-^-for posterity-^-

today i busied myself ambling around town. i walked the better part of the morning and sweated through my shirt. it began to rain and i found a nice vietnamese restaurant to eat lunch in. the rain had killed the power so i ate tomato soup by candle light. the rain was hard and life outside slowed down considerably. people still drove by on bicycles and motorcycles but they looked more determined than ever. cyclo drivers covered themselves in tarps on street corners and waited the rain out. you could see smoke creep out from under the tarps but couldn’t see their faces. they looked like dead bodies covered in trashbags.

when it rains it rains loudly. it’s as if the sky wants to dump its load as quickly as possible to let the sun shine again. i was trying to decide whether the rain was louder than the traffic or whether it was the other way around. apples and oranges i decided. when the rain stops, it does so efficiently. there is an absurd silence as the road is empty. it’s as if everything in saigon pauses for a moment. it makes you smile.

the moment hangs perfectly but is quickly destroyed by a fresh wave of motorcycles. the cyclo drivers crawl out of their trashbags and wipe down their vehicles. it all starts over.

that was the morning. in the afternoon i visited the “revolutionary museum”. it’s one of the last ones on my list here but wasn’t very exciting. there were many pictures of the beginning of the communist party and old boats and motorcycles used to smuggle secret documents around. i was the only tourist i could see and the building is gorgeous. it was the old mansion of the french president of cochin china. it was being used for wedding portraits. there’s something strange about walking around an old war museum and being surrounded by photographers, brides and grooms. “there, stand next to the picture of the buddhist monk immolating himself. smile!”

there was a gift shop that i passed through. it was selling original lighters from american soldiers for 45$. they all had things etched into them and they made me think about war. they made me sad. i would have left sad but their was an english sign hanging above some dolls that said, “these dolls were made by the unhappy children of district 7”. i could imagine a room full of frowning tots all stitching dolls. no wonder they were unhappy. they were making dolls all the time.

i haven’t even touched on the best part of my day.

my hair has become shaggy and curls over my ears. that’s no way for a teacher to look so i was off to get my hair cut.

oh, to get a hair cut in another land. in vietnam you can get your hair cut on the street. the barbet sets up a little tarp overhead and places a small mirror on the wall. you sit facing this wall and starring into this mirror as the world around you whizzes by.

the wall was yellow and plaster but falling apart. it felt as if it had been there since the beginning of time but could collapse on us at any moment. the mirror had a perfect crack running from top to bottom. water droplets had gathered all over the front and it was hanging by a small thin piece of rusted wire. perfectly straight. the chair was an old wooden chair. it looked like it was stolen from the revolutionary museum.

after arguing price, oh, and i was terrible at it (first i said 50,000 (absurdly high) then i said 2,000 (absurdly low) and finally agreed on 15,000 (just right, 1$)), the barber strapped a sheet round my neck. he produced a comb and rusted scissors from his pockets. one in each pocket as if they were holstered guns. he began to snip, snip, snip-snip, snip, snip, snip-snip. he had a rhythm to it as most barbers do. it was very catchy and i found myself lulled into a daze by it. the scissors cut relatively smoothly but they seemed to say that they were used to thicker hair. he cut all round my head and then, from his bag of tricks, produced some type of razor. it was dark with handles like a scissors. a piece of metal would pass over the razor and it would saw through my hair. it reminded me of a farm implement.

should i have feared such a razor so close to my neck? it wasn’t sanitized. i sat very still and breathed very shallowly. i could just imagine getting some strange infection from a roadside barber and having my head fall off or something tragic. my eulogy: “he was on the right track until he got that cheap hair cut. then his head fell off and he died.” would people cry or laugh?

the hair would not delicately fall to the ground. i was sweating in the humid air. it would collect on my face and stay their. it reminded me of summertime haircuts in the garage at home. he circled my head about three times and finally decided that i looked good enough.

he said i looked, “extremely beautiful”. i smiled and paid. walking home with a new haircut always makes you feel special. there’s something refreshing about changing the way you look so quickly. you feel like you’re starting over.