Mysterious Rhythms

There are times when I wish (and it is often) my brother was here. For those of you who don't know him, he's an architect (a really great one) and also just about the best person that I know. So, given the latter statement, it's pretty obvious why I would want him around. But that's a constant feeling anywhere I find myself - whether it be in Vietnam, North Carolina, or Mississippi (he lives in Alabama).

A feeling that I don't have very often, though, is missing him because of his architectural expertise. I think everything he does is great, but I just don't think I've gotten to that age (quite yet) where I need stuff designed and built for me. Just give me a few years, Jack.

That said, I have found myself wishing that Jack could be here for the purpose of helping me appreciate the architecture in Saigon. I appreciate pleasing looking things, but truly I don't know what's good and what's bad - so I never really feel like I can take pleasure in something until I know about it.

To me, the architecture in Saigon is very soviet and severe. Large concrete buildings with barred windows. The colors are dull and the only thing that keeps me stimulated on my walks throughout the city often times are the low-hanging power lines - crammed and piled together like a package of dried spaghetti. Even the zoo - a bizarre (and depressing) green space in the middle of the city seemed severe and poorly designed.

Maybe I just wasn't seeing something - perhaps the configuration of the doors allow light in to maximize lighting and minimize power use. Perhaps the thin, narrow buildings are unique only to this area of the world. I just wasn't getting it, and ever so slowly I realized that I was getting tired of the city.

I needed a change. Needed to get out just for a bit. Take a break from the constant hustle and bustle of the city and get some fresh air. I needed to see something new - even the single block that we live on seemed eternally long and monotnous, and I started to feel trapped. I needed a break to revitalize me.

This break came in the form of a trip to the beach. Last Saturday, we boarded the bus to Mui Ne - a beach town just east of Saigon. On a map it looks like just a little hop, skip, and jump to Mui Ne from Saigon - maybe the width of my pinky fingernail. We boarded around 6 pm - bristling with excitement for the beach - and started our "little" journey, which turned out to be a 5 and a half hour oddyssey to the end of the world.

I was fine for the first hour or so, but then the singing began. First one voice and then many broke out into songs I had not heard since middle school - Backstreet Boys' entire repertoire, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will go On" and, of course, "Old McDonald," (who was "old" when I was about 6, and, by golly, is still alive).

Childhood insecurities and fears swirled around me and churned in my stomach as I became a timid third grader travelling to Twin Lakes day camp again. Given the darkness outside, I couldn't distract myself with views of the outside world, and instead my entire being became focused on the partial lyrics and flat pitches of such favorites as "Show Me The Meaning" and "Hotel California".

I should have taken dramamine...

Miraculously, we arrived to Mui Ne and found our guest house - a charming, little hotel pressed right against the sea. Almost as soon as we arrived, the rain began to pour and many folks sprinted outside to go play in the rain. I declined, as I had just been given a copy of the fifth Harry Potter, which had renewed my bristling excitement.

Slowly the complaints began to roll in. Someone noticed that the a/c didn't work, then the showers were broken, and I even discovered a large tuft of long black hair stuck behind our bathroom mirror.

We would switch hotels the next morning.

The next day was spent biking around the town through the rain, doing a project that had us talking with the locals about the effects of tourism on Mui Ne. It was quite interesting and we learned many things (including the fact that much of the fish sauce that is exported to China - and please God not the US - is preserved using shampoo and bleach...yum).

We spent about two or three hours biking around under the rainy, overcast skies, and then returned for lunch. It was then that we discovered that the sun, in fact, doesn't care if the skies are overcast or not, because it will still burn the crap out of you. I would admire the perfectly straight edge of tan, red skin along my arm that - without any warning - would suddenly surrender to the pale army of whiteness that was my shirt-covered skin.

The rest of the afternoon was spent taking cold showers, reading Harry Potter (which is fantastic), and blowing my arm whenever it felt like my arm hairs had burst into flames again.

We woke up the next morning and after a tour of the large sand dunes that loom over Mui Ne and an informal game of intertube basketball in the pool, we packed our belongings and boarded Charon's chariot (our bus) to cross the Styx back into Saigon.

Heavy walls of rain began to fall, and after being unable to fight my exhaustion with Harry Potter, I - along with EVERYONE - passed out on the bus.

I had hoped that I would sleep straight through the trip back, but after about an hour or so, I felt a numbness begin to creep over my butt and a stiffness begin to tingle in my neck. My eyes groaned, creaked open, and watched in horror as we thread our bus between a large 18-wheeler and the honking oncoming traffic (this was the first driver - though they've all been crazy - that I haven't liked).

Knowing that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep because of the strain in my neck and numbeness of my butt (people would periodically stand up in their seats to punch their backsides to regain feeling), I concentrated on reading Harry Potter, which given my history of reading in cars (not good) was surprsingly successful.

I can't remember exactly what it was that drew my eyes to the window, but I found myself no longer reading and staring at the countryside - passing by our window - in awe. The rain was still falling and there was a grayness that had overtaken the land. Men and women crouched underneath their porches as the rain dripped in front of them and the mountains - usually so vivid - had become mysterious silhouettes in the distance. It was beautiful, for up until this point I had been slightly underwhelmed with the visual aspects of Vietnam (city and countryside, alike). Yet now, with much of my vision obscured, I became overwhelmed with the magical beauty of the land - a place where the distance, the land over the mountains, was no longer guaranteed. Perhaps it was that I was reading Harry Potter and in a bit of a magical mindset, but I felt something feel me up, and no sooner had I done so than I realized that - for the first time on this trip - I was craving pho (the unsatisfying and often unappetizing noodle soup).

We pulled back into the city and I felt like I was reuniting with an old friend. It was good to be back in the city. Things seemed familiar. We went to a restaurant that we had visited before, and it was delicious. I was glad to see the rats scurrying down along our guesthouse walls. I was even glad to see the smiling, waving woman who breaks into my room every morning to deliver me my water.

I woke up this morning, finally understanding that Saigon is like a difficult piece of music - most likely Jazz. I walked the the formerly eternal street block from our guesthouse to the internet cafe, where I sit typing right now, and started to see and hear some of those unique rhythms of this place.

I passed the cell phone company with the guy who uses an internet cliff notes site to find notes on the Scarlet Letter. I ducked my head as I passed under the low hanging covering of the fruit shop. I passed the little open-air panini place where the three workers always wave whenver I pass. I stared at the cardboard cutout of the Vietnamese movie star advertising choco-pies, and I wondered if they were any good. I weaved through the young boys breaking ice and parking motorcycles at Hong Hanh and held my nose as I passed through the perpetually urine-infested area of the woman who sells cigarettes and eats red fruit that makes it look like her teeth are bleeding. It was even nice to pass the man who laughs and counts money next to the cage with the graying chihuahua in it.

Saigon finally clicked - or at least began to. It's harmonies and rhythms - though discordant and off at times - made sense, and I was glad to lend my ear to them.

I don't know if I'll ever actually appreciate the buildings here - or if they even deserve appreciation. Jack only knows.

Regardless, it feels good to finally find that pattern, that rhythm, of this city or our single city block. So for now, I suppose, I'll just wish that you were here, Jack, not for your architectural expertise, but just so I could share this with you in person.

I miss and love you all. I might still be lost like I was in the last post, but I feel like this city has got a pretty mean jazz rhythm that I never heard before.