Sunday Driving
Saigon, Vietnam

Allen Ginsberg once said, "I won't write my poetry until I'm in my right mind."

I try to do the same thing with my prose.

Right now, my mind is in the right place, but my body, no matter how much Vietnamese coffee I drink, is nearing exhaustion. Still, my whirlwind of a past few days is worth committing to print, even if only to serve my own memory.

I am happy with my place in Saigon. My first day here I met an American gentleman drinking coffee in the street. "Welcome to the best coffee shop in Vietnam," he proclaimed. He is working as a financier, and rents a room at a hotel across the street from his coffee shop. It's one of those places people rent for month-long holidays (or eight-month business stints) and I lucked out with a fifth-floor room with balcony. It's slightly above my budget, but the writing vibe hit me there and I've been conjuring saints and demons (Holly Hughes, madness, Terence McKenna, past cult experiences to name a few). I'm not putting off my essays any longer. They must spew. And the center of a bustling part of town is just the place to stop running. Though an occasional break to eat street food, go to a bumping night club or buy lottery tickets from the one-eyed orphan is ok.

I'm also happy with my time here. It's the middle of the traditional Tet Festival, Vietnam's version of the Chinese New Year and the plaza near my hotel is abustlin' with holiday spirit. A walk through the brilliantly lit night squares bring visions of Kumquat trees shaped like mythical Vietnamese animals, fields of flowering trees (some US$400!), dragon fruit (the seed pod of a snaking succulent with green skin, red scales, and white flesh with seeds like a kiwi), and anything and everything else.

The twilight brings out bats and they swarm above steeples.

Today I took a day off from writing. I wanted to visit a Vietnamese temple and meditate with the locals, but my favorite cyclo driver was nowhere to be found. Instead, I just did it in my room and afterward had my daily coffee. One cannot meditate after drinking that stuff! Realizing during my coffe (and Carl Sagan) that the museums were closed on Sunday, I abandoned that plan too. Instead, because I got tipped off to a friendly cafe, went there to see and be seen.

Not long at the cafe, a curious Vietnamese with good English struck up conversation and we fast wanted to know more about one another. I ended up at his house for afternoon tea. He was an avid orchid grower and gardener. One small portion of the yard had a family shrine perched above a turtle pond. He did not have a job, but he did have a 25% share in a bar that was shut down by the police last month "for being too loud." Now he was redecorating to open it again.

From what I could tell, he mostly just had obsessions. He gardened and tinkered. A caretaker/manservant did the rest of the cleaning. Best I could figure out, he was living off the money his family sent him from America, and it was his job to maintain the family estate. His father was dead and his mother lives in California, though his mother was in Saigon taking care of his 102 year old grandmother. His father's mother--106--taught him how to chat on the Internet! (Or so he claimed). But you're probably wondering about his obsessions.

His house was like a pet shop. In addition to the five varieties of turtle in the garden, the entrance was dominated by ten aquariums full of run of the mill fish. But the main thing were the dogs. He had 16 of them! Muts, Chihuahas, pit bull looking beasts, and everything in between. They seemed to have the run of the downstairs and the manservant supplied them with a never-ending bowl of dog food. Six months ago he had thirty dogs, but half of them were killed by some sort of virus, and he showed me the photo album of his departed canines. There were pups in cups, dogs climbing on houseplants, and crowd shots. It was like 101 Dalmations. He even had plaster dogs in his garden.

And why did he have so many dogs? Obsession? Indulgence? He wasn't being a "caninitarian". He said he got them from his friend at the pet shop, so I don't know what the deal was.

This afternoon, I met a friend of a friend, a film director and resident of Saigon who had billowing, slightly unkempt hair and a delightful French accent from his days as a film student in Paris. He showed me around a bit and we drank coffee in the street. I won't share his name or the titles of his movies, because what I'm going to write is somewhat politically sensitive. From what I can tell, he's a little bitter that his work is subject to censorship. He was a man struggling to attain his vision. Until now, the government has prevented him from achieving this.

My new friend has been writing and directing for twenty years and told me he had always wanted to be a film maker. He idolizes Yang
Yimou, the director of "Hero" and "Not One Less," (amongst others) because this man has been able to create controversial films, like his one about the Cultural Revolution that was banned in China. As a government-funded artist, my new friend is unable to pursue his ultimate vision. In time, he hopes things will shift, and he hopes the opening and reform sweeping the Chinese system will do the same in Vietnam. The way I look at it, he's got about five or ten more years, as that's how far "behind" Vietnam's party reforms are. But who's to tell? He could raise money and get his film produced in two years the way things are going. And with a censored film, his fame could reach new heights (though I don't think he wants to risk jail time, what with a family and all).

I wish I could tell you the details of his latest film, but to do so would compromise his identity. I have a diagram of the plot in my notebook and will share it in a freer time. Briefly, I can say the film deals with social issues and creeps toward the kind of vision he longs to actualize.

After coffee, we spent twilight in a sort of Tet-inspired city fair. On exhibit: exotic fish, birds, bonsai, caligraphy, and other art. It's amazing to see how the traditional artform of caligraphy has been applied to Vietnam's latinized quoc ngu script. I never expected to see anything but Chinese, Korean, or Japanese characters in broad brush stroke. These exhibits made me want to grow a bonsai and long for my stolen camera.

That's all for now!

~josh(away)