You heard it here first: The US won the Vietnam War. I know that’s not official policy, but take a look: which culture/system/way of life took over? The domino the USA was trying to stop …was stopped! To wit: Check out this video of scads of Vietnamese kids begging for Christmas presents from Santa under a giant statue of Ho Chi Minh. Interesting and freaky, it’s like Halloween meets Christmas, with lots of little Viet Santas running around. I went out on the town the next day, in Saigon, and it was…on fire. Just about every little kid in Saigon (and many throughout the country) dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve. What a night. Tons of kids on scooters living more of a Bruce Springsteen dream than anything we’ve seen on the Jersey Shore. Made a Florida Christmas look positively authentic! It’s all about toys and presents, nothing about the Spirit of Christmas whatsoever. Which was ironically fine. You can’t even object to it being commercialized because they don’t even know what it was to begin with! Christmas Carols everywhere, but no meaning to the words. But they love the celebration, and totally embrace the imagery and basic outlines of the ritual, which, as we know, is mostly about stuff and its acquisition. I repeat: News Flash. The USA did not lose the Vietnam War. It just took a few years to shake out.
Truc, who owns a resort on Phu Quoc, where I stayed for a few days, invited me to her friends’ wedding. Said yes, and showed up on my motorbike, to pick her up. She emerged in a black miniskirt and proceeded to rock the house.Little did I know she was the MC. T’was a lovely outdoor affair, about 100 guests, overflowing with all manner of fish and game. They have a toast in Vietnam, or at least on this island, that goes mot, hai, ba, YO! (1-2-3 YO!). And then you have to drink their bright pink-colored homemade wine/sake/liquor shot. Here you can see the magical moment when the groom pops the cork on the champagne. Their weddings are like a 1970s variety show.
Pooey and I had a real connection tonight. She was dressed all frumpy although the women who worked where she does were all dolled up. I normally don’t let myself get lured in, but her energy was like a bright shining ray of light in a den on iniquity. Anyway, I’ve never seen anything like it in Thailand, putting a Tom Boy looking girl in front. Maybe she was just hanging out in the front (tourism is down). But whatever the reason, there she was, and I immediately could tell she was special and they were using her for that reason. They let me just sit and talk with her. A few of the other girls came and spent some time, and helped translate. It was all heart as the language wasn’t there.
Now I am in Thailand, still trying to find my footing. I need to get on the right schedule, figure out what I’m really going to do here, and I am finding it taking awhile. But that’s OK. One of the things you learn is to let the things that cost more than you want go. To try to make everything work, whether it’s every expenditure truly pay its value, or every hour be filled with perfect moments, fuck that. Too much pressure. You bring something you don’t need. That’s OK. Give it away. Send it home. You get stuck in the wrong town for a couple days. Enjoy it. Read. Write. Nature makes too much for a reason. I lot has to get wasted. Let it go. It’s sort of the Buddhist / Lou Reed thing of pleasure and pain being the same. [click to continue…]
I am now in Thailand and decompressing. It’s great to be back in Asia. So much energy and so different than home. I spent the first night in Seoul, Korea, hanging out with my best friend growing up, whom I haven’t seen in awhile. He now runs one of Korea’s biggest banks (he always won in Monopoly), and has made an amazing transition to being a pillar of Korean society. It was tremendously sweet to catch up with him after so long, to meet his beautiful wife and kids, and be exposed to Korea through him. And it didn’t hurt being swept through the airport by the head of the protocol, and having my own driver taking me to and from Seoul, and being put up in total luxury.
Korea is amazing. And by that I mean the people. They are a mass of contradictions, both very rational and focused, but also super emotional to the point of being kind of crazy and at times almost pointlessly vindictive. In their legislature, if they don’t like the way you voted, they just tear gas you. They have really long memories. “I’m getting you back for that slight from 380 years ago!” is kind of the way they think. But no country in Asia has crawled our further and faster from the muck of WWII than Korea. This is mostly a testament to the elders of Korean society, a group of gentleman that literally mapped the entire recovery out, how the laws and economy and culture would all interact to create the greatest opportunity to develop their country. They were the Babe Ruth “called shot” of emerging economies: they pointed to the fences, swung, and hit it out of the park. That’s why all their last names are Park. And although very old, many of these leaders are still alive, and are kind of living legends. If you are my friend, you can meet them. [click to continue…]