{"id":179006,"date":"2018-11-13T09:45:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T09:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179006"},"modified":"2018-11-18T07:24:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T07:24:47","slug":"oriental-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=179006","title":{"rendered":"Oriental Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh — The Unz Review Nov 12, 2018<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"Binh<\/a>

Binh Chanh 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

Two years ago, I was having dinner in NYC with a group of Japanese writers. Next to me was Mieko Kawakami<\/a><\/span>, who\u2019s also known as a pop singer. Since her English was very limited, we conversed mostly through another person. Seeing that my beer glass was empty, Mieko filled it.<\/h5>\n
\"Linh<\/a>Earlier this year, I found myself in Tokyo with nearly the same group of Japanese, and next to me, again, was Mieko. Seeing that my bowl was empty, she used her chopsticks to replenish it with some fatty pork.<\/h5>\n
In Saigon a month ago, I was having dinner with a bunch of Taiwanese businessmen, whom I had just met. Next to me was a 36-year-old who had been in Vietnam for six years, was married to a Vietnamese and had two kids with her, so he spoke Vietnamese quite comfortably, even rapidly, though I must I admit, I only understood about half of it, such was his accent. Seeing that my bowl had some food scraps, he picked it up, cleaned it out with his chopsticks, then filled it with a couple of shrimps.<\/h5>\n
To be attentive to others at the dinner table is a trait inculcated in East Asians since childhood. It shows civilization, not obsequiousness. At an Oriental banquet, tables tend to be round, an egalitarian arrangement with no honored seats, and all the dishes are in the middle. Although you\u2019re only supposed to pick, say, a piece of chicken that\u2019s close to you, and not reach across a plate, you can choose a better morsel for anyone else, especially an older person, a guest or a social superior, such as your boss. To express concern, they can also drop food in your rice bowl.<\/h5>\n
Decades ago, I was at a Chinese restaurant in Northern Virginia with a close friend, Brian Robertson, and when our two dishes arrive, Brian instantly divided each in half, right down the middle, and scooped his shares onto his plate. Had I used my utensils to pick out food for Brian, he would have cringed and protested, I\u2019m sure.<\/h5>\n
East is East, and West is West, and though the two do overlap, you will always know whether you\u2019re in Intercourse or Phuoc Hai, and that\u2019s good. Though relentlessly assaulted, the local endures, but it must be fiercely protected and nurtured.<\/h5>\n
Repeatedly, I have pointed out how boundaries are often blurred in Vietnam, but this also means that personal space is not as respected as in the West. In 1957, Gontran de Poncins published his excellent From a Chinese City, which documents his year of living in a residential hotel in Cho Lon, Saigon\u2019s Chinatown. Other occupants were disturbed by De Poncins\u2019 habit of keeping his door closed during the day, so they would just open it. Seeing that De Poncins was always alone, they asked if he needed a woman, and when he said no, they offered to bring him a boy. As De Poncins sketched, someone might snatch his notebook from him, to see what he was drawing.<\/h5>\n
Saigon in 2018 is much more Americanized, so there are gated communities, condos with security guards, restaurants behind plate glass windows, ubiquitous English<\/a> schools<\/a><\/span> and aggressive rap music being spat at you by street performers on Bui Vien Street. At a wedding, I noticed all the young people at my table were staring at their smart phones for nearly the entire evening. American styled swagger or aggression is also being aped, so on a truck in my neighborhood, I saw, in English, \u201cCHOOSE LIFE<\/a> <\/span>\/ DON\u2019T TOUCH MY CAR,\u201d with the image of two hand guns being pointed at the viewer. In several Vietnamese cities, and even Singapore, there are Li\u00eam barbershops, where all the hair cutters are all tatted up and dressed as cholos. Speaking to packed rooms of young Vietnamese, Li\u00eam passionately teaches them on how to properly wear a bandana, flannel shirt or Ben Davis pants, etc<\/h5>\n
\"30413056867_1d38e0651a_b\"<\/a>Since I live five miles from downtown, however, the texture<\/a> <\/span>of my daily life is still very much Vietnamese<\/a><\/span>, even if there\u2019s a McDonald\u2019s, Popeyes and KFC within a ten minute walk. Riding a beat up bicycle, a knife sharpener<\/a><\/span> offered his service. Passing a funeral<\/a><\/span>, I saw the pallbearers tilting the coffin three times, to make it bow to its old house, then three more times at the head of the alley, to say farewell to its neighborhood.<\/h5>\n
This morning, I had a 47 cent cup of coffee at a caf\u00e9<\/a><\/span> in an alley. People streamed by, on foot or motorbikes. Within sight was the neighborhood Buddhist temple. Although hideous looking, it does have a shady and somewhat quiet courtyard, so sometimes I\u2019d go and sit on one of its cement benches, near a bunch of wizened monks.<\/h5>\n
Vietnamese know their neighbors. The caf\u00e9\u2019s owner is a taciturn middle-aged dude who keeps half a dozen lurid fish in a couple of tanks. His grown son is a heroin addict who\u2019s been in and out of jail. The smirking young man has never had a job, only lots of tattoos.<\/h5>\n
On my right sat office workers in white shirts and black pants, and to my left was a man, called Mr. Mulberry, who had a stroke a decade ago, so now must inch around with a walker. Even before Mulberry got debilitated, his wife left him to marry a Vietnamese-Australian.<\/h5>\n
Mulberry has six brothers and two sisters. Two brothers are in Australia. The sisters were infamous in this neighborhood as \u201chorses,\u201d the Vietnamese term for \u201csluts,\u201d because people could ride them.<\/h5>\n
Mulberry\u2019s dad used to beat his mom, and complain that her skin wasn\u2019t as smooth as his mistress\u2019. Despite all this, they\u2019re still together, and live with Mulberry and a daughter, a single mom, of course, in the house across the alley from my table.<\/h5>\n
Hearing anyone\u2019s life story, I\u2019m always filled with amazement and admiration, because I\u2019m not sure I could have endured so many sucker punches from random strangers, God, my family and the weather.<\/h5>\n
At another neighborhood caf\u00e9 a while back, I sat next to a man in his early 70\u2019s who had raised ten kids. He has owned a company making truck trailers since before the Fall of Saigon.<\/h5>\n
\u201cI made more than enough to take care of all my kids, then the state took over my company. They had to keep me on, however, because the company could not have functioned otherwise. I had all these supervisors and advisors who collected salaries, but did nothing. I survived all that. After \u0110\u1ed5i M\u1edbi [Renovation], I got my company back.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cDid you try to escape the country?\u201d I asked.<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, because I had ten kids! It would have been too complicated, and I didn\u2019t want to send a couple of kids out by themselves. It would have been too risky.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cSo they\u2019re all still here?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, and they\u2019re all doing well. One of my sons bought land and houses when they were still cheap, decades ago. He\u2019s loaded. Another son works for the government as an electrical engineer. One of my daughters owns this caf\u00e9,\u201d where we were sitting. \u201cAll the Socialist countries were dirt poor, while the Capitalist countries were rich. That\u2019s why things had to change.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\"Taiwan<\/a>After dinner with the Taiwanese businessmen, they dragged me to a karaoke session, so of course I had to go, and there, in a private room<\/a><\/span> with pulsating blue, green and purple lights, each of us was assigned a hostess<\/a><\/span>. Since I\u2019m not gay, transitioning or rude, I graciously allowed myself to be fondled a bit by my \u201clittlest sister,\u201d which is Vietnamese slang for such a lady. I did milk Lan for her life story.<\/h5>\n
Though looking no more than 23, Lan was actually 35, and a divorcee raising a five-year-old son pretty much by herself, with her ex now a laborer in South Korea. Knowing her hostess career was quickly winding down, she had been saving, \u201cI want to own a jewelry store, but I still don\u2019t have enough cash, so I\u2019m just going to open a little variety store.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWho takes care of your kid while you\u2019re working?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cMy mom.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s his name?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cTuan.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cIs Tuan a good kid?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d she smiled.<\/h5>\n
\u201cSmart?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cPretty smart.\u201d<\/h5>\n
As I get older, my eyes often discharge this greenish pus. It\u2019s disgusting, I know. With a moist towelette, Lan dabbed at the corners of my eyes. I didn\u2019t purr, I swear.<\/h5>\n
\u201cSome customers can be pretty gross, but we don\u2019t have to serve any of them. If we walk out, though, we don\u2019t get paid.\u201d<\/h5>\n
It\u2019s good to hear people\u2019s stories, face to face. In Philadelphia, I knew almost none of my neighbors, so the only local community I had were the drinkers inside Friendly Lounge, yet even there, it was hard to talk, because the television was always on, even if no one was watching it, and the jukebox often interrupted.<\/h5>\n
Though not all Americans bowl, eat, drink and have sex alone, too many are divorced from their neighbors, neighborhood, the direct experience and even their own thought process, since it is regularly drowned out by canned garbage. Since the collapse of the American empire will be, among other things, a cultural and psychic deliverance for Americans themselves, all should wish for it.<\/h5>\n
One night in Philly, there was a blackout for maybe an hour, and inside McGlinchey\u2019s, where I was sitting, the barmaid dug out some candles and lit them. Without electronic distractions, we became much more conscious of everyone else\u2019s presence, clearly heard everything that was said, even if it was across the room, and was encouraged, or at least not prevented, from chattering at length. Finally, stories could flow. I remember being soothed, but also saddened, for why wasn\u2019t this the norm?<\/h5>\n
A decade ago, I gave a reading at This Ain\u2019t the Rosedale Library, a Toronto bookstore now out of business. It was fairly well attended, and afterwards, a bunch of us went to some Kensington Market bar to talk, but the canned music was so loud in there, conversations were impossible. We were reduced to shouting snippets at each other. I screamed to a woman next to me, \u201cThis is why poetry is dead!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhat?!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cPoetry is dead!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYeah!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cThis is why!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t even fuckin\u2019 talk!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI know!\u201d<\/h5>\n
Lastly, an announcement: at 6PM on Sunday<\/a><\/span>, November 18th, I\u2019ll give a reading in Tokyo at Aoyama<\/a><\/span> Book Center, 5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Cosmos Aoyama Garden Floor (B2F). Mieko Kawakami was supposed to appear with me, but some nutcase has threatened, online, to come to this event to stab her, so the police has advised Mieko to not show up. It\u2019s a great shame, but it\u2019s also heartening to know that literature can still be that deadly serious somewhere.<\/h5>\n
Linh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is <\/em>Postcards from the End of America<\/a><\/span>. He maintains a regularly updated photo <\/em>blog<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h5>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh reflects on life in downtown Saigon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179012,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179006\/revisions\/179012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}