I’m in Seam Reap now, and I got in a bit of trouble at Angkor. I climbed the wrong thing and was taken to a covered area to be talked to by a security guard and a man wearing a “Police” hat. They were friendly and talked about heritage while also reprimanding me for my actions. “I’m sorry, I did not know,” I repeated.
There are four salamanders/geckos on the walls in my hostel. I’m sitting at a table in the bar area, and there’s some house music playing, but I have my headphones in, and I’m listening/watching LTAT, the Saturday episode of Rhett & Link.
12:12
This is nowhere
I ever thought I’d be
Beside a tree
Sitting on the banks
Of Trapeang Srah Sang
A little lake several kilometers
Northeast of Angkor Wat.
I took off
My shoes and socks
Waded in, snapped a photo.
Prayed a poem, wrote it down
After fingering the dirt and mud
Between my toes.
14:18
Sitting cross-legged on Ta Keo
A temple-mountain-pyramid
Possibly the first to be built
Entirely of sandstone By ancient Khmers
I’ve seen What I came here to see But maybe there’s More to come
This Giant mountain bike Has carried me far through a dark jungle on roads of pavement & sand
I will read, now, Before heading “home.”
17:44
“Am I annoying you?”
“Yes, honey, you are.”
“Humph.”
A bad joke, I know
It just sort of slipped out
While waiting in
Line for Phnom Bakheng
(The wife asked a question To her husband;
I answered for him, A stranger.)
This ride better have a Loop-de-loop
It was like waiting your turn At Disneyland
Or the DMV.
But this sunset
Is worth it
(I’ve seen better;
Thank you, clear Oregon skies.)
A day of genocide. Pol Pot and the S-21 torturers, maimers, murderers. A sad day, for one finds it hard to enjoy walking over mass graves, seeing a tree upon which babies’ brains were dashed, walking through a school-house-turned-interrogation-center. But this is what the tourists see when they come to Phnom Penh. They pay $6, $8, and $10 to listen to horrible stories of indescribable loss and evil before returning to their hotels and hostels. I pay, but my payment is pale and silent compared to the payment of the Cambodian people.
After a morning jaunt through the city center and along the relevantly developed waterfront, I found myself at the gates of the Royal Palace. It was closed when I arrived, so I negotiated a tuk-tuk with a thirty-something man named Wanda. In ten minutes, I was riding through trash-filled streets of dust, rock, and sand. Then came Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng. I don’t wish to dwell on what I saw and heard. Death. A failed attempt at extreme Maoism. Dystopian horror and brutal mantras: “To remove a weed, you have to dig up the roots.” Fourteen unmarked graves were all that was left when The Organization abandoned its post to avoid the oncoming wave of Vietnamese soldiers and Cambodian defectors. (Also, America dropped more bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam war than they did during the entirety of WWI.) Rebar shackles, boarded ventilation, brick cells, and barb-wire anti-suicide guards. Prisoners stabbing themselves with pens and pouring kerosene lamps on their heads to end their own suffering in search of an early grave.
And wealth, manicured lawns, silver floors. The Royal Palace. Quite beautiful, a bright contrast to the bleakness of the rest. Cambodia (or maybe just Phnom Penh) was known as “The Pearl of Asia” before conflict tore it apart. The Pol Pot regime was responsible for much yet was dealt only partial justice for its crimes. Brother #1 died while on house arrest, some twenty years after 1979, when his plans failed. The rest were slowly found and brought to trial for crimes against humanity.
“I did this on my own; it’s the only way… Reconciliation is not about talking to each other; it’s about the obligation and responsibility of each of the victims to put all the pieces back together” (Jok Chan, leader of DC Com, collecting info and raising awareness of Pol Pot and genocide… look him up for proper spelling and quote.)
I sit in the front room of the Lovely Jubbly Villa in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Reggae, happy hour, a swimming pool. “A chill place,” Brooklyn, A.K.A. Trevor would say. He had tattoos and talked about getting “shit-faced” (as Hannah would say) and hanging out with his pals in seedy strip clubs. “Did you know,” he says, “that Portland is the strip club capital of America?” I didn’t know but wasn’t surprised, either. Nothing surprises me, just like nothing surprises my father.
I think traveling is just as much about the places you go as it is the people you meet. Linguistically, the southern Asia hostel-staying crowd is quite diverse. I’ve met Russians, Germans, Brits, Swedes, Australians, and a chap from New Zealand named James. When I asked if he had any national secrets after he lost a round of Jenga, he said, “It’s not as nice as it seems. New Zealand is known worldwide for being beautiful and scenic, but under the surface, things aren’t as nice… pollution and such.”
I miss Hannah, oddly. She was pleasant, smart, could play the piano quite well, and mature for being only eighteen. Her parents were sort-of-Catholics, and she worked in a café bar and as a tutor before going to Melbourne for travel. She’s having a gap year before going to Uni, where she’d like to study physics and philosophy. She told me about an app that hides or bounces your I.P. address when your surfing the web; people use it when they want a little extra privacy—she uses it when she looks up recipes for weed brownies. She told me to message her if I ever go to Munich. I said I would, but it might be ten years from now.
The bus here was green and tall. We stopped three times: twice for the W.C. and once for lunch. It took about eight hours. I read Osnos on the ambition and contradiction of China. I listened to Erre on predestination; RadioLab on John Scott, the hockey goon and NHL all-star; Jordan, Jesse, and Alison Becker on gift-giving and family time over the holidays. (Podcasts, boi.) Arriving in Phnom Penh, I hired a tuk-tuk to take me to my hostel. I only had Viet Dong, and they take the Riel or USD in Cambodia, so I needed to exchange my cash. What I exchanged wasn’t enough to pay him, so he took me to an ATM that charged 20% on withdrawals. I paid him extra for the trouble of escorting around a dumb tourist with a too-big suitcase containing his life in Shanghai. He was happy and spoke decent English.
Vietnamese production, revolution, currency, and marriage ceremonies. These are the things you’ll find in one of the many museums scattered about the city. But first, you meet a German girl named Hannah, whose last name you can’t pronounce and who is only 18 years old. She graduated secondary school and wanted to work and be independent before going to Uni, which is short for “University” and the more common European word for what my people call “college.” My people. Strange.
Misinformation. Donald Trump. Immigration. Poor white people. Blame. Scapegoat. Recession. These are snippets of a normal conversation you might hear in your hostel because the people who use hostels are young, often single, sometimes educated, mostly international, and always liberal. See you in Australia!
Today, you learn more about Vietnam. About Tank 390 crashing through the gates of Independence Palace. About 1975, the year this country became reunified. About the war and American intervention and support of the South, who lost, and the CPV. Then you go to the zoo. There, you find sad animals who don’t belong in those dirty cages. Animals who need more space and better company. Animals who should be watching humans, and not the other way around. Except for the hyenas, which remind you of The Lion King. You ask Hannah, who you are spending the day with, if she knows this film. She doesn’t; you explain, but you can’t remember Simba’s name, so you just say “Mufasa’s son” and describe the circle of life. She listens, for real. You mention your discipline—English literature—and say that you admire Rilke and would like to study German literature someday. Hannah tells you the story of Faust by Goethe, of deals struck betwixt men and Satan and God. You tell her the story of Job. She listens, for real.
Up at six, downstairs for a devotional with fried eggs and coffee on the side. Rhett & Link, seasonal drinks, and science experiments. A banana, then sunscreen on skin reflected by a bathroom mirror.
Left turn, follow the paper map towards the market. Get stopped by a local on a bike who wants to take your money in exchange for showing you the city. He names his price in broken English, you think it sounds fair, and you put on his helmet and mount his bike. He takes you places, waiting while you go inside for pictures or whatever. He doesn’t care; he just waits and smokes. His father died in the war, and now he lives on tourism. He is old and weathered.
First stop, the War Remnants Museum, where you’ll find tiger cages and pictures of blown up and bloated people. The effects of napalm and American war-mongering. You’ll think back to what you might have learned in high school history, realizing you know very little of the war except that we clearly lost and likely didn’t have a good reason to be there in the first place. So much death, but peace in the end.
Then the Post Office, where you can send a card to someone far away for 23.000 Viet Dong. Not too bad. You send one to your parents and one to your grandma and grandpa. They will be glad for it and miss you.
Unfortunately, the Notre Dame cathedral is undergoing restoration, and you cannot enter. So Han, the moto-taxi driver, takes you past the opera house, and you snap a quick picture. Then to the Saigon River, dirty and brown with barges and boats for hire.
Next is the Independence Palace. You are getting close to Han’s three-hour limit, so you ask how much you owe. “Fifteen hundred,” he says, which after some clarification you learn means 1.500.000 (or about $64). You are caught off guard because that’s not the price you heard when you agreed to his service, and you don’t have that much cash on you, nor do you consider it a fair price. A complete rip-off, to be frank. You hand him what cash you do have and apologize, feeling sorry, angry, and confused all at the same time. He shakes his head at you and rides away.
Back to the Palace. Water fountain, red-carpeted stairs, modern design, national security council chamber, a presidential office, meeting room, meeting room, dining room, meeting room. Rich. Living quarters and a greenery. Flocks of tourists. The president’s bedroom, the rooftop meditation-room-turned-dance-hall, and a camouflage helicopter. Cinema, gaming room, brown wooden grand piano, and another dining room. A library. Kitchen in the basement.
Final stop is the Ben Thanh market. It reminds you of the market in Querétaro your teacher took you to in the Spring of 2016, except this time, you don’t know the language, and the vendors know a bit of yours. English, the language of commerce, especially when there are tourists involved. You look for a necklace because that’s all you want, besides food. You learn that jade is not just green but also can be red. Then you find the food and walk back to your hostel.
This entry is for yesterday because I was exhausted. I left Portland at 06:00 on Wednesday and arrived in Ho Chi Minh at 06:00 on Friday. The latter city is 15 hours ahead of the former, which means I traveled for 33 hours. Slept in pieces on airport chairs and airplane seats. No more than 3 hours at a time. Let’s do the math: 2-hour flight to San Francisco, 7-hour layover, 11-hour flight to Tokyo, 6-hour layover, 6-hour flight to Ho Chi Minh. Or thereabouts. Exhausted for the low price of $405.
I took a car from the airport to Long Hostel. Met another traveler named Marcus, who rode in an overnight train on a bunk with two feet of clearance to the ceiling. Squished. Crammed, you might say. He was sick and didn’t sleep much. I silently breakfasted next to a Russian man and a girl from the UK. The girl, I later found out, was named Kate. More on her in the next paragraph. After breakfast, I changed into shorts and secured my belongings in an unlocked cage in a back room. Check-in was at 14:00; I was too early to be shown a room.
Kate quit her job as a physical therapist to travel Asia. (She can’t have been much older than me.) I have no day-to-day plans, so when Kate said she was taking a bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels north of town, I asked if I could tag along. Walking to the station, we boarded the bumpy, noisy number 13 bus for 10.000 Viet Dong (approx. 0.43 USD). One and a half hours later, we transferred to the number 79, which took us to the tunnels. We bought our tickets and wandered towards the entrance. Finding seats in straight-backed wooden chairs, we watched an old bit of black and white propaganda about the Vietnam War. “Kill Americans,” “American enemies,” and “Medal of Honor for Killing Americans” were the phrases that stood out to me.
A guide spoke to us in English about the tunnels: “250 km long,” “layers deep,” “escape route to the Saigon River,” “vents made with bamboo for oxygen down below,” “twenty years to build,” and “booby traps.” He took us through some of the tunnels, the final one being the most difficult. “If you have asthma or are claustrophobic or do not like tight space, meet us at the tunnel exit.” I followed him 50 meters through the tunnel on hands and knees, going up and down below the earth. Saw spiders and bats. Was bitten by mosquitos in the jungle. Ate steamed cassava root dipped in crushed peanuts and sugar. Tasted like sweet potatoes and tapioca. Bussed back to the city, had pho with beef balls, showered at the hotel, and slept for 12 hours.
This is the story of Moganshan. Once, long ago and certainly before this place was ever spotted with the sounds of construction, horns, and villas, a man loved a woman. The man, Gan Jiang, one of China’s most skilled swordsmiths, was ordered by Helu, the king of Wu, to forge a pair of swords. He and his wife, Mo Ye, set to work on the swords but found that their furnace was not quite hot enough to melt the metal. Mo believed there was not enough qi—vital human energy, the air of life—in the furnace, so, depending on the storyteller, they either cut their hair and nails, casting them into the flames, or they cast themselves into the flames as a sacrifice to make the furnace burn hotter.
In the former telling, the couple eventually produces swords good enough for the king, except that it takes them three years instead of three months as the king had commanded. The two swords are named after the couple: Ganjiang and Moye, male and female. They keep Ganjiang and give Moye to the king. The king, already upset, learns of their treachery and moves to have Gan Jiang killed. Before he can do so, Gan hides the male sword and leaves a message about its location for his wife and unborn child. The child is born, raised, and told the truth about his father. He seeks vengeance, but the king is warned in a dream of his coming. The king places a bounty on Chi, Gan’s son, and an assassin finds him. Taking pity on poor Chi, the assassin suggests that he surrender his head for the king, along with the formerly lost Ganjiang. If he does so, the assassin will take up the bounty and avenge Chi’s father. He does.
The assassin brings the severed head and legendary male sword to the king, who is overjoyed at their coming. But Chi’s head just stares and stares, making the king quite uncomfortable. The head is boiled, and nothing changes; after 40 days, there is no sign of decay or breakdown. The assassin convinces the king to stare back, thinking the king’s power might cause it to decompose. The king bends over the cauldron, and the assassin makes his move, using Ganjiang to decapitate the king. His head falls into the water next to Chi’s, and the assassin resolves to remove his own head as well. Three heads in a pot, flesh melting now that the deed is done and vengeance complete, only skulls remain. The guards cannot recognize whose head belongs to whom and decide the three men should be honored as kings for their bravery and loyalty. They are buried in the “Tomb of Three Kings” at Yichun. The swords are lost, then reappear during the early Jin Dynasty. They, too, are buried, but at Yanping Ford.
Nearly two thousand years later, another man walks in the bamboo woods of Moganshan. He does not love a woman, nor does he know much about the making of swords. His knowledge of qi is limited to Danny Rand and his Iron Fist. But he has time, so he researches the story he only heard bits of on the way to the village of Moganshan. Feng, the teller, has it that the lovers committed suicide for the sake of the swords, and their souls are kept inside of the terribly beautiful weapons of old. He does not know which telling he likes better. The latter reminds him of Romeo & Juliet, except that these lovers died for a noble reason. The former is bloodier, more wasteful.
Another month passes. He sits, now, in a polished wooden chair at an old desk in a room at an Inn at the edge of the village called Moganshan. It’s nicer than it sounds. But cold—there is no central heating in this part of Shanghai, only air conditioning that he knows will blow hot air because of the sun symbol on the remote. It should be snowing, but it’s not that cold, and he’s told they don’t get much snow here anyways in Deqing or wherever they are. It took nearly four hours in an early-2000s model tour van driven by the now-past-middle-aged Chinese man who smoked a cigarette at the pit stop where all the foreigners stopped for the toilet and snacks. They all smoke cigarettes unless they are married and their wives make them promise to quit. That’s Jie’s story, at least, but it’s likely true of others.
The lights are off. His coworker, Clay, snoozes in the bed in the room at the Inn at the edge of the village called Moganshan. Now the lights are on. Breakfast is in 20 minutes. He sips hot water from a baby blue Original ceramics mug that has on it a white rabbit and the word “dreams.” There is something dried and natural in the water, but he’s not sure, and it mostly just tastes water, not tea. He takes some pictures of the room so he won’t forget. Why write, then? To pass the time. Not for memory, certainly. He won’t remember this.
Breakfast is in 12 minutes. Last night they sat around a bonfire and played Mafia and Fishbowl. Serge, Jessie, Ethan, Ivy, Feng, Joe, Clay, and Frisky, Serge’s doggo. Before the bonfire, they ate Shao Kao (probably spelled differently), which is like shish-kebab barbeque over coals. It was mostly delicious along with the Chinese beer-water, fish ball soup, fried rice, fruit, and salad. He ate his fill, and his stomach bulged while his family did the same, miles away in Minnesota, celebrating a day of Thanks and Giving. He misses them, of course, but he will see them in less than a month when he flies to Portland for Christmas.
Friday was a failure. It rained yesterday. Today was literary.
Friday was a failure because grammar is difficult, even more so for English Language Learners who struggle to read, to write, and especially, to speak (“to” + base verb = infinitive). Friday was a failure because his students were tired; Cathy had the courage to tell him so after class. But he has eyes and ears and could tell that the lesson was going nowhere. Why were they so tired? They had some sort of physical exercise exam the day before and had been preparing for a debate. At least, that’s what he gathered from Cathy. Sentences, clauses, phrases, independent, dependent—what the hell is he talking about?
ICEY: About last Friday’s class made you unhappy, we feel very sorry. I also asked my classmates after class, maybe because they learned about grammar and it was a little difficult for them, so it was relatively boring. Students will improve in the future. So may I ask you to forget that lesson? Students will certainly improve in the future! I hope you can give our class a chance!
MR. S: Hey, we are learning together. I don’t blame anyone for the failure, do not worry! If it seems like I’m not giving your class a chance, that’s something I need to apologize for. Thank you for your effort and concern, Icey.
ICEY: Ok, fine. I really thank you for your generosity. [Joyful Emoji]
MR. S: [Grin Emoji]
It rained yesterday. He met Dr. Dave Birner, Damien, and Daniel: three gentlemen representing Concordia, Wisconsin. He teaches Literature (sort of) to Rehabilitation Science students who will be going to Concordia for their junior year of college. It rained yesterday, and there was a welcome ceremony for the “family of CUW” in Rihua building, room 177. They were given blue t-shirts to wear to the ceremony. They talked a lot about the t-shirts because it was simple and a gift and something visual in a world of auditory chaos. Yesterday, it rained on students who may or may not even want to be in college, much less have to go to America for school when they’d rather stay comfortable in Shanghai. (What a cynical thought!) How many feel that way, he doesn’t really know.
Today was literary because he made the PowerPoint every Literature teacher makes, the one defining terms. Wells & buckets—what are figures of speech, images, symbols? How do rhyme, rhythm, & repetition work? What about form & style? Or tone & mood? And, most importantly, will he actually talk about them? Or will he just motion to a screen while they take notes using words they don’t know because they’re sitting at an elementary-school level when it comes to their grasp of the English language? Cognitively, he knows they’re there. They are smart, formerly dedicated, searching students. (The girls, especially. The boys… they need to get more rest because they like to close their eyes and nod off when he’s speaking. It’s obnoxious.) Today was literary because he made it so. Because God or coincidence placed him behind the keys and he had to Google search and check the glossary of his borrowed Norton Anthology for definitions of words he knows and uses subconsciously. Draw them out! Make them bend to your will!
Today was literary because last week he listened to Ear Biscuits episode 165, “Do YouTubers Watch YouTube? Part 2” by Rhett & Link. In this episode, they mentioned another podcast called Radiolab by WYNC Studios which he’d heard things about but never considered subscribing to. Then, he did. And today at the gym he listened to “In the No Part 1” and “In the No Part 2.” The producer, at the end of Part 2, said something about Part 3, which would be graphic and mostly uncut. The music playing behind his voice was ominous and rabidly beat-y. Foreshadowing! he thinks.
Beep! Beep! Beep! goes the washing machine. He stands and opens the door to his apartment balcony. Lifting the lid, he shakes and rests his damp clothing onto the hanger. Then moves the clothes inside. He turns off the balcony light, smokes a cigarette, and stares at the moon while wondering if man was made to roll tobacco, sell it, buy it, light it, and stare at the moon. He finishes, goes to the kitchen, swigs a glass of water and cuts open a pomelo, original from China, barcode 6928694868826.
His smartphone is updating to iOS 12.0, and he doesn’t want to leave the air-conditioned office, so he pulls up the Word document titled “Shanghai Journal,” looks at the clock, and writes a day and time in bold letters.
He just spent 2.5 hours at the Bank of Shanghai. His salary goes there, and he wants to understand how it works. He wants to be able to use WeChat and Alipay to make purchases because most vendors do not take debit cards (which he has) but do take cash (which he’d rather not carry a lot of). Since he doesn’t speak Chinese, he takes a student worker with him; her English name is Alina, and she is more patient than he is. Her English is passable, but she helped him get what he wanted: access to the apps that let him buy groceries and DiDi’s (like Uber) and anything really because WeChat is everything.
His students are quiet, well-behaved freshmen. They stand up when he calls their name to answer, and they do not sit until he tells them to. This is how they were conditioned in high school. He will try to break this because open discussions are an essential part of critical thinking, which it is his aim to teach. And open-ended questions, though sometimes difficult to answer, are the epitome of freedom and liberty and America and certainly not China because they’re collective here, and individualism is bad and they’d rather be silent anyways because it’s easier to be told what to think by some sage on a stage instead of a recent college graduate who wanted an adventure, so he came to Shanghai to teach English which is obviously not their first language—they wouldn’t even be in his class if they had done better on their examinations the year before.
DAYWALKING 