Do I know I don’t know?
“I like to know that I have no idea what is going on… in America we are lulled into thinking we know but we’re absolutely clueless most of the time.” Lawnin said to me on my first night in Ho Chi Minh City over white wine, pizza, and a fudge sundae!! I planned to travel to Laos after Cambodia but Vietnam was too close to miss. Marinating here for a few days seemed like a good plan. 
Sometimes I try to figure out what’s going on (where are you driving me? what am I eating? what are you saying?) but sometimes I just relax in knowing that I don’t know and that it doesn’t really matter. What DO I know right now? I know three things.
1) A dirty German toast:
Zur Mitte, Zur Titte, Zum Sack – Zack – Zack!
Mongthu, Anh Thim, and Ngoc Thuy (in pink, green, and white) live in Ho Chi Minh City and came along on our tour of the Mekong Delta on Sunday. They didn’t believe that I came from the US which I took as a compliment. Most of the Vietnamese people that I talked to want to travel but can’t because of their currency relative to that of other countries. Traveling in their own country with foreigner’s seems like a good alternative, or at least an alternative. I’ve booked my leafpeeping tourbus for when I get back to Vermont!
2) I know that one day, not too long ago, my morning began at 4am in an old 15 seat van with 42 of these guys who were happy (kind of) to lock shoulders and knees so we all fit and my morning ended in a new 15 seat van with 5 of these guys who were happy to share their philosophy, food and water and happy to learn that I am Christian (kind of).
3) I know lots of people who are my heros – I am my hero for pulling shit together.
Remember that fish canning factory I was going to visit in Vietnam? One of my favorite people in Norwich Vermont, Joan Ashley, has a son, Lawnin, who runs the factory – hence the great company and dinner when I arrived in Vietnam. Joan has been to 96 countries which breaks down to about 1.4 new countries for every year of her life. Joan is my hero because she had a kiln in her attic and she travels and is thoughtful about life and talking to her makes me want to keep being thoughtful about my life.
Yesterday Ela and I took a boat through part of the Mekong Delta. Ela is my hero because she is moving to Australia from Germany for her true love and for her girlfriend’s two children. We joined my friend Megan’s friend Julia for dinner that evening. Julia is my hero because she has a scooter and lives here.
It was nice to know people in HCMC. I know Laos is waiting and I don’t know if I can wait for Laos any longer. I’m reading a book called “Another Quiet American” (was there a first?) The book is great because it details how Laos went about developing a type of tourism that avoids the sex industry of it’s neighbors. It is illegal for tourists to have sex with any Lao people.
I know that no sex tourism is good. Saba di!
Tags: HCMC, Việt Nam
Greta
Hi Greta,
Shortly after reading this I heard Eduardo Galeano – one of S. America’s most famous writers – interviewed on Democracy Now radio by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales. (see Open Veins of Latin America, etc.)
Galeano writes like you travel – crashing at right angles across expected parallels, making forbidden connections, valuing the “globalization of our human passions instead of the universal value of money,” as he put it.
Juan asked him how he learned to write so well. (Thousands of us aspiring writers leaned toward our radios to catch the reply.) Eduardo said he learned to write many years ago from an absolutely transcendent drummer in Cuba. “I asked him how he played so well. He told me, ‘I play when my hands itch.’ And now I write when my hands itch.”
Thanks so much already for your trip,
Love,
Dad