm not surprised to remember I’m not wearing my tie.

As soon as I walk in the door the receptionists clap their hands in delight. They’re obviously bored.
“You’re so early” They shriek with smiles, frowns and glances shooting left, right and centre.
“I…” Once again my day flashes before my eyes. “I… didn’t have lunch”
They don’t like this and frown some more. I stand awkwardly. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. They get back to eating nuts, answering phones and generally ignoring me. I head for my office.
“Hey…” They holler as I walk up the stairs.
“Yes?”
“Today you’re very ugly”
“Thank you”

As I trudge up the stairs I know it’s the lack of a tie that distorts their perception. I head for the booth and prepare to return safe in the knowledge that Clark Kent tore off his tie to emerge as Superman, and that I would soon do the contrary.