-^-for posterity-^-

we've come down to ho chi minh city to sample some southern life. i'm amazed at the development here.

we go to coffee shops and sit for a bit after a busy day of traveling and staring. one coffee shop near the center of city is a giant maze of tables and aisles and stairs that wind up and down and all around. waitresses and waiters stand staring through walls in their nice uniforms. there are neon signs everywhere.

we order coffee and sit in font of giant television screens blaring. there is no sound but the images do the screaming for you.

we watched professional wrestling.

i hadn't seen such a spectacle in, oh, a couple of years and was quite shocked. i remember sitting on my parents bed and secrectly watching the wwf (no, not the world wildlife federation) on saturday mornings when i was a child. i remember people jumping and punching and falling. how much of it was real. i was never sure.

today we saw a match between a man named 'el grand luchador' or something to that effect. he played to the hispanic minority. we also saw the villian, a man whose name escapes me, who drove up in a limo with large horns on the roof. he was a rich man of some sort and was quite proud. the croud, mainly made up of fattish men in ac/dc shirts, booed.

they sparred in the ring for a bit, jumped around and eventually one man pinned the other after many theatrics. i'm coming home in less than a month and, for the first time, felt apprehension.