Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy New Year), or I Believe in Captions

I could give you the play-by-play, but I think instead I'll just relate one anecdote. We were in Ben Thanh Market, in the heart of Saigon (officially named Ho Chi Minh City), perusing the coffee, handicrafts, piles of shrimp, and myriad of utensils carved from yak horn...and a skinny, toothless older man in an undershirt and shorts is sitting on a stool in one of the narrow corridors of the market. In a high-pitched, cartoonish voice with a remarkably authentic American accent he asks us, "Do you want to buy a post card?"
We walk a few steps past him and we hear, "WAYt a minute!" and then, "Oh, noo..." His accent was so perfect, his voice so comical...we had to giggle and turn back to look at him, but he was on to the next person, asking them, "Do you want to buy a post card?" and the inevitable, "WAYt a minute!"....."Oh, noo..."
I read somewhere (Lonely Planet) that some of the older Vietnamese generation have learned phrases from American GI's and imitate them perfectly for tourists. So charming, so consistent, he sounded like one of those dolls with a string in their back that you pull and release.

I wish I had a picture of him. Here are some other pictures instead, in no particular order.

This moment at dawn was by far the most beautiful of the trip. (Mui Ne Beach)

Muddy waters, blue skies. (Mekong Delta)

Menu of indoor/outdoor restaurant. Goat penis, Breast She Goat...I like "Offer to King Salad". (Saigon)

Posing with a helicopter left by the United States Army (War Remnants Museum, Saigon).

The chaos of Saigon (District 10).

City center near Ben Thanh market. (District 1, Saigon)

MY first drunk posting.

How exciting. How vulnerable I feel right now. I am drunk on Qingdao, Chimay, and vodka and that is great. I have promised myself not to change this posting post-drunken stupor, despite how much I'll detest the grammatical errors. It's just the way it will be. TOnight we set off fireworks. Real fireworks, that shoot 20 meters into the sky and make a bomb noise or sparkle showers onto the street in front of the K-wah Centre. I heard from my boss that some people, to scare off the bad spirits that awaken for 春节 (Chinese New Year), play a CD or cassette of fireworks explosions. My boss, she said that they are fooling themselves but I think it's all in the mind anyway. I mean that in a respectful way. There is a reason for it in the mind and it changes the world.

I hear that this year of the pig is symbolized by fire atop water; a turbulent ymbol. There will be lots of explosions this year, but by the end of the year resolutions will come. Most Chinese soothsayers believe this means new governments will be established. We shall see. When did legitimate governmental control over its nation become such an elusive situation?

ANyway, what do I know. Do you know what I know? What the fucking hell do I know. I know a billion Chinese picturing fire atop water is gonna impact the world somehow, that's what I know.

爱， 爱， 爱

From Twelfth Night:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.