i ate chicken head yesterday. i walked by the security guard's shack around supper time. they asked me if i wanted to come in for a bite to eat. seeing as how it's rude to refuse, i strolled into their very humble abode.

their house is about ten feet wide and about fifteen feet long. it has enough room for two beds, one large dresser and a desk. there is a window with bars on it on one side. the inside is decorated with nothing but blank bricks. the bricks were placed together fairly sloppily, though. there are large gaps where no mortar was spread. the bars and the bricks and the mortar made the place feel like a jail cell more than a home.

there were two guards there and they explained to me that they had too much food and wanted to invite someone else. they were eating snake, chicken and an assortment of vegetables. the older guard has a very friendly face and his forehead wrinkles when he smiles. he always waves to me when i pass and lowers his head a bit. he's solidly build. the other man has a very concerned look on his face. he never wears a shirt and seems to be analyzing everything all the time.

we sat and i was given a bowl. i had a piece of black snake and some chicken. i finished it and was given the chicken's head. i claimed not to know how to eat the chicken head so the analytical security guard scoffed up and picked up a second head. i hadn't anticipated that one would have a meal with more than one chicken head. he showed me that, yes, it was easy to eat the head. all you have to do is maneuver it in your chopsticks until the beak is pointing downward and bring the back of the head to your mouth. bite the head just below the eyes. then, mull the brain, eyes and skull around in your mouth until you can distinguish the skull bits. spit the skull on the ground and enjoy the savoring flavor of fowl brain. do this all with a straight face as to not insult anyone.

funny, today i don't feel any smarter.

i talked to the security guard about what he did when he was younger. he lifted his shirt sleeve and showed me a deep scar in his arm. he was shot. he also showed me a scar in his hand. that was from a grenade. he then pointed to himself and said, "i vc" we had a good talk and i tried to explain how much i wanted to learn vietnamese culture. he said he would try to help.

we've been evicted from our home. we can't go back for three weeks. the windows are all boarded up with brown wood. the doors have all been fastened with new padlocks. they only can be unlocked on the inside. there is a purple piece of tape that stretches around the building and many hand written signs that say, "cam vao" (don't go in).

was it potato bugs? was it termites? was it a new strain of some odd disease?

oh no. it was the entrance exams for the university.

to be accepted to attend university in vietnam you have to pass the entrance exam. about ten thousand people will take it and about two thousand will pass. the exam is so secret and so important that they are going to quarantine off about fifteen people in my home. these people will not be allowed to leave the building for three weeks. they will be monitored by police and security. they will grade the tests. they have the test answers. they are there to make sure that no cheating takes place.

this exam is taken so seriously that my classes for the week have been cancelled. the university is going to be full of perspective students, of which, only 20% will attend next year. the test is so difficult that some students take a year off to prepare. some students go to special entrance exam preparation courses and one of my students told me a story about one of her friends. she fainted while taking the exam. she failed.

the test administrators have not been sequestered yet. i surmise they will arrive in a large envoy with lights and sirens. i bet they have a bus with metal meshing on the windows that's driven by a surly man smoking a cigar.

the proclamation of baghdad.

to the people of baghdad vilayet:

in the name of my king, and in the name of the peoples over whom he rules, i address you as follows:

our military operations have as their object the defeat of the enemy, and the driving of him from these territories. in order to complete this task, i am charged with absolute and supreme control of all regions in which british troops operate; but our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.

since the days of halaka your city and your lands have been subject to the tyranny of strangers, your palaces have fallen into ruins, your gardens have sunk into desolation, and your forefathers and yourselves have groaned in bondage. your sons have been carried off to wars not of your seeking, your wealth has been squandered in distant places…

it is the wish not only of my king and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance, that you should prosper even as in the past, when your lands were fertile, when your ancestors gave the world literature, science and art, and when baghdad was one of the wonders of the world.

but you people of baghdad, whose commercial prosperity and whose safety from oppression and invasion must ever be a matter of the closest concern to the british government, are not to understand that it is the wish of the british government to impose upon you alien institutions. it is the hope of the british government that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realized and that once again the people of baghdad shall flourish, enjoying their wealth and substance under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws and their radical ideals….

many nobel arabs have perished in the cause of arab freedom, at the hands of those alien rulers, the turks, who oppressed them. it is the determination of the government of great britain and the great powers allied to great britain that these noble arabs shall not have suffered in vain. it is the hope and desire of the british people and the nations in alliance with them that the arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth, and that it shall bind itself together to this end in unity and concord.

o people of baghdad remember that for twenty six generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavored to set one arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. this policy is abhorrent to great britain and her allies, for there can not be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity and misgovernment. therefore i am commanded to invite you, through your nobles and elders and representatives, to participate in the management of yoru civil affairs in collaboration with the political representatives of great Britain who accompany the british army, so that you may be united with yoru kinsmen in north, east, south and west in realizing the aspirations of your race.

this was an excerpt from harpers magazine. it comes from a proclamation issued to the inhabitants of baghdad on march the 19th, 1917. has anything changed?

i'm heading home. i can't wait to set foot back in long xuyen. i can't wait to see the dog and julie again. jack's back in the states.

i never thought i would be like my dad. whenever we had to go somewhere he always said that he didn't sleep all night. he said he just sat around watching the clock. i thought this was all absurd. who on earth would sit up all night when they could plainly sleep? well, last night i knew i would have to wake up early the next morning to catch a plane. it was going to be a relatively complicated process because i knew none of the language and wasn't going to hire a car. i was taking the bus. i first woke up at two. then at two thirty. then at three. that continued every half hour until five o'clock arrived. i became dave.

i left at five thirty. things wake up a bit later here than they do in an giang. i had to wake the hotel clerk up and have him call me a taxi. i was taken to a street corner a couple of towns over and told by someone to wait for a red bus. he said, "blue slow, red fast. go bangkok red bus." that was it.

i saw a number of blue busses but no red ones. i had to check in for my flight at ten in the morning and the trip was somewhere around three hours. i asked someone if a red bus was coming. i gave them some money to help me. they smiled and said that they would wait for me. time was winding down. finally, a large white bus came and he told me to get on. being an amiable fellow, i boarded. i hoped it was heading to bangkok. i sat in the back and fell asleep only waking a few hours later in bangkok.

stumbling out of the bus, i saw something that looked familiar. it was a tacky mirage. it was pink and orange and brought back millions of memories.

dunkin' donuts. there was a tiny stand built into the side of the otherwise dismal bus station. the pink and orange did not beautify the building. i walked up to the stand with my brow furrowed. i was confused. i looked at the donuts sitting all perky and processed. i chose one bavarian cream. what else would you choose after not seeing a donut stand in nine months? the powdered sugar ended up all over my face and shirt. i ate it and was still confused.

i arrived in the airport and checked my baggage. i started out in a line with people heading to pyongyang. i moved a few places up before realizing where i was going. what would that trip have been like?

i headed up to get some real breakfast. i didn't know what was available but i saw lots of light and people. there was a burger king. there was a pizza hut. there was a dairy queen. there was a starbucks. they all looked like tacky mirages. they all looked so terrible and yet so inviting.

so, once again, i did what anyone would do if they hadn't eaten fast food in nine months: i ordered a double bacon whopper with cheese and french fries (or are you still calling them freedom fries?) i bit into the thoroughly processed meat and mulled it around a bit. i hadn't eaten a hamburger since before i was a vegetarian. the tastes all came back. i remembered being a freshman in college and heading out for late night snacks. i remembered stopping on the long drive out to bluffton for a burger king burger. the taste was exactly the same in bangkok.

the bacon even had that six-month-old-freeze-dried-texture to it.

after my ten o'clock whopper, i don't really feel like moving. i'm heading back to long xuyen and feel warm and independent. i'm sitting in the bangkok international airport listening to gibberish over the intercom. i have my passport, my ticket, my underwear and everything. what a crazy, crazy world this is. whoppers in bangkok at ten in the morning.

we’re staying at the “beach garden hotel”. the hotel is oldish but wonderfully positioned. it’s placed between the mountains and the sea. the mountains are green and lush. they rise up from the jungle and are perfectly unsymmetrical. the sea is flat and greyish blue. it doesn't move but slowly ripples like a simmering pot. there are other hotels around. they all look nice and are all placed between the beach and the small waves. our hotel has a large blue pool surrounded by tropical trees. there is a path that leads to the beach. the beach is hot the sand is fine like granulated silk. i walk down there a sit. i like to look out at the sea and think about nothing at all. last night i went out there after supper. the sky was darkening and the sun was setting out to my right. a storm was coming in. a storm was surrounding me. the sky to my right and left was dark. the dark clouds stretched out into the ocean. faint traces of hard rain could be seen slanting backwards into the sea. it all looked frozen in time. i was in the middle of a horseshoe-shaped-storm. nothing was moving and i was at the heart of creation. i sat there looking out at the storm slowly move. it started to drizzle but i didn't mind. everything's warm here. every rain's a late summer rain. the lights began to dim on the horizon. the sun faded behind the water as the earth spun. there were lights on the horizon. the lights looked like distant green lanterns blurred by the fog. they covered the entire horizon. a fleet of boats. who knows if they were moving or not. i couldn't see them move and watched them for a good hour.

the scene was surreal: the storm had moved out to see on either side of me. i received only slight drizzle. the sky above me was dotted with stars. the boats on the horizon created a green string of faint lights. i sat on the granulated silk and thanked creation and my mother earth for everything she gracefully blessed me with.

thai script looks like english cursive written upsidedown. if only they'd turn the signs over i may be able to read it. cambodian script looks like sloppy english cursive written upsidedown. if they turned it over, i doubt i'd be able to read it anyways.

waiting in airports is mindless. you sit there and read and watch blue screens blink and flash. waiting in line is also mindless. having your passport stared at numerous times and having it stomped and slid and generally mal-treated is routine. filling out forms and declaring things to take over magic lines drawn in the dirt by little boys who never grew up is annoying. boarding a plane is absurd. the metal bird should never fly. the engines are as tall as a van and the wings are as wide as a football field. everything tells me it should sink like a rock to the bottom of the ocean and rest eternally next to the corpse of the titanic. taking off makes your heart jumble around in your chest. i always wonder what it would be like to die and if it would hurt of if it would all be over in one glorious ball of flame and twisted metal. i always wonder that. sometimes the plane turns a bit too hard or the wings seem to be bouncing a bit too much and i get nervous. does the pilot know what he/she's doing? i always worry that we're going to die but then realize that it wouldn't matter if i did and go back to my book.

at what point did i cross over into cambodia and at what point did i leave? who ever drew the lines in the dirt and who cares what i bring from one to another? i bring books (benign books), clothes (tackey button up shirts and dirty jeans) and a pair of running shoes (who knows, maybe i'll go running some day. they all travel below me in this magic metal beast that must have been blessed by the hand of god herself because she somehow stays afloat.

when we land things look different. there are large roads in thailand. there are six lane highways. there are cars and trucks and vans everywhere. i don't see many motorcycles. my stomach turns. i haven't seen a highway for nine months. i don't know why that made my stomach turn but it did.

we landed and didn't end up in a ball of flame and gass and misery. everything roars like a lion and we stop at the door. i walk through and fill out forms that ask me about sars. i said that i didn't have it but when i went up to the desk i almost sneezed and caused an international incident. i bit my tonge and everything passed.

i didn't claim anythign and was given a visa and deemed healthy enough to pass a few days in this new country.

being in a place where you don't know where you're going (i had a printout that told me to go to a bus station, grab a bus to cha am thailand and then board the bus) and not knowing the language. i came from a place where i knew the language. i knew what to say if the taxi driver was ripping me off and i knew how to act and where to go. here, i hopped in a taxi and pointed to the driver on a map. he took me there but it seemed as if we were going in circles. i felt nervous and out of place again. it's a feeling that livens all of your senses. not having anyone to hold your hand and not having any way to communicate with anyone except through hand gestures and smiles makes you grow.

i traveled on public bus for four hours or so finally arriving at a small town.

small children walk around selling lottery tickets. they’re only eight or ten years old and they have wonderful faces. they all remind me of my little brother.

my brother was skinny and brown-skinned when he was little. he used to walk around wide-eyed and i felt like i needed to protect him somehow. sometimes he wore a baseball hat and it was too big. it was tight on his head and rose above like a balloon.

these little lottery ticket vendors all walk around like jason did. they all somehow look like him and i want to buy from everyone. they have wondering eyes and big smiles. they are thin and brown and short. they wear baseball hats that are oversized. i think about summers playing in the back yard and roaming the shores of the branch creek. i think about birthday parties and cool summer nights.

i talked about a man a few months a go. he worked in the field behind the wall in plain view from my balcony. he moved dirt and created a small hill and a fish pond. it took him about four months to complete in the heat of the dry season. he worked every day and i watched.

now his work is finished. he has to wait for mother nature to fill his lake up with water. he has planted fruit trees all along the top ridge. where there aren’t fruit trees’s planted rows of corn. the corn is about three inches high and the trees are about a foot tall.

he has changed out of his dirty, peach shorts and into more comfortable clothes now. he walks around his trees prodding the dirt with a stick and smoking a cigarette. one part of his lake has filled in with water and he fenced it off with bamboo and plants. he has filled it with fish. every day he sits out by his fish pond after inspecting his trees. he has a small stool that he sits on and blankly stares at the water. he feeds them and the water bubbles with activity.

this man has changed my life. his quiet labor was christ-like. every once in a while we would catch each other’s glances. i would be standing on my comfortable balcony and he would be trudging through the mud. he didn’t judge me with his eyes. he was observing me like a person watches tv. those glances gave me an incredible sense of peace.

i now watch him and smile. i vicariously enjoy the fruits of his labor.

i rented a motorcycle for a year. i rented it from a friend of a friend for a relatively wonderful price. it’s black and fast and i look like james dean.

it’s handlebars are straight and short. they make me lean over when i ride. it has a clutch and most bikes over here don’t have one. they’re automatics. i like clutches. it’s a short bike with a high back end. it has a small, round light in the front and multi-colored wires poking out everywhere.

it has only four gears and a small engine. you have to have a special permit to drive anything over 175cc. the gearshift is different than any other bike i’ve ever driven. it is, as always, below the left foot. normally you have one lever you push down when shifting up through the gears. when you want to shift back down you have to slip your foot under the lever and push up. this bike has two levers, one in the front and one in the back. you push down on the front to shift up through the gears and push down on the back one to return to neutral. i would imagine it’s because everyone over here wears sandals. if you’re wearing sandals, it’d be pretty hard to slip your foot under a greasy leaver and push up.

i rented the bike so i could drive around the mekong freely. there aren’t too many busses that stop off in remote places so a bike is a nice way of moving around. this is a very rural area and if i’m ever going to fully understand it i have to be mobile.

now i hop on, violently kick the kick start, rev the engine, thump it into gear and zoom off in a cloud of dust and exhaust.

i went to a death anniversary celebration on my birthday. how similar they both were.

one of my students called me up the other day and asked if i would be willing to eat supper at their house the following day. they said it was going to be the death anniversary of their grandfather.

i have never witnessed a death anniversary and was more than willing to attend. my mind conjured pictures up of people in dark robes walking around odd shrines with incense burning everywhere. that was the furthest thing from the truth.

i brought two kilos of fruit after consulting one of my friends. he said that you needed to buy something to offer the family and the dead person.

the house was on a small, dirt track in the middle of long xuyen. the family was warm and accommodating. i was introduced to everyone. there were a group of uncles there. they were the son’s of the dead grandfather. they all looked similar and were dressed smartly and must have worked in business. there were no aunts. there were children, though. about seven or eight children ran around. i was told they all knew english but, after difficult quizzing, (how are you?) i found their skills lacking. they were more or less curious as to why there was a large, white person in their house.

the grandmother was still alive. she was short and wrinkled and a bit plump. her nose had a small growth on it and she smiled continuously. she told me how many of her children and her grandchildren were studying different languages. she talked about russian, japanese, korean, french, german and english. i offered her my fruit, as i was told to do, and recited the phrase i was given. “cho con giu cung ong” basically, use these as a prayer for the grandfather.

when i was introduced to her, she smiled at me with fairly sincere eyes. after i gave her the fruit, her eyes changed. she looked at the picture of her husband on the wall. it was an old black and white painting. he was standing next to her grinning widely. her face was emotionless. he had a gap in his front teeth and his head was cocked a bit to one side. she looked back at me and didn’t say anything but said thanks a million times.

we all sat down to eat. two of my students were there and the food was good but everything was a bit awkward. i didn’t really know anyone and surely didn’t know how to act or what to say at a death anniversary. the conversation at the table was about football and buying land.

i brought up the old man and they talked briefly about him. i was sitting in the seat of honor, why, i don’t know. i was sitting directly across from the old painting of the grandfather. his eyes were pointed directly at me. i made eye-contact with him and the thought, “today is my birthday, today is your deathday. what a strange connection that is.” i asked people about his life. they said that he owned a small factory. they said he was a wonderful father. they shared stories that i didn’t really understand. they talked about when he died, on june 17, 1989. he had heart disease. no one cried, no one looked sad, they all seemed to be content just reminiscing.

i was struck as to how similar a birthday and a death anniversary are. at home, i’ve been told the story of how i was born on every june 17th. i’ve been told how i wasn’t breathing and that the doctor laid me on the window frame and how i started to breath and cry. i was told about my childhood, about how me and my brother fell out of our red wagon one day on heading to the bluffton reservoir. i’ve been told things that i could not possibly have remembered just like the grandchildren were being told about their grandfather’s life. they were being told stories that shaped their family’s history and i was told stories that shaped my history.

the death anniversary isn’t a sad time just like a birthday isn’t a sad time. sure, we could all reflect on the fact that, on our birthday, we’re one year closer to death. we could think about how our finite lives are slowly coming to an end but we don’t. sure, on a death anniversary they could shake their heads, dab their eyes and moan about how sad it is not to have their grandfather around anymore, but they don’t.

sometimes i go and shoot pool. when the day gets a little long and there’s no one about, i get bored. they have one sixteen ball table in long xuyen. it’s owned by a man named thanh. he is an incredible pool player. every shot he takes is miraculous and void of effort. he can clear a table and have a conversation with his wife.

today i went. i had just eaten lunch and couldn’t be asked to go home and grade more english literature tests. i have one hundred and four of them and each test takes me about five minutes to grade. do the math.

the pool hall is a converted warehouse located on one of the main streets here. it’s front door is a huge garage door. there are about six vietnamese pool tables and one sixteen ball table. normally it’s full of older vietnamese men wasting away the afternoon. today there were two foreigners there. well, there were three foreigners and one vietnamese person that looked like an american.

i walked in and noticed a caucasian face. i stopped, looked again and made sure. you never see foreigners in long xuyen. i walked up to the man and said hello. he was dressed like most youngish americans would dress: he had a fashionable shirt on and baggy pants. he didn’t respond right away but a man next to him did. they were both from boston. the vietnamese looking man had lived there for about thirty years and spoke perfect english. the american looking man had lived there for about eight years and barely spoke any.

there was also another man there. he had an american accent strongly laced with slang. everything was, “hey man.” he was from oakland and bore complicated blue tattoos on both of his forearms. he was thickly build and walked with a limp. he looked strong and mean. he explained to me that it was impossible to get an american citizenship if you had a felony on your record. i didn’t ask him if he had a felony. that may have been a little inappropriate.

the american looking vietnamese man living in america happened to be fathered by an american soldier during the war. his mother is vietnamese and his father is american. he didn’t seem to have one vietnaemse feature about him except, maybe, darkish hair. his friend explained to me that he grew up in long xuyen. he lived his whole life looking exactly like an american.

he looked lost. he smiled but he was out of place. he walked around the pool table quietly. he didn't have a bette-than-thou attitude. he was humble. what a life this man was given.

what a world we have created for ourselves. i know how many hardships i’ve gone through just driving my bicycle down the street let alone growing up here. this is such a homogeneous place that he must have stuck out like a soar thumb. what a world where we can have such innocent victims. his whole life has been defined, if my experience is any reference, by an event that he didn’t even witness. he is the creation of war and he has had to suffer because of the mistakes of others.

incense sticks. they’re all over in these parts. they’re red at the bottom and yellow at the top. the handle is thin and flexible.

they are used in prayer. they are used to communicate with dead people. the smoke that is created from burning the yellow incense billows out. it looks like a rubber stream. it dissipates into the air. the smoke is what carries the prayers. the smoke carries the words to god. sounds hokey but i guess just thinking prayers in your head would sound a bit hokey too.

people use them to venerate their ancestors. every year there is a death anniversary. the family gathers and remembers the deceased. it is a happy time when they remember those that came before them. those that ate and smiled and cried and cared for them. they look at the lives that came before them and try to learn from the mistakes.

most houses have an ancestral veneration shelf. it’s called a ban tho. there are normally two portraits on it: one of a man and one of a woman. the portraits are faded. the people in them are normally expressionless. there is usually a small holder for the incense. it is full of previously burnt sticks. people normally pray once a day.

the remains of incense sticks can be seen all over. people who drive trucks or vans usually burn them and put them where the license plate meets the bumper. it brings them safety on the road. people also put them in the cracks on a sidewalk. there is one large tree outside of a restaurant we usually go to that has a knot in its side. it is full of old incense sticks.

i like the idea of watching your prayers travel up to the sky.

i teach a business english class full of old people. some of them aren’t that old, they may be as old as my parents. to say the least it’s intimidating. they always say i’m very serious. that’s my only defense against my age.

last night they took me out to eat. twenty five of them showed up and some of them brought their wives. the two people that didn’t attend had excuses that they passed on through friends. we went to a restaurant that i’ve never been to before. it’s called “dong que”. it means something about a country field. it was located outside of the city in the middle of nowhere. it was completely surrounded by rice paddies.

we ate as the sun set. to my right there were scores of farmers milling through the fields picking up things and checking on their growing food. people own small plots of land and the land is flat. at one moment you can see four or five families working.

the meal was wonderful. we took pictures and people smiled and shook hands. they bought me a huge birthday cake with my age emblazoned on it in fluorescent icing. twenty three. how feebly young.

i was told “congratulations” a number of times. i found this humorous but didn’t tell anyone. were they telling me that i had done well surviving for twenty three years? they all deserved more adulation than me. they were much older.

one student that never speaks stood up. he never married, has an under bite, is a bit overweight and has a definite comb-over. he said he wanted to sing me a song.

i didn’t expect much from this but sat politely. the music that came out of that man’s mouth can not be described. how can you describe passion and fervor? how can you describe something that wells up inside and explodes out through the mouth? how can i possibly do the song justice? his eyes shut, his face turned back and to one side, his hands were clasped and white in front of him, his mouth cracked open and he sang.

the song was about two lovers during the war with america. they would ride small boats together and smuggle arms past the american boats. their boat made gentle waves behind them as they rode.

what a contrast to war.

i sat listening to this passionate song about revolutionary struggle against america. it was a gift to me on my birthday. my head filled with the music and my eyes were overwhelmed by the passion displayed by this normally reserved student. it was a wonderful gift.

when i was in highschool i was able to attend two badminton classes. they weren’t different, i just fell through the cracks. the second time through i was some sort of south-eastern-pennsylvanian-badminton-diety. not the case here.

i play badminton three times a week. it’s the only real exercise i get. you can’t go running, well, you can but there are too many people around and you’d have to wake up at four in the morning. i like to go running in open spaces. i like the trees being my only witness.

i play with the faculty of the economics department. we play in an ancient building hidden in the middle of town. it is manila in color and the five olympic rings stand proudly and worn from its peak. i don’t remember anything about the long xuyen olympics. maybe it was before my time.

inside there are six courts set up. they face all sorts of directions and are always full. the air is thick and it’s noisy. the economics department’s court is in the back. you end up winding your way over and through intense games trying your best to avoid the flying shuttlecock.

we have twelve people that play on our court. some are competitive, some are incompetent and some are just there to violently swing a racket. it’s a good time. we also have a trainer. he’s plump and short and wears a hat indoors. he is militant in his training. when i’m not playing a game he has me stand in the back corner and he goes over the footwork with me. if it’s a drop-shot to my left, i have to slide with my left foot first, smash it with my wrist to the back corner and then quickly slide back to the middle. if it’s a drop-shot to my right i have to move with my right first, turn my racket and do the same. if it’s behind me i have to move with my right foot, swivel on it, shift my weight, jump, hit the shuttlecock and land as i began. never can you use your arm. it’s only your wrist. he constantly corrects me and spends most of his time standing beside me with his wrist above his head flapping it violently and saying, “see! see! see!”

we play a few games and i’m exhausted. driving home on my bicycle is a joy. the warm night air cools you off wonderfully. your body feels used and is ready to sleep. at night i dream about drop-shots and smashes.

this once strange place now feels like a warm glove. i realized it tonight when i was driving my bicycle.

i went to scavenge something to eat. there’s no other foreigner here at the moment and i’m having to go out gathering alone. i’ve been quite successful but don’t frequent or normal restaurants. i don’t really feel like going into a place, knowing everyone and sitting down with a book. i’ve never seen a vietnamese person do it and i’m not about to start a trend. i never was a good trend setter.

i found an old lady that sold roasted duck. she sells roasted duck sandwiches. she works out of a small, well lit stand on one of the main roads. the night is pitch black but her small cart lights the side of the road with “vit quay” written in large letters. there are a number of dead ducks hanging upside down without their heads. you can ask her for a sandwich and she will take out a large knife and chop off one of the dead duck’s legs. she then shears off the meat. the flesh is old and well cooked. i’m sure it has been sitting around for a few days. it peals off easily.

then she asks you what you want on it. do you want soy sauce. yes. do you want pickled vegetables. yes. do you want cucumbers. yes. do you want some sauce that isn’t familiar looking and you don’t understand the name when it’s pronounced. pause. yes. do you want chilies. of course.

she ties it up in an old newspaper. not the most hygienic setup but it’s delicious.

i drove home with my sandwich in my bicycle basket. i drove slowly and everyone passed me. four or five or six people shouted hello. i didn’t even flinch. i really didn’t notice some of the hello’s and only took note when i realized i hadn’t noticed initially.

i weaved through traffic. the night air is hot. it’s like the air coming out of the top of a toaster except it doesn’t smell like pop-tarts or bagels. the traffic ebbs and flows flawlessly. the motorcycles all felt normal passing me. the hoards of people on the sidewalks were also rather normal. the coffee shops blaring pop music filled in where they should have. the groups of dogs tied up with chains and the roosters all looked well and good.

i came to this place and nothing was sane. nothing was remotely familiar. the ways of traveling were mysterious. the amount of people was mind boggling. the homogeneity of it all was disturbing. the air was too hot and the food was too ricey. the language was a slurred sing-song mixture. i was uncomfortable with the culture and i was terribly uncomfortable with being so well known. i longed to be anonymous. nothing was right and my mind kept screaming at me to, “go home!”

i suppressed the screaming because i wanted to be here. having your body scream at you for a bit will do no one harm.

i do not understand the culture or the language or the ways of travel. i just have accepted that i will never understand. i’ve accepted that i’ll never be anonymous. i’ve accepted that i have to eat rice every day. i’ve accepted that every time i go out someone will shout “hello!” at me. i’ve accepted all of these things deep down in the subconscious of my mind. i only know i’ve accepted them because i don’t react in the same ways that i used to. i assume it’s all normal.

i haven’t said enough about jack.

i’ve lived with jack since december the second. we haven’t shared a room, but we’ve lived in a cocoon of similarities. he and i are two people that know what this place is like. we understand it from our perspective and our perspectives are remarkably similar.

he’s a tall, thin person with nice features. he has hungarian in his roots and, for some reason, i see that when i look at him. his hair grows quickly and has turned more and more blond the longer it’s exposed to this ferocious sun. he doesn’t wear hats much and likes to loaf around the house in his free time wearing old t-shirts and baggy pants.

he likes to think about politics and economics and how the world works. we sit around on the roof of our building under a starry ceiling. we talk about things that most people aren’t interested in. we talk about why people aren’t interested in them and what we can do about it. we smile and laugh about the same things. we get frustrated by the same things.

we also have a child together: jota. we worry about how to best parent it. we groom it together ruffling his fur and picking out ticks and other odd animals. we sit around and talk about the dog with affection and obsession.

jack and i share the same island. we have walked together and taught together for the past few months. we understand the make-up of this island well. we share a unique situation.

of course we have our run-ins. in my experience, we all do. however, we don’t let these small grievances get in our way and i’ll forever cherish and remember the moments we’ve spent together.

the next month and change won’t be the same without seeing his face and drinking a cup of coffee with him every morning. i’ll be glad when he returns.

jack's going home for a few months. he's going to visit the wonderful land of suvs and lattes.

we're in saigon and are going to spend a few days here aimlessly floating through life and wondering about odd things. there's nothing much to do and things feel blurry. time continues to plod along and i continue to try to make the best of my situation. the sun still comes up in the morning and sets in the evening at about the same time. everything feels normal and detached at the same time.

maybe we all just need to see god.

there’s a young man who always works at one restaurant called the “no name”. he is always smiling and always greets us will a healthy, “hello. how is you?” he walks with a kick in his step. sometimes he jogs.

this young man also pushes around a fruit cart during the mornings. it’s a small, silver cart with plastic windows. behind the windows are rows of freshly pealed fruits. he charges about 3000 dong for half of a pineapple.

he’s always wearing blue pants. these pants are not blue-jean blue. they are not navy blue. they are not light blue. they are blueberry blue, maybe a shade lighter. they are a cross between electric eel blue and blueberry blue.

my birthday is coming up in a few days and we had a bit of a party with the students. the class dynamics are interesting. this last semester i taught both the second year and the third year students. only the second year students showed up. the third year students didn’t show but they sent some gifts.

jack had a tailor make me an identical pair of blue pants. they’re lovely and comfortable.

the party was supposed to be informal and small. i mentioned it to a couple of people and didn’t know who was going to show up. jack and i prepared by getting together some fruit and drinks.

the students came with an entire meal prepared. they had spring rolls, fried balls of something and more fruit. they also brought cake.

they laid everything out on tables and prepared sauces and everyone sat down. this was much too formal for the blue pants i was wearing.

there were speeches and clapping and lots of emotional remarks that were meant to be sincere but felt hallow. the student’s expressed their thanks for the class and i told them how wonderful they were. there’s forty four students in the class and forty turned up. the others had excuses.

they gave me flowers. a nice gesture. they bought me a t-shirt. it was also blue but had a checkered pattern not unlike a picnic table cloth. i wore it with my blue pants and felt ridiculous. they also got me a coconut cat. it is two coconut shells placed on top of one another and lacquered together. the cat doubles as a piggy bank. there’s a small slot in its back. i have no idea why anyone would need a piggy bank here: there are no coins, only paper money.

we played some games after the formal party ended. we played a game where everyone gets a card and whoever has the ace is the killer. they go around whispering in people’s ears and whoever they whisper in is dead. it’s a game i played when i was a child. they played it communally. if one girl was the killer she would tell all her friends and they would walk together as a mob. you win if you find out who the killer is but they didn’t care about winning. they didn’t want to stand out. the game was a debacle.

the night waned on and my pants remained blue and comfortable. i’ve yet to invest any money in the backside of my coconut cat piggy bank.

i was sitting at one of my favorite coffee stands this afternoon drinking a coffee. i saw some of my students and they sat and enjoyed a coffee with me. we sat and talked about life and the weather and what we really wanted. it was a nice chat.

one of the students decided he wanted something to eat so he ordered hot vit lon. he ordered semi-hatched duck eggs. i’ve descried it before, it’s an egg with a duck embryo inside. you can easily make out the features of the duck. it has wings, potential life and is dies clinging to it’s boiling yolk. i guess the pro-life vegetarians wouldn’t eat it but maybe the pro-choice vegetarians would.

when does a duck’s life begin? is it at conception?

well, the conversation continued and my friend ate the whole egg. he scooped the insides out from a whole he made at the top. at the end of his feast he smashed the egg shell. i asked him what he was doing. was he only being childish or was there a point to his violence.

he said that if he didn’t smash the egg he would go to hell. in hell he would be forced to fill a very large bucket with water using only the egg as a scooper. he also said that the source of water was very far away and that you would have to walk a long distance and try to be careful not to spill one drop.

i was impressed with his thorough knowledge of hell.

i commented that, since hell was undoubtedly hot, the heat would evaporate a lot of the water and that would make the job so much more difficult. i wondered if you could ask the devil for a lid. if you had a lid the job would be much simpler. maybe you could just put a large rock on the bucket. i also wondered if you could ring out your sweat stained shirt into the bucket and help yourself along. is it possible to fool beelzebub?

they sent me my drivers license today. i’ve waited about three weeks for it to arrive and was quite happy to get it.

it’s an extra large laminated card. it doesn’t fit where other cards would fit in my wallet. the front of the card is yellowish orange. the design spirals out from the seal of vietnam. in the middle on the left there is a small, color picture of me. i look quite anemic and pensive. it’s a strange combination and there’s a green stamp that runs through my left eye. above my head there is a metallic seal with a yellow star in the middle. the top of the card proclaims, “the socialist republic of vietnam.” below it is, “independence, freedom and happiness.” the vital statistics are listed below that. everything is correct except for my nationality. after it says “quoc tich” it says “vietnam”. i have been deemed an honorary vietnamese citizen, i guess. that really tickled my fancy. below everything there are more stamps and some official looking signatures. the back is more of the same. it lists what i’m allowed to drive and i’m only allowed to drive motorcycles that are between fifty and one hundred and seventy five cc. my license number is L429163 if anyone cares.

how are homes built in this mushy, tropical area? what must be taken into consideration for them to be successful?

there is a type of wood here that lines the shores of the mekong. it is thin and tall and soaks in water for ages. it is piled up, partially in the water, partially out. some people say it becomes harder than steel after it has soaked for a while. that becomes the foundation of all buildings.

the long, wood-steel poles are driven into the mud on a new construction site. there is a machine. it is an engine that sits on top of a metal pole. the pole rises about twenty feet into the air with the engine at the top. a piece of wood is brought in and placed under the engine. it is fastened securely and the engine is turned on. it spits and vomits black smoke into the air in small clouds. they rise and disappear. the engine is thrust into gear. it pounds down on the wooden steak and screams, driving it slowly into the mud. it takes a few minutes to completely submerge one of these logs and it's quite a sight. the wood bends and jumps and bark and splinters fly off. people stand idly by watching.

the foundation for the building i'm sitting in was built with this wood. the building is new and modern. it doesn't rest on stilts. the mekong delta has been built with the help of this wood. what else would you use for the foundation of a building that rests on mud. nothing else would suffice.

jack just took the dog to go get some banana ice cream. they take whole bananas and crush them up with coconuts, peanuts and milk. then it freezes. they have sticks in them.

the ice-cream is really good, especially when it's hot. i like it.

the dog went with jack running beside him while he biked through the mud. dogs like mud just like children do. jota comes back muddy and dirty and smiling. dogs also smile like children: when they've done something wrong.

in the ice-cream store, well, it's not a store but rather the front of someone's house, they're was a pile of sandals. jota must have found one that he either really liked or really didn't like. it was a man's, black leather sandal. he squatted over it in front of everyone and peed in it.

jack said people weren't too angry and most of them laughed. jota left and jack apologized.

this isn't the first time jota has peed in shoes. he peed on jack's sandals when he was a puppy. that was excusable because he was too small and didn't realize that there were certain places he could pee and other places he couldn't.

another time, a friend of ours came over. he was wearing black leather shoes. he took them off before entering the room, as is the custom, and jota found them. well, i was taking jota out for a walk and i stopped to chat for a bit. jota squatted over the shoe and peed inside of it. he looked up and smiled like a child.

in vietnam there are two types of girls. some girls are "hien" and some girls are "du dan".

"hien" girls are shy. they only speak when spoken to. they look at the ground and suck in their cheeks. they peek up with big, brown eyes and look sad or innocent. when they do speak it's only in the most muffled tones. you see their mouths moving but no sound is produced. you have to move your head closer to their mouths to hear anything. you have to ask them to repeat, repeat, repeat. they wear the most conservative clothes. they wear ao dai. they sit straight and ride motorcycles side saddle. these are the rural girls. this is the zenith of beauty. the quiet, shy, innocent girls are the most attractive. if she's got white skin, she's even better.

i can be quite cynical about "hien" girls. my culture dictates that beauty is something else entirely. i remember shy, innocent, quiet girls from high school. they weren't the most attractive. the most attractive girls were the ones that stood out from the rest of the group. the most attractive girls were the girls that took charge and lead with confidence as opposed to following meekly. i am surrounded by "hien" girls.

girls who are "du dan" are much more overt. for better or for worse, they exhibit western qualities. these girls are the ones that take charge and lead with confidence. these are the girls that voice their opinions. these are the girls who speak loud enough for all to hear.

mostly, these girls can be found in urban areas. they are the saigon girls working hard from morning to supper and then going to school at night. these are the girls who left their parents when they graduated high school to find adventure in the big city. the city is full of "du dan" and the country is full of "hien".

as i understand this culture, there isn't a distinction for boys. most of the men exhibit similar characteristics: they are outgoing, friendly, loud, always smiling and definitely not afraid to take the reins.

the different cultures obviously have different standards of beauty. while university girls in america go to taning salons, girls here cover themselves head to toe in order to stay pasty white. girls here try to be "hien" and girls at home can't help but be "du dan". i think i'll always be attracted to "du dan" girls.