At my Sunday lunch, someone played Silent Night from my playlist, and the boy who grew up in Darjeeling and the girl who grew up in Whitefield agreed with complete understanding that this song evokes greater nostalgia for our India than any number of Diwali lamps.
When I return home in December, the Whitefield in my mind is the one I grew up in, where it’s quiet enough to hear the church bells on Christmas Day. Where they play cricket in the Inner Circle ground on Sunday mornings and bring excitement into the lives of the dogs – sooner or later a ball would land inside the private gardens, the dogs would fetch it and then guard it ferociously in full view of helpless fielders outside. They’re all still at the gate, those dogs, tails wagging. The car is still a red Omni van. Traffic is thin on the roads. Jagriti is still a farm. The lake is unfenced, surrounded still by flower farms and vineyards. There are eucalyptus groves instead of housing developments with Balinese names. When I say Bangalore to people who ask where I’m from, the place in my mind is from the early nineties, when Whitefield was just the greener, quieter oasis on the outskirts of India’s Garden City.
No sign remains of either place, of course. The reality is an over-developed hellhole. I know there’ll be Facebook updates on the ride from the airport, from walks where I notice that yet another 100-year-old heritage cottage has been buried in the foundation of a block of flats, another signature raintree cut down. I might as well just schedule them now and save myself the 3G bill.
But the Sunday, with the windows open and the rooms full of the December sun, it seemed as if no time had passed at all. My parties are just like my parents’ many, many gatherings. My table looks exactly like my mother’s. My overreactions to others’ policy decisions regarding plates or cutlery are quite hereditary too.
And given all the changes in Whitefield, it’s amazing that my parents are still able to buy their coffee freshly ground from the same little coffee merchant, and their bread freshly baked in the same bakery that was there before I was born. The fact that the bakery now has two branches and has a snack bar has not changed the bread. (The coffee man has no such ambitions – I doubt even the grinder has been upgraded in the 30 years).
As I prepare for another family meet, count the people and the presents and wonder big suitcase or medium, it feels like this – perhaps the hundredth trip home of my adult life – is momentous. Last time I left from Singapore, the family meet being a transit stop on a much greater journey to Vietnam. I return now from that journey, refreshed to the point of transformation by the change. I’ll be home for Christmas.
Monday, December 09, 2013
Friday, December 06, 2013
Down the rabbit hole on a Friday afternoon
It suddenly came to me in the course of my regular morning catch-up that my entire career has been that of a guest star. And the longer I stay in one place, the less of a permanent place I have. Through six years in one agency, I wandered between three floors, with a new desk every year, always a major contributor, always welcome, but never fully affiliated anywhere. At other times, I have represented four separate companies in the space of one day, and was a credit to them all. Now I’ve been three years in the same organization, but have had six desks in five offices across two countries.
Because of this I’ve been “significantly up-skilled” almost every three months for 20 years. I’ve fetched up here creative-trained, Public Affairs trained, media-trained, analytics-trained, digitally savvy, equally able to manage a client, a team, a campaign or a Facebook page. I struggle to answer the question “what do you do?”. It doesn’t always help me sleep at night, but it does make the days fraught with excitement.
Now and then, the ghost routine makes me feel vulnerable, because your achievements can be equally felt-but-not-seen. And sometimes you can get slightly tangled up in all the dotted lines in an org chart. But mostly I know that that is how I work best – when there are no clear lines, when I can pass through fences, come and go as I please. I’m grateful that I work in an industry that thrives on it. My two-year foray into the corporate world didn’t work because I grew out of my box very fast, but had nowhere else to go, so I was stuck awkwardly in it. My most defeated days are the ones when I come up against those who see a broken fence as a problem rather than an opportunity.
The strangest part of this is the realization that my very first boss saw it in the first month of my working life. She was given two copy trainees but she made only one of them spend time in all the agency departments to get an all-round picture of how an agency worked. So here’s to my long line of bosses, all of whom expected – and still expect – more from me than my peers, who demand and get more than I think I have to give.
Even now, and perhaps forever, I will still reach for any random bottle I come across labelled “drink me”, will not able to resist the cake with the note saying “eat me” – branching off my career along another side road, just like that. But contrary to my lifelong belief, it’s not a bad thing, but actually quite an asset. And I've had the time of my life.
Because of this I’ve been “significantly up-skilled” almost every three months for 20 years. I’ve fetched up here creative-trained, Public Affairs trained, media-trained, analytics-trained, digitally savvy, equally able to manage a client, a team, a campaign or a Facebook page. I struggle to answer the question “what do you do?”. It doesn’t always help me sleep at night, but it does make the days fraught with excitement.
Now and then, the ghost routine makes me feel vulnerable, because your achievements can be equally felt-but-not-seen. And sometimes you can get slightly tangled up in all the dotted lines in an org chart. But mostly I know that that is how I work best – when there are no clear lines, when I can pass through fences, come and go as I please. I’m grateful that I work in an industry that thrives on it. My two-year foray into the corporate world didn’t work because I grew out of my box very fast, but had nowhere else to go, so I was stuck awkwardly in it. My most defeated days are the ones when I come up against those who see a broken fence as a problem rather than an opportunity.
The strangest part of this is the realization that my very first boss saw it in the first month of my working life. She was given two copy trainees but she made only one of them spend time in all the agency departments to get an all-round picture of how an agency worked. So here’s to my long line of bosses, all of whom expected – and still expect – more from me than my peers, who demand and get more than I think I have to give.
Even now, and perhaps forever, I will still reach for any random bottle I come across labelled “drink me”, will not able to resist the cake with the note saying “eat me” – branching off my career along another side road, just like that. But contrary to my lifelong belief, it’s not a bad thing, but actually quite an asset. And I've had the time of my life.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Counting down at Den & Trang
The coffee is good here, but the food takes forgettable to new heights, becoming almost inedible in parts. But then nobody comes here to eat. I don’t know how they make their money.
A boy sits at one table sketching. Elsewhere, a couple whispers to each other. A man lounges on the corner sofa reading (or checking Facebook) on his iPad. He’s stretched out in a space meant for a group of six, but nobody here will dream of doing anything so devastatingly practical as moving him to the armchair. The group of six is happily squashed around a small table, playing cards, with two members sitting on the floor. A girl takes endless photos of a bowl of flowers, checking, deleting, adjusting, clicking, over and over, unremarked and unremarkable here, among all the other square pegs whose edges are slowly being filed down to something approaching comfort. Smart groups are drinking dubious juice concoctions, having already made one dubious choice - to sit in the enclosed area rather than the rambling verandah. And at her favourite table under the wind chimes, a lapsed writer tries to remember how it’s done.
I return like a turtle to this, the first place I came to on my first day in Saigon, my café that I found first crack out of the box. It’s probably my answer to why I felt so instantly that I belonged here in this weird and wonderful city.
So here in my café – the latest in a long line of my Domes, French Connections, Koshys, Casa Piccolas, Costas and Coffee Clubs – one week from my 40th birthday, I try to work out what the 18-year-old me had wanted to have become by now. Two hours later, I am forced to admit that I don’t think the teenager ever conceived of such an advanced age.
I do remember an old Nescafe ad and a daydream of drinking coffee at a picture window in my own flat, looking out at boats on a storied river. I laugh as I think of my mornings now, standing at my kitchen window, spooning coffee into the cafetiere while the sun comes up over the water. The river in my mind then was almost certainly the Thames, the Danube, the Hudson or the Seine - and just a few years later, it must have become Humber River in Toronto or Sydney Harbour - but the Saigon River has stories enough.
Friday, July 05, 2013
10 good things about first dates when you're over 39
1. You don't feel the need to apologise for your tastes - music, books, movies, anything.
2. Nor do you pretend to "interesting" tastes that you don't have.
3. You still agonise about what to wear but deep inside you know that it won't matter beyond the first two minutes.
4. And you don't worry beyond these two minutes about the four extra kilos you could have done without.
5. You understand that the fate of the date - or indeed, the planet - does not hang on whether your hair is frizzy.
6. In fact you have come to terms with the fact that the possibility of uncontrollable frizz is directly proportional to the importance of the date.
7. You worry that who you are won't match up to what you look like, rather than the other way round.
8. You don't ruin the whole evening for yourself by second guessing or playing games. You actually go out to have fun.
9. If you do something embarassing like spilling or breaking things, you laugh and move on. Again, you have accepted that the chance of these things happening is directly proportional to how much you want to make an impression.
10. It doesn't matter who pays for what. It's a non-subject. You do stuff and it gets paid for by one or the other. That's all there is to it.
2. Nor do you pretend to "interesting" tastes that you don't have.
3. You still agonise about what to wear but deep inside you know that it won't matter beyond the first two minutes.
4. And you don't worry beyond these two minutes about the four extra kilos you could have done without.
5. You understand that the fate of the date - or indeed, the planet - does not hang on whether your hair is frizzy.
6. In fact you have come to terms with the fact that the possibility of uncontrollable frizz is directly proportional to the importance of the date.
7. You worry that who you are won't match up to what you look like, rather than the other way round.
8. You don't ruin the whole evening for yourself by second guessing or playing games. You actually go out to have fun.
9. If you do something embarassing like spilling or breaking things, you laugh and move on. Again, you have accepted that the chance of these things happening is directly proportional to how much you want to make an impression.
10. It doesn't matter who pays for what. It's a non-subject. You do stuff and it gets paid for by one or the other. That's all there is to it.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Angkor Wat without photographs
Ornate gopurams rising into the sky and thousand-year-old lintels with dancing girls on them are not new to an Indian. Especially not if your school insisted on annual cultural excursions across the length and breadth of South India. I thought of the pretty staggering monuments of India and wondered uneasily whether I’d have to spent the rest of my life lying about how awesome I found Angkor.
I started with the Bayon Temple, and was not disappointed. I automatically went clockwise, in a ritual I have not participated in for at least 15 years, and questioned the faith of even as a child. I also hesitated instinctively when walking through what clearly used to be inner sanctums, though the deities are long gone. I walked up and down many flights of stairs, gave myself vertigo on rooftops. And then walked around the rest of Angkor Thom with growing interest, the laterite damp from humidity, grounds crunchy with fallen baby coconuts, the sun hot as hell.
The sheer scale of it registered slowly, as I explored with much delight many temples with trees growing out of them. Then I set off in the dark pre-dawn for Angkor Wat. Take the feeling of wonder when you first saw the famous Dravidian temples. The delicate, intricate beauty of Belur and Halebid, the awe with which you looked up at Sravanabelagola, the vastness of Hampi, the fastness of Chitradurga, the gloriousness of Tanjore and Madurai, the murals of Mahabalipuram, that tangible feeling of immortality in the dark corridors of many, many coastal temples – and multiply it all by several thousands. That's Angkor Wat. It’s huge.
I discovered along the way that my irreligiousness is fairly well-informed. Apparently, Hinduism is like cricket in India - you pick up the rules and lore anyway, whether you’re a fan or not. I see a random scene in a frame and I know which part of the Mahabharatha it refers to. I overhear a guide talk about the churning of the ocean, and remember my paternal grandmother telling it to me while walking to the ancestral temple through grounds very like these. I've forgotten how the story ended and what happened after the great nectar double-cross. The guide didn't know either, nor did the bas-reliefs. The stone-carvers were having too much fun sculpting crocodiles and sealions to bother with the end of the story. It was a good call. They also gave every elephant, monkey and horse in the battle of Lanka an individual character. Walking along that 600-meter mural is fascinating. The apsaras are Cambodian, but the rishis are Indian. In fact, there's a whole row of them with a distinct resemblance to Guru Nanak.
When you call Angkor Wat awesome, the word has a separate meaning all to itself. There are hundreds of thousands of photos of it - I took many of those myself - but nothing conveys the feeling of seeing it, being there. Stepping in the early morning light into the inner quadrangle of Angkor Wat, I completely forgot about work for the first time in at least three months. I had no chatter in my head.
As for the rest of Siem Reap, well, everything is always dimmed a little when you come from Vietnam, especially the food. The poverty here is abject, defeated, as if the shadow of all the ancient grandeur is too large to step out from under. But the children smile as they sell flutes in woven palm cylinders, and bracelets made of painted seeds. So do their parents, selling juice. Buddhism here is the cynical photo booth that Hinduism is in the historical temples of India: A blessing in an incense stick for a dollar, or the curse of a stranger's god if you choose not to.
But also, like Vietnam, something in the place reaches out and takes your hand. When I left, I wrote this in my notes. It was a Facebook status update that I decided not to post: “Goodbye Cambodia, I really don't want to leave, with my hat, my pirated Harry Potter (that freely mingles two books, the pirates checking page numbers not content), and the largest painting in the world.”
I started with the Bayon Temple, and was not disappointed. I automatically went clockwise, in a ritual I have not participated in for at least 15 years, and questioned the faith of even as a child. I also hesitated instinctively when walking through what clearly used to be inner sanctums, though the deities are long gone. I walked up and down many flights of stairs, gave myself vertigo on rooftops. And then walked around the rest of Angkor Thom with growing interest, the laterite damp from humidity, grounds crunchy with fallen baby coconuts, the sun hot as hell.
The sheer scale of it registered slowly, as I explored with much delight many temples with trees growing out of them. Then I set off in the dark pre-dawn for Angkor Wat. Take the feeling of wonder when you first saw the famous Dravidian temples. The delicate, intricate beauty of Belur and Halebid, the awe with which you looked up at Sravanabelagola, the vastness of Hampi, the fastness of Chitradurga, the gloriousness of Tanjore and Madurai, the murals of Mahabalipuram, that tangible feeling of immortality in the dark corridors of many, many coastal temples – and multiply it all by several thousands. That's Angkor Wat. It’s huge.
I discovered along the way that my irreligiousness is fairly well-informed. Apparently, Hinduism is like cricket in India - you pick up the rules and lore anyway, whether you’re a fan or not. I see a random scene in a frame and I know which part of the Mahabharatha it refers to. I overhear a guide talk about the churning of the ocean, and remember my paternal grandmother telling it to me while walking to the ancestral temple through grounds very like these. I've forgotten how the story ended and what happened after the great nectar double-cross. The guide didn't know either, nor did the bas-reliefs. The stone-carvers were having too much fun sculpting crocodiles and sealions to bother with the end of the story. It was a good call. They also gave every elephant, monkey and horse in the battle of Lanka an individual character. Walking along that 600-meter mural is fascinating. The apsaras are Cambodian, but the rishis are Indian. In fact, there's a whole row of them with a distinct resemblance to Guru Nanak.
When you call Angkor Wat awesome, the word has a separate meaning all to itself. There are hundreds of thousands of photos of it - I took many of those myself - but nothing conveys the feeling of seeing it, being there. Stepping in the early morning light into the inner quadrangle of Angkor Wat, I completely forgot about work for the first time in at least three months. I had no chatter in my head.
As for the rest of Siem Reap, well, everything is always dimmed a little when you come from Vietnam, especially the food. The poverty here is abject, defeated, as if the shadow of all the ancient grandeur is too large to step out from under. But the children smile as they sell flutes in woven palm cylinders, and bracelets made of painted seeds. So do their parents, selling juice. Buddhism here is the cynical photo booth that Hinduism is in the historical temples of India: A blessing in an incense stick for a dollar, or the curse of a stranger's god if you choose not to.
But also, like Vietnam, something in the place reaches out and takes your hand. When I left, I wrote this in my notes. It was a Facebook status update that I decided not to post: “Goodbye Cambodia, I really don't want to leave, with my hat, my pirated Harry Potter (that freely mingles two books, the pirates checking page numbers not content), and the largest painting in the world.”
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The curse of the bucket list
Who cares what someone else decides are the hundred things to do before you turn forty or fifty, or die?
I haven’t seen Petra or the Pyramids, but I’ve been to a Lebanese wedding in Beirut and dined in a mountain villa in Nabatieh. It’s a warm memory that returns unexpectedly now and then to brighten a dull day. I haven’t seen the Hagia Sophia but I’ve picked lavender growing wild in an orchard in Izmir. It was a sensory effusion that Crabtree & Evelyn can only dream of. I haven’t seen New York but I’ve seen a little snow in California. The feeling of standing at the foot of a hill covered with snow made me feel like a child seeing the world for the first time.
I haven’t seen Angkor Wat, but I’ve walked barefoot in a temple where a hundred oil lamps glowed in the walls and caparisoned elephants swayed to the beat of fifty temple drums. I’ve even fed one of them (elephant, not drummer). I’ve never seen the Taj Mahal, but I’ve seen Humayun’s tomb.
I’ve meditated in an ashram, done yoga on a mountain top, stayed in a Tibetan monastery. None of them is all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ve been in the tunnels of Vietnam. I’ve touched the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Antarctic Ocean, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the South China Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean.
I haven’t seen a purple Tahitian sunset but I’ve seen the sun rise over a field full of Zebras in Cape Town. The wonder wasn’t lessened because I was on my way to a conference.
I haven’t seen the Seine or the Danube, but I’ve floated in a wooden houseboat filled with the laughter of close family down the backwaters of Kumarakkom, taken water taxis in Bangkok, abras in Dubai and a fishing boat in the Mekong Delta. I have snorkelled in Mauritius, sailed with dolphins in Oman, slept in the desert, climbed a small mountain, had kahwa in an Arabian souk.
I haven’t seen the Cirque du Soleil but I have seen in concert Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Alicia Keys, Burston Marsella, Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Vanessa Paradis, Deep Purple, Sepultura, The Darkness, UB40, Fifty Cent, James Blunt, Kylie Minogue, The Cranberries. I haven’t seen Cats but I’ve seen Wicked. I enjoyed it with a fullness of satisfaction that is hard to describe.
I lived long enough in both Dubai and Singapore to not sum it up in one glib sentence.
It’s not that I don’t want to go to the places I haven’t been (I very much do), but I don’t see why the things I’ve done must be rendered null and void by the things I haven’t.
If there’s someone out there who only had two things on their list for their whole life: 1. Stay alive. 2. Cure cancer, it wouldn’t exactly be a wasted life, would it? No, and nor would you have wasted your life if your list said: 1. Go out for lunch every Sunday 2. Get promoted 3. Buy house with garden 4. Buy car 5. Buy big TV, 6. Watch children graduate 7. Play with grandchildren 8. Celebrate silver wedding anniversary with current spouse, followed by 92 other points that make up your own definition of a good life.
People who compile bucket lists don’t change the world, discover gravity, cure polio or invent the light bulb – throughout history this has generally been done by people who don’t go on holiday, don’t want to try new food and wouldn’t go near a spa even if you gave them a voucher.
Why must we accept new reasons to feel inadequate and insecure just because someone’s offering them?
I haven’t seen Petra or the Pyramids, but I’ve been to a Lebanese wedding in Beirut and dined in a mountain villa in Nabatieh. It’s a warm memory that returns unexpectedly now and then to brighten a dull day. I haven’t seen the Hagia Sophia but I’ve picked lavender growing wild in an orchard in Izmir. It was a sensory effusion that Crabtree & Evelyn can only dream of. I haven’t seen New York but I’ve seen a little snow in California. The feeling of standing at the foot of a hill covered with snow made me feel like a child seeing the world for the first time.
I haven’t seen Angkor Wat, but I’ve walked barefoot in a temple where a hundred oil lamps glowed in the walls and caparisoned elephants swayed to the beat of fifty temple drums. I’ve even fed one of them (elephant, not drummer). I’ve never seen the Taj Mahal, but I’ve seen Humayun’s tomb.
I’ve meditated in an ashram, done yoga on a mountain top, stayed in a Tibetan monastery. None of them is all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ve been in the tunnels of Vietnam. I’ve touched the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Antarctic Ocean, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the South China Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean.
I haven’t seen a purple Tahitian sunset but I’ve seen the sun rise over a field full of Zebras in Cape Town. The wonder wasn’t lessened because I was on my way to a conference.
I haven’t seen the Seine or the Danube, but I’ve floated in a wooden houseboat filled with the laughter of close family down the backwaters of Kumarakkom, taken water taxis in Bangkok, abras in Dubai and a fishing boat in the Mekong Delta. I have snorkelled in Mauritius, sailed with dolphins in Oman, slept in the desert, climbed a small mountain, had kahwa in an Arabian souk.
I haven’t seen the Cirque du Soleil but I have seen in concert Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Alicia Keys, Burston Marsella, Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Vanessa Paradis, Deep Purple, Sepultura, The Darkness, UB40, Fifty Cent, James Blunt, Kylie Minogue, The Cranberries. I haven’t seen Cats but I’ve seen Wicked. I enjoyed it with a fullness of satisfaction that is hard to describe.
I lived long enough in both Dubai and Singapore to not sum it up in one glib sentence.
It’s not that I don’t want to go to the places I haven’t been (I very much do), but I don’t see why the things I’ve done must be rendered null and void by the things I haven’t.
If there’s someone out there who only had two things on their list for their whole life: 1. Stay alive. 2. Cure cancer, it wouldn’t exactly be a wasted life, would it? No, and nor would you have wasted your life if your list said: 1. Go out for lunch every Sunday 2. Get promoted 3. Buy house with garden 4. Buy car 5. Buy big TV, 6. Watch children graduate 7. Play with grandchildren 8. Celebrate silver wedding anniversary with current spouse, followed by 92 other points that make up your own definition of a good life.
People who compile bucket lists don’t change the world, discover gravity, cure polio or invent the light bulb – throughout history this has generally been done by people who don’t go on holiday, don’t want to try new food and wouldn’t go near a spa even if you gave them a voucher.
Why must we accept new reasons to feel inadequate and insecure just because someone’s offering them?
Sunday, July 22, 2012
The Saigon effect
Some vendors recognise me now. The cigarette lady knows not to charge me the tourist price because I simply won’t buy. In return, I wait politely until the tourists have finished congratulating themselves on how cheap it is, not knowing they’re paying two and a half times what they should be.
The souvenir shops stopped calling out to me two months ago. I went in today though, to buy a fridge magnet for my Dad, and the coconut seller outside asked me if I was leaving. The first time I bought from him, he wanted to know if my nose stud was diamonds. I prudently said no. He laughed and told me he used to be a goldsmith. I grinned back noncommittally, but neither of us had enough of the other’s language to pursue the interesting story of why a goldsmith was selling coconuts.
As I added it to the pile of gifts that needed to somehow magically not add up to excess baggage, I suddenly realised I’d bought very little for myself, though I’d been living on the doorstep of Saigon’s most popular tourist market.
In the exhilarating chaos of life here, I’d got myself back. Merci, Saigon. Whatever happens next, that's one souvenir I will display with pride and pleasure.
PS: Most of the photos here are not mine but I don't know whose they are so cannot acknowledge.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Minutes of a bad date
What was I thinking? What was in the drinks in the house where I was introduced to him? I’m hungry, is he ever going to stop talking long enough to let the waiter get a word in edgewise? Why did I cancel the party I was invited to?
Is he just nervous? How much time should I give him before judging? Am I intimidating? It’s not my fault he didn’t get my joke. He’s English, how can he not get a joke? Is that racist?
Is he going to eat that? Can I have it? Should I have another drink? No? Yes? No? No.
How much can you talk about banking? I already know all this – I’ve had two banks as clients. Come to think of it, he’s exactly like all of them. Is he in marketing then? Oh no, really? I never go out with people from marketing, it’s too much like work. I thought he was in finance. There definitely must have been something in the drinks in that house. And how awful were the rest of the people there that I thought he was interesting?
Is he really not going to eat that? Oh screw it, I’m taking it anyway. Can we have some more food here? Should I have dessert? Oh wait, am I on a diet? I can’t remember – I feel like I’ve been sitting here with a smile fixed on my face since the beginning of time. Is he the president of America that he needs to check his phone all the time? At least it’s a Nokia Lumia. Should I ask him why he chose a... oooh look at those shoes. Did she get them here? Nice tattoo too. Should I get one? How painful is it? Is it like threading? That really hurts. Actually, is she a girl at all? Doesn’t he even want to discuss the hot girl in the corner? Why is he taking about how many houses he has? Maybe he is nervous.
How soon can I leave without hurting his feelings? Do I care about his feelings when I might kill him soon just to relieve the boredom? It reminds me of watching One Day and being so happy when she got hit by a bus. Oh God, he’s talking about “next time”. Well it’s a welcome change from how successful and well-travelled he is, but really – next time? Without making me laugh once? Oh don’t look vulnerable. Stop that, why should I care if you’re insecure? Don’t feel sorry for him, please don’t do anything stupi – fine, call me, I may be free. Thank you. Sure, I had a great time too.
I told you not to have that drink. I told you so.
Sigh. This is not who I wanted to be having dinner with on a relaxed Friday evening.
Is he just nervous? How much time should I give him before judging? Am I intimidating? It’s not my fault he didn’t get my joke. He’s English, how can he not get a joke? Is that racist?
Is he going to eat that? Can I have it? Should I have another drink? No? Yes? No? No.
How much can you talk about banking? I already know all this – I’ve had two banks as clients. Come to think of it, he’s exactly like all of them. Is he in marketing then? Oh no, really? I never go out with people from marketing, it’s too much like work. I thought he was in finance. There definitely must have been something in the drinks in that house. And how awful were the rest of the people there that I thought he was interesting?
Is he really not going to eat that? Oh screw it, I’m taking it anyway. Can we have some more food here? Should I have dessert? Oh wait, am I on a diet? I can’t remember – I feel like I’ve been sitting here with a smile fixed on my face since the beginning of time. Is he the president of America that he needs to check his phone all the time? At least it’s a Nokia Lumia. Should I ask him why he chose a... oooh look at those shoes. Did she get them here? Nice tattoo too. Should I get one? How painful is it? Is it like threading? That really hurts. Actually, is she a girl at all? Doesn’t he even want to discuss the hot girl in the corner? Why is he taking about how many houses he has? Maybe he is nervous.
How soon can I leave without hurting his feelings? Do I care about his feelings when I might kill him soon just to relieve the boredom? It reminds me of watching One Day and being so happy when she got hit by a bus. Oh God, he’s talking about “next time”. Well it’s a welcome change from how successful and well-travelled he is, but really – next time? Without making me laugh once? Oh don’t look vulnerable. Stop that, why should I care if you’re insecure? Don’t feel sorry for him, please don’t do anything stupi – fine, call me, I may be free. Thank you. Sure, I had a great time too.
I told you not to have that drink. I told you so.
Sigh. This is not who I wanted to be having dinner with on a relaxed Friday evening.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
The Saigon Trot
Or how to cross the road in Ho Chi Minh City.
Over four weekends of hanging out in the tourist areas, I’ve seen that the peoples of the chaotic lands manage it best – South America, North and South Africa, Eastern Europe and anywhere in Asia, except Singapore (I've seen groups of nervous Singaporeans marooned for ages). The intrepid races are also up to the challenge – the natives of all the rugby playing nations, Iceland and Scandinavia can do absolutely anything. And of course, the young of all species, who seem to consider it an adventure sport. That’s one way to look at it. The other, more sustainable, one is to treat it as karmic ascension.
Rule 1: Don’t wait for the road to clear; it is never clear.
Rule 2: Look all ways, not just two, especially on the one-ways. Once you’ve tapped into the fluid oneness of the universe (two or three crossings), this is easy to do.
Rule 3: Clear your mind of fear, hesitation, scepticism and all other frivolous fight-or-flight responses you’re cluttered with.
Rule 4: Look calmly upon the vast amount of traffic flowing your way and step off the kerb, where “kerb” stands for any square foot of earthly soil you set out from. Yes, those are full-sized buses...so?
Rule 5: Recognise yourself and everything else on the road as unique particles moving through the cosmos, each in its own individual, inviolate orbit. Make no judgements, acknowledge no barriers, question nothing. Just let it all flow around you.
Rule 6: Move steadily and above all, continuously, across the road. Two steps forward, one step back. Sidestep, sway back, swing forward, skip around. Two steps forward, one step back. And don’t forget to smile. The Saigon Trot, apparently coined by the expat community in District 2.
It works. More than that, it’s the only way it works. If you’re not willing to join the stream, you will be stranded forever. To begin with, you can practise in crowds – there are lots of these too – but the time will come when the cigarette lady has unaccountably shifted across the road and you will have to blood the sword on your own.
*Secret Christian Master Rule: Channel Moses.
*If you’re given to reading/watching The Secret, you could try that too. It couldn’t hurt more than being hit by a motorbike any other way. But it doesn’t work if you think like that.
Over four weekends of hanging out in the tourist areas, I’ve seen that the peoples of the chaotic lands manage it best – South America, North and South Africa, Eastern Europe and anywhere in Asia, except Singapore (I've seen groups of nervous Singaporeans marooned for ages). The intrepid races are also up to the challenge – the natives of all the rugby playing nations, Iceland and Scandinavia can do absolutely anything. And of course, the young of all species, who seem to consider it an adventure sport. That’s one way to look at it. The other, more sustainable, one is to treat it as karmic ascension.
Rule 1: Don’t wait for the road to clear; it is never clear.
Rule 2: Look all ways, not just two, especially on the one-ways. Once you’ve tapped into the fluid oneness of the universe (two or three crossings), this is easy to do.
Rule 3: Clear your mind of fear, hesitation, scepticism and all other frivolous fight-or-flight responses you’re cluttered with.
Rule 4: Look calmly upon the vast amount of traffic flowing your way and step off the kerb, where “kerb” stands for any square foot of earthly soil you set out from. Yes, those are full-sized buses...so?
Rule 5: Recognise yourself and everything else on the road as unique particles moving through the cosmos, each in its own individual, inviolate orbit. Make no judgements, acknowledge no barriers, question nothing. Just let it all flow around you.
Rule 6: Move steadily and above all, continuously, across the road. Two steps forward, one step back. Sidestep, sway back, swing forward, skip around. Two steps forward, one step back. And don’t forget to smile. The Saigon Trot, apparently coined by the expat community in District 2.
It works. More than that, it’s the only way it works. If you’re not willing to join the stream, you will be stranded forever. To begin with, you can practise in crowds – there are lots of these too – but the time will come when the cigarette lady has unaccountably shifted across the road and you will have to blood the sword on your own.
*Secret Christian Master Rule: Channel Moses.
*If you’re given to reading/watching The Secret, you could try that too. It couldn’t hurt more than being hit by a motorbike any other way. But it doesn’t work if you think like that.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The Cu Chi tunnels, Vietnam
The tunnellers made fake termite mounds in which they hid the air holes. There are many of these around and it’s impossible to tell which was made by termites and which by humans. They learnt to make land mines from unexploded enemy missiles and fashioned bamboo sticks into deadly traps. I count 12 types of these, from a spiky ball copying the rambutan that had stopped growing on their dead land, to a lethal swinging door inspired by cradles that no longer had a safe place to hang. When the river was poisoned, they dug wells inside the tunnels. They took their kitchens underground, designing chimney vents to make smoke disappear wispily into the morning or evening mist. They lived on tapioca for years. The resulting malnourishment only helped them make the tunnels even smaller. All of this is demonstrated through well-made, understated exhibits. You can even eat tapioca dipped in powdered peanuts, fire a rifle and buy sandals made from truck tyres.
The US Army didn’t stand a chance – how could secure young boys raised in mild climes have hoped to defeat this kind of on-the-fly innovation and endurance baked hard by centuries of struggle?
Back in Saigon, I see a notice outside a passing church and, deducing from the musical symbols that something songlike is in progress, I enter and sit in a familiar dimness, listening to the tail end of a Vietnamese choir. The words are strange but the tune of Amazing Grace is unmistakeable: “Through many dangers, toils and sins I have already come; ‘tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home”. It’s a strangely appropriate sentiment for a communist country that shook off the Catholic invader a long time ago. At least it replaces the tune of Green Fields of France that’s been playing over and over in my head ever since Cu Chi.
Agent Orange is still around, it gets in the meat and milk. My Vietnamese peers grew up in the desolate aftermath, their parents lived – or not – through the war. No monument stands here with the names of the dead, no flags went to the families of the fallen, nobody even knows how many fell. These claustrophobic subterranean corridors are all the memorial there is to an incredibly brave generation of civilian soldiers, both men and women. And that I think is the secret to the calmness and the complete lack of self-pity in the country: they were small and poor fighting the big and rich and they won, through their own spirit and ingenuity. What’s more, they are gracious in their victory.
Getting there: There are buses aplenty but I highly recommend the boat. Saigon River Express does it beautifully.
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