You Try Coming Up With a Title For This One

For the last month, my home has been a small, modest room in Saigon's backpacker district. Dirty walls and a small bathroom. Curtains in a brown that hasn't been fashionable since the 70's. It's not a place you'd want your mother to know you're living, but it's cheap and it's not all bad. It's a room with a view, and then some. From my window, you can watch the Saigon circus pass by every night. Western tourists and the menagerie that follows wherever they go: peddlers and prostitutes. It's certainly not a dull neighborhood. Nor is it a quiet neighborhood. With several bars within one block, I am treated nightly to the sounds of Guns & Roses, Shakira and imported American pop culture.

So it's not much surprise when I'm woken by the sounds of Dixie Jazz. Peddlers play Christmas music from their carts, why not Dixie jazz? Just ignore it, go back to sleep. But someone is turning up the volume and I find myself wishing for the soothing sounds of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. But the volume keeps getting louder and I can't sleep. My sense of reality has already gotten up and left the bed. Standing by the window he motions to me to come over.

"Dude, you gotta see this. You're not gonna believe this."

Seriously, man, you have failed me my entire life. Why do you have to drag me out of bed now? But it's no good arguing, might as well see what he wants. I go over to the window to join him but he bolts.

"Sorry dude, I'm outta here. You're on your own with this one."

Great, just great. Exactly the drama I need at 4am. And then I see it. My window has become a TV screen and appears to be showing an episode of America's Weirdest Videos. It's a parade. With a live Dixie band. At 4am. No, wait, that's not it. A parade would still have the slimmest connection to reality. About 40 people, and they're carrying something in the middle. A float? No. A wooden box, two feet by six feet. Flowers. Lots of flowers. What the... is that... No. What? No. Is that a... coffin?? I desperately want my sense of reality back with me but that bastard's always leaving at the worse times.

an eerie procession

The somber look on the mourners' faces sits in stark contrast to the upbeat Dixie tune, and I find my feet tapping to the music uncontrollably. I could almost imagine the exchange. "No, sorry maam, that's the going rate for a funeral band. Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss and I'd love to help out but, we just can't get the price any lower. Hold on... there may be one thing. Yep, looks like we're running a special on our Dixie bands. Half price." The sound of the funeral procession fades as they make their way down the street and I'm left in a state of shock. Is my American culture so different that I would find this so alien? A quiet knock on the door wakes me from my reverie.

"Hey, it's me. Can I come back in now?"

You bastard, you can sleep out in the hallway tonight.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

Anything can happen on the streets of Saigon. I've been propositioned for sex, drugs and rock & roll among other things. I've seen people playing soccer on the street, women doing aerobics on the street, anything you can think of. But the other day, the most unexpected thing happened to me while walking down the street in Saigon. I changed.

Finding a place to live has been more of a challenge than I expected. Dreams of landlords throwing themselves at my feet to get at my American dollars have largely vanished, swept away by the reality that I'm only the one hundred thousandth Viet Kieu to come up with the brilliant idea of moving home to take over Vietnam. Just as I was ready to give up and settle on a place I wasn't really excited about, I got an unexpected phone call the other day and looked at a great house.

Today, walking back to the building to meet the landlady, my mind was full of doubts. What if I was being scammed? Should I give them the deposit money? A preoccupied mind falls easily into cruise control - that state of mind where your ego abandons your id and your id says "Oh yeah? Is that how it's gonna be? Well fine, I can get by without you. I never really liked you anyway and frankly, you have terrible body odor."

With id behind the wheel, taking care of basic functions, my ego was free to wonder and worry. I was told that they needed a license to rent a house out to foreigners, how could I be sure what they showed me was real? I pull out a stack of money to count the deposit I was due to give her. I read some horror story on the web about how police would come to your house in the middle of the night to check your papers. $200 in Vietnamese money is a whole lot of bills, so I start counting. They want me to sign a 1-year lease, which is more than I wanted to commit to. What if I hated Vietnam and want to break my lease? Một, hai, ba. I only saw the apartment for ten minutes. What if turns out to be a roach-infested rat's nest? Bốn, năm, sáu. They promised to fix the bathtub or buy me a new one. What if they refuse after I move in? Bảy, tám, chín.

Whoah, wait just one second. What the hell is chín? I could swear that's the Vietnamese word for nine, but why the hell is my id counting in Vietnamese? That's not the Boston Tai, who wears green on St. Patrick's Day. That's not the L.A. Tai, who drives two blocks to the supermarket. That's not the San Francisco Tai, who celebrates Earth Day with glow sticks. I think I know this guy, though. That's Saigon Tai, who squats on the sidewalk. Saigon Tai, who only wears flip-flops. Saigon Tai, who counts in Vietnamese. I just met the guy recently - don't really know him too well - but I'm pretty sure that's him.

I was born 100% Vietnamese. Over the last thirty odd years, I have become something like 90% American. Is this finally the turning point, where the rock starts to fall down again? How Vietnamese will I become when I finish this journey? Who knows, the answer could surprise me. Who knows, the answer could be... hai mươi lăm phần trăm.

My Life In a Nutshell

It's a curious thing to be able to wrap your hands around the essence of your life. To be able to feel every bump and know every wrinkle. To have figured it out, completely. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Rewind to Sunday night, in the hot, thick air of Saigon. A mouth waters in such climates. A mouth asks for the smallest of concessions. A mouth wants... beer. And I've known my mouth my whole life. As one of my favorite body parts, how could I possibly deny it? Then beer it is.

Now, one of the wonderful traditions of Vietnam is the drinking of Bia Hoi. Bia Hoi is not fancy beer. Bia Hoi is not bottled beer (served draft only). Bia Hoi is not even very good beer - upon first tasting it, you smack your lips several times in a vain attempt to discern what actually makes it taste... slightly funny. What it is, is local beer. Brewed in some small shop and served the same day (as they don't use preservatives so it won't keep for more than a couple days anyway). What it is, is cheap. We're talking US$.3 per glass. Yeah, that's right. There's a decimal before the three. For the cost of one bus ride in San Francisco, you can have five Bia Hoi. A mouth is extremely grateful at such times.

And so I sit in the hot Saigon night, drinking my 30 cent beer. Actually, in the time that you've been reading this, I'm probably on my third beer already. The observant among you may have come to the conclusion that they can't be making very much profit off a 30 cent beer. And with meager profits, they can't afford a very fancy store. The observant among you would have hit the nail smack on the head. The typical Bia Hoi store is a smallish joint with four or five plastic tables surrounded by what appear to be small plastic children's chairs. A twisted, adult version of a child's tea party. Harsh, naked fluorescent lamps glare...

"Hiss da er toe lit?"

What the heck? With a vicious jerk, someone has yanked me out of my Bia Hoi buzz.

"Is dare a toy lid?" he says again.

There seems to be a tall, lanky white guy in front of me. His head seems to be faced in my general direction. Is there a conversation going on here? Have I become a party to it somehow? I try to shake off the grogginess in my head and my logic circuit kicks in. He can't be talking to me, because what he seems to be saying doesn't make any sense directed to me.

"Is there a toilet?"

Why the hell would he be asking me this? I try to focus and take a closer look at him. Pasty white skin, tacky shorts that are too short, socks pulled up too high, slinging a large backpack. Not just a westerner, but a tourist, 100%. And yes, he is definitely looking right at me.

"Huh? What? I don't know. Maybe. Probably."

I'm saved from further embarrassment by a waitress who directs him towards the back. And then, there it is. A popping in my ear as the air around me is compressed and leaves a vacuum. A pressure on my skin as my entire life seems to be condensing into a small, dull gray ball. Pocket-sized, for easy transportation. When I peer into this ball, the hazy shape that forms is me, as a man forever trapped between two worlds.

You see, to the Vietnamese here, I'm an American. I have American money, I have American clothes, I have an American life. It's pure coincidence that both my parents are Vietnamese, but me, I'm an American. To them, I'll always be "Viet Kieu". Yeah, they even have a term for people like me just to make sure we are never confused with real Viet people.

On the other hand, to Americans and other westerners, I'll never be American. One look at me and they don't even think twice. It doesn't matter that I lived my whole life in America. It doesn't matter that I speak better English than a lot of white trash. It doesn't matter that I watch American TV and Hollywood movies. It doesn't matter that I eat hot dogs and hamburgers. It doesn't matter that I love football and baseball. To Americans, I'll always be a foreigner. To pasty-white-tourist-guy, I am clearly the help. Even if I go clear across the globe, I can never escape this.

My life. In a nutshell. Ah, screw it. Waitress, another Bia Hoi please.

I Visit the Dead, and a Really Old Bed.

May 1, 2008. A national holiday in Vietnam, it marks the day that Saigon fell. For the Communist government, it's Reunification Day. For me, it's the 33rd anniversary of when my family fled the country. For my Vietnamese relatives, it's the 49th day since the death of my aunt. The Vietnamese love wakes so much, they have two. Once right after the death, and again 49 days later. Ironically, Reunification Day is just that, as our family has come from far away to gather for the wake. Relatives from Da Lat drove for six hours to be here. I'm no exception. Thirty three years after fleeing the country, I've finally come home.

And when I say home, I mean this quite literally. People who know my writing know that I tend to wax poetic, spouting metaphors like a widow sheds tears (Aha, gotcha! That wasn't a metaphor, fool, that was a simile). In this case, though, I really have come home. The house I'm standing in is the house my family lived in before we left. It was a surreal feeling, imagining little baby Tai crawling around on these same floors. It was as close as I would ever get to crawling back into the womb.

A monk chanted the prayers for the dead, but I could hardly follow along, he was chanting so quickly. I knew my thoughts should be on my dead aunt, but my mind wandered. All I could think about was the fake money on the altar. Asian custom dictates that the living burn fake money as an offering to the dead. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but I couldn't help but notice that some of the money was paper American hundred dollar bills. Apparently, the dead in Vietnam prefer American currency. The money is meant to bring prosperity in the afterlife, so I suppose a good currency is preferred. If that's true, will my aunt suffer in the afterlife because the dollar is tanking? Do the dead have an interest in the world currency market?

My cousin gave me some stories about the house. The relatives who had lived there since we left. My aunt who came down from Da Lat to take care of me as a baby. The bedroom where my parents used to sleep. Wait, no. Something lost in translation. Not the bedroom, the bed. The mattress, to be specific. The mattress my parents used to sleep on. It's not every day that you meet a mattress that's older than you are. What stories could this mattress tell? Is this where I was conceived? Did my mom change my diapers on this bed? Did I sleep here, between my mom and dad? Welcome home...