Notes from a Vagrant Daughter (excerpt)

            It is very easy to sit at a Think Coffee in, say, the Village, or a Joe in the Upper West Side, and to believe in the pervasive illusion that New York is only five hours from California by air.  The truth is that Think Coffee and Joe are only five hours from California by air.  New York is somewhere else.

            Many people in the West (or "back West," as they say in New York, although not in Think Coffee or Joe) do not believe this.  They have been to Union Square or to Midtown, have biked down the Hudson Greenway and have seen the East River glazed by the afternoon sun off Long Island City, Queens, and they claim to have been to New York.  They have not been to New York, and probably never will be.  I happen to know because I come from New York, come from a white Latino family that has only recently been in central, gentrified Brooklyn.

            You might protest that no family who has "recently" moved here knows anything.  But it is characteristic of New Yorkers to speak grandly of immigration as if they had just stepped into the Consulate General office to receive their approved papers, and studied facts that not even fourth generation Americans know about their country in order to pass the citizenship test.  Excelsior--"Ever Upward"--as the state motto has it.  Such display of ancestry makes authority nebulous; my own childhood was saturated with too many accents to emulate and too many cultures with which to identify.  But that is not all I want to tell you about: what it is like to come from a place like Brooklyn.  I want to tell you that, but I want to tell you what it is like to never feel like you've come from any place at all.  If we can agree on that contradiction, then perhaps I can make you understand New York and the vibe it carries, for Brooklyn is New York, and New York is a place in which the anonymous chaos and a sense of hyperreal paranoia meet in awkward camaraderie; in which the skin tingles with the weight of exhaust fumes, vibrates with traffic honks, and glows with urban decay because here, beneath the shadows of streetlamps, is where the final stop lies.

Thump

            It is pointless to ask for directions to Soi Cowboy because the street stands out from all other Bangkok alleys with its glaring neon lights and thumping bass sounds.  During the day the traffic of pink and yellow tuk tuks, motorcycles, and Toyotas rival the music with beeps.  At night the street becomes more imposing and one senses that touching this bright city would feel cool and sharp as metal. 

            Soi Cowboy roars with drunken cries for sex.  Bar trucks line the perpendicular road, Sukhumvit, so that pedestrians can drink wine coolers and Mai Tais until they shake off the shame of approaching Soi Cowboy's scintillating entryway.  Truthfully, no one in Bangkok judges the visitors of Soi Cowboy.  Bangkok streets are rife with male, female, and gender ambiguous prostitutes.  The night markets sell vibrators and tiger print handcuffs alongside backpacks with elephant motifs, Buddha's image printed on lamps and tee shirts, tie dyed sarongs, and fake designer jewelry and electronics.

            Every night is a holiday on Soi Cowboy.  Hilary is celebrating her twenty-first birthday even though her birthdate is next month.  She has agreed to let three of her male coworkers get her drunk with a can of warm beer and a Singapore Sling and take her to her first strip club.  She wears her tightest tank top and rims her eyes with more eyeliner because when she puts on makeup they tell her it looks like her eyes can pierce their souls.  Tonight they say nothing except, "Let's go."

            Entering Soi Cowboy tastes salty, like the sticky neck of a Skytrain metro commuter or the crystal garnish for sliced guava, pineapple, and purple yam sold on the sidewalk for twenty baht.  The go-go bars on Soi Cowboy all have different themes: Texas ranch, followed by English royalty, followed by Middle Eastern desert, followed by dollhouse kitsch, followed by another Texas ranch.  The strippers wear costumes with blue glitter and tassels, patches of polyester and high heeled boots, bending down to serve customers seated at the outdoor patios their Singha beers and vodka shots.  The women take hourly shifts holding signs written in English, advertising show highlights and bar specials.  They stand by the door with their legs spread slightly, frozen.

            The neon overwhelms the street; the pedestrians’ skin glow indigo.  Vendors sell papery popcorn and mango sticky rice from their bicycles.  Children with scabby arms wave postcards and cigarettes at tourists, pleading for baht.  A man sits in the middle of the street, his outstretched legs amputated at the knee and a puppy sleeping on his thigh.  But no one looks at the street, instead focusing on the establishments that line the road.

            They pass the first few establishments and quickly settle on a cowboy themed club named KISS.  A woman in a low-cut white dress ushers the group to the end of a gleaming metal bench, one of two that flank either side of a catwalk.  The men order Long Island Iced Teas.  Hilary shakes her head no.  The manager pushes a drink menu at her.  Sitting on the edge of the bench, next to the man who had taken her virginity the previous night, Hilary grasps the menu with both hands and studies it until the manager walks away.  She bobs to the music before realizing dancing makes her one of them, the strippers.

            She peeks over the menu.  Six women writhe their bodies to the techno pulse, staring vacantly at their reflections in the mirrored walls.  They wear silver stilettos, red and white striped ribbons placed over their pussies, blue tassels stuck to their nipples, and white cowboy hats.  Their skin is gauzy-pale, powder collecting in the crevices behind their knees and elbows.  Some cover their black iris with blue or green colored contact lenses.  From their facial features, it is clear they are all Thai, even though only one has straight black hair.  Another has curly red hair, another straight platinum hair in loose pigtails, another cropped blond, curly light brown, and straight dark brown.  Maybe their hair has been dyed, maybe they are wearing wigs.  It is difficult to distinguish the parts of their bodies that are authentic.

            Since the women seem robotic, unfeeling, not even dancing in rhythm to the thump of the bass line, Hilary can look at them without guilt.  They can look at themselves, too, touching their cowboy hat rims as they gaze at their reflections in the mirrored walls.  Perhaps they are just as incredulous as she is, all of them wondering how they ended up here, in this club with excessive glint, glitter, flirt, and grit.  All of them wondering how long the women’s arms, pubic area, and calves will stay smooth before they have to clench their teeth and wax hair off again.  Wondering how long they will sway until the manager signals the next act with her left hand tapping her right shoulder.

            Attributes blur, rendering the women indistinguishable.  Their torsos have no lines, wrinkles, defined musculature, or protruding bones.  The weight of the tassels pulls on their small tits like feeding fish.  No fat wiggles along with their swaying bodies.  The ribbons tied at their hips never slip.  Except for occasional ankle tremors, the women stand powerfully.

            Hilary’s friends stare in rapture, their beers dangling loosely from their limp grasps around the bottles’ necks.  The one who took her virginity chortles softly.  Alcohol has hardened all of the men, turning them solipsistic.  She covers the echo of their laughter with her own, feigning male indifference.  They point at the strippers with their beer bottles, sloshing liquid onto their wrists. 

            Nothing surprises her here.  She yearns for surprises like the magnificent scale of the Grand Palace and the reclining Great Buddha: dazzling sights she had dreamed of since she was young.  She had also dreamed of losing her virginity to a charming teenager in a sunlit bedroom with soft down comforters, but that disintegrated after she turned twenty.  After she turned twenty, she became realistic.  Realistic and impatient.  Impatient and impulsive.

            One of her friends leans forward and yells past the one who took her virginity, “Which one is the hottest?”

            She points at the one with straight black hair.  That stripper has enough self-worth not to hide her ethnicity behind wigs and makeup.  Asians may not have origins in a Texas ranch, but her honesty taunts.  Hilary explains none of this, though.  Her feminine nature merely senses superlative attractiveness, according to them.  She does not think but just does, according to them.

Hilary’s friend follows her finger and agrees with a vague “yeah.”

            Leaning against the bar, the manager signals the next act with her left hand tapping her right shoulder.  The women march off the catwalk and through a doorframe covered in gold tinsel, which flutters as the women parade through it, not bothering to partition the metallic strands.  Seconds later, six other women file out with only a white, plastic band as thick as their pussies.  These women pout aggressively, knowing they push the limits of concealment.  Hilary’s spandex tank top and makeup seem much less daring now.  She tries to look like she doesn’t care, clenching her jaw.  The men seem convinced, but she cannot convince herself.

            The women from the previous act have reentered the space, dispersing themselves among the audience.  The two blondes begin repeating "hi" to Hilary’s friends and giggling coquettishly.  One squeezes herself between Hilary and the one who took her virginity.  Their arms touch.  She does not look at Hilary.  Hilary stares at the stripper’s belly button.  She moves her arm, bending the menu.  Hilary peruses the drink choices again as the manager approaches their group.  Hilary orders a margarita to keep busy.

            The group is all in Thailand together but not just for Hilary’s unbirthday, since she goes back to college in September before they can truly celebrate.  One needed surgery after drunkenly slamming a door on his hand so hard that he sliced off half his pointer finger, one renewed his Marine Corps shooting license, and the one who took her virginity joined Hilary in taking advantage of a cheap flight from Cambodia, where the whole group works at the United States Consulate General Office.  Back in Cambodia, everyone is home by midnight because that is when the night spirits roam.  In Cambodia, no one talks about sex.  In Cambodia, Hilary’s body makes her ashamed.

            "Do you want to go to Midnite now?  I saw a sign for a ping pong show starting soon," her friend farthest down the bench asks, looking at his fake Rolex watch.  He wears one of the strippers' cowboy hats.  The techno music's thump fills the lag in the men's decision-making capabilities.  Hilary thinks she knows what a ping pong show is, but does not clarify.  How does a woman shoot a plastic ball out of a place where there should never be a plastic ball?  She shakes her head: finally, she has found the line.

            "I'm going to head to bed," Hilary announces after they leave the club.  The group stands huddled on Soi Cowboy, the sounds more muted now.  The one who took her virginity already walks forward before she has finished her sentence.  The other two nod, wish her a good night, and follow him.  The next day, after ordering more room service burgers, scrambled eggs, and chicken wings than they can afford, they will regret not walking her home.

            Hilary retraces her steps back to Sukhumvit.  No one looks at her and she is grateful.  Not even the prostitutes in bright colors and fishnet stockings, languishing on the sidewalk curb, turn their head as she passes.  Lingering at a table laden with jewelry, she purchases a leather belt, too tired to haggle the price down from 120 baht.  Her pants have become much looser over the last few weeks.  Cambodia does not sell size 6 jeans or size 6 anything, so she wears them even though they slip sometimes, revealing the waistband of her panties.  Soon maybe she will be able to purchase the smaller Cambodian clothes and fit in, literally, with the populace.

            She walks back to their hotel and sits on her uncomfortably firm mattress.  The cream colored sheets have been changed.  She will never have to see last night's sheet again.  Hilary unbuckles her sandals.  The back of her tank top clings damply to her skin.  The night before she slept naked.  Tonight she will sleep with all her clothes on.  After ordering room service burgers, scrambled eggs, and chicken wings, the men will knock on her door.  She will not answer.  She will wake up early and read by the pool.  They will find her eventually.  One will sigh, "I thought you had disappeared."

            She wishes she had.

F is for Foreign

            You walk through the wide boulevards, looking for street food.  It is dinner time and though you're not hungry, having eaten grilled bananas, rice paper noodles with broccoli and tofu, and a mashed avocado and condensed milk smoothie that afternoon, you have been advised to eat your way through Ho Chi Minh City.  You are only there for one week and the variety of dishes sold on the sidewalk requires a certain amount of culinary diligence.

            You are unimpressed with the city as a whole.  It is a standard urban, cosmopolitan environment.  The buildings are tall and made of white concrete.  At night they glow blue and purple.  Lanterns hang from trees, with dots of color reflecting in the Saigon River.  Cars whoosh past and children scream with laughter, fisting ice cream cups.  Karaoke establishments pulse with clashing bass beats.  Ho Chi Minh City could be Los Angeles or Buenos Aires or Tel Aviv. 
            What impresses you more than the small French cathedral and larger French opera house, the war museums filled with propaganda posters and recreated torture chambers, the brick mansion converted into a fine arts museum, and the parks of paved paths and palm trees, are the vendors selling plastic cups of tripe soup for a dime or a skewer of small mussels turned over a portable grill for twenty cents.  The ingredients seem limited, but the combinations surprise with you with unique flavors.

            And so you search for bites to confuse and shock your palate, unsure of what you seek.  You are out later than your previous night jaunts--it is 9 o'clock or 21:00.  The rice paper crepe vendors, who smooth quail egg, fresh herbs, and chili sauce over a hot plate, have left the park.  Greasy newspapers line the curb, so you know they have been there.  You continue down unfamiliar streets, hoping to avoid the bustle of downtown: ritzy bars, fashionable clothing stores, restaurants, expensive handmade cards, and the brightly lit night market, where every stall sells the same cheap souvenirs to tourists.

            Heading in the opposite direction of downtown (would that be uptown?), you stumble onto a concrete sculpture surrounded by a stagnant pool of water and covered with Vietnamese teenagers sitting on its beams and dangling their legs over the suspended planks.  You circle the plaza.  A pole stands in the center, bursting into fragmented petals of malleable tin at the top.  Perhaps this is a lotus blossom or a torch stand.  Thick concrete bands hover over the pool and intertwine.  Staircases lead to higher levels, where more bands hover above taller supports.  Teenagers toss plastic bags and wrappers into the pool.  White camera flashes capture the aimless lounging of youth.

            You walk around the plaza, surveying the vendors standing at the edge of the sidewalk.  Balloon animals on sticks, charcoal grilled pork, pineapple chunks, light up toys, shredded rice paper with carrots and beef, popcorn, fried egg sandwiches with Spam and cucumber, and back to the balloon animals on sticks.  A young man on a bicycle stops next to the balloons, resting his feet on the road and turning on the bulb dangling over his ingredients, which consist of rice paper crepes, sugar wafers, shredded coconut, and condensed milk cans.

            You ask him what he makes, proud of yourself for remembering to use the Southern Vietnamese dialect.  He explains the sweet snack and begins to cook you one.  It costs a dime.  He won't take the money until you've tried it.  The bite you take tastes like a sugar cube doused in syrup.  Nodding happily, you give him the money and take note of the dessert's name: Bô Bí.

            He asks you why you are here.  Everyone always asks you why you are here.  You explain that you are interning in Hanoi at the embassy.  He informs you that you can speak Southern Vietnamese.  You grin and ask him what he does besides selling snacks at night.  He is a student and so are you.  He asks about Hanoi, a city he hopes to visit.  You talk about rain and how relieved you feel to have escaped the monsoon season, albeit temporarily.  He sadly mentions that it should be raining in Ho Chi Minh City, too.  It has not rained in weeks and he worries for the Mekong Delta.  You nod, ashamed.  The condensed milk oozes from the cracks in the crepe, making your hand wet and sticky.

            Another bicycle stops next to the vendor.  Motorcycles zoom past on the road, encircling the plaza before continuing down one of four roads.  The customer orders a crepe.  You nibble yours and watch the business transaction.  The sugar burns your throat.  The vendor mentions the American student who just bought a crepe from him.  The customer, a teenage girl in a pastel pink polo shirt and dirty white flip flops, translates the vendor's summary of your life into English for the lanky boy sitting on the back of her bicycle.  Silent, you rub your dirty hands on your jeans.  The vendor encourages the teenagers to sit with you.

            "Hello, I am Lai.  This is Halim.  He lost his voice," the girl introduces herself to you in English.  The vendor smiles and ushers the three students to sit on the fountain.  You wish the vendor could join you, but he has to make more crepes.  You wish you knew what the vendor was studying.  You wish you knew his name.

            "What is the name--" you begin in English.

            "Of this place?  Turtle Lake," Lai responds.  She takes your hand and leads you up the staircase to an empty beam.  Halim follows.

            "I can't speak.  Sorry.  Where are you from?" Halim types in English on his Samsung phone.  You begin to answer in Vietnamese, but he is not Vietnamese.  You describe New York City as succinctly as possible, and he types a snapshot of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Lai joins in, speaking English.  She lives in Quang Ngai, in central Vietnam.  You are all foreigners to Ho Chi Minh City.

Letter from Paradise, 18˚18'N, 76˚47'W

            Because I had already finished my ethnomusicology research paper and sunburned my fair skin enough times to not mind the sting and interviewed so many "locals" about solid waste management that I felt I was assuming superiority, I agreed, a restless eighteen-year-old girl with wild hair bleached blonde by the sea salt, to beach hop in Jamaica, where anxiety does not live and the sky is a vibrant blue or tangerine or pink and the people want to count your freckles.  There I would learn to be idle, there with the reggae music blasting from plantain carts, there with the three kinds of jerk chicken spice, there with the graffiti reminders to "calm dem down," there with the skateboarders and the drug dealers and the hair braiders and the bartenders and the pig farmers and the tour guides.

            I went, wary of Caribbean tourist culture.  I asserted myself as a sailing research student with S.E.A. Semester, not a spoiled brat runaway.  I had never surfed, had never jumped off a cliff into rolling teal waters, had never smoked ganja, had never climbed a Banyan tree with branches hovering over a cold lagoon, had never kicked a coral reef bed and feared resulting barracuda attacks as my blood mingled with the cobalt blue depths.  I brought Band-Aids for the cut on my foot and sunblock to reapply after swimming in every famous beach on Port Antonio.  Long Bay, Boston Bay, Annotto Bay.  Seashells and sea glass replaced the sandwiches that had filled my backpack.

            Father Tick Tock picked up a piece of aqua-colored sea glass from the sand.  The dusty pink flesh of his palm covered the edges of the piece.  The opaque, pockmarked glass glinted.  He looked like he held a piece of hard and dusty sky.

            "For you," he gestured.  I combed a stray ringlet behind my ear and shyly smiled, accepting.  "Whah you gonn' do with the glass?"

            "I don't know yet," I shrugged, looking down at the sand to avoid staring at his eye patch and bare chest.

            "It's deh prettiest garbage we 'ave," he boasted.  "I'm Sean.  Some call me Father Tick Tock.  What's your name?"

            "Aliza," I replied.  I began walking away.  He kept my pace, occasionally straying to pick up a glittering piece of glass.  After a few minutes of silent collecting, he offered me marijuana.  I explained that I was sailing under strict coast guard regulations.  He asked about my oceanographic research on marine debris and solid waste management systems.  I asked him for the story behind his name.

            "My name? There is no story.  Oh, wait. Yea man. So I had a bag filled with ganja, right.  Four pounds. No, four kilos. And the police, they come an' take me arms."  He crossed his arms, clutching an invisible bag. "I go like this"--he flung his arms out and with his elbows tight began to flap--"and fly away. So my friends call me Father Tick Tock. I'm still running from the police and time..." His story faded there.

            I nodded.  Most likely the actual event connected less with Father Tick Tock than the friend who christened him.  The sun-blasted garbage, carelessly tossed beer bottles and jam jars and food containers from Jamaica, other Caribbean islands, or anywhere in the path of the Sargasso Sea's current, tinkled in Father Tick Tock's hand.

            I refused the ring he twisted from a guava root for me.  I refused the ziplock bag of marijuana.  I refused his phone number.  I refused his offer to dreadlock my hair, already tangled by humidity.  I took his sea glass.

Let the Rains Down

             The monsoon season turns even the most mundane aspects of Vietnamese daily life into a splendid watercolor painting.  In the morning, the flower ladies of Quan Thanh Street make bouquets of unbloomed lotuses and small orange roses, lined up on the sidewalk.  They rip leaves and snip thorns, pausing to joke with their neighbors and shovel some phơ noodles into their mouths.  Behind them, West Lake glistens in waves of hazy pinks and lavenders.  Dead fish, shredded plastic wrappers, and floating Bia Hoi beer cans dot the surface of the water.

            As the daily smog engulfs the city, a muted yellow light descends in the early afternoon.  The city turns quiet.  Everyone parks their motorbikes and puts away the products they've been selling.  Clouds brood over the lake.  Then the rains come.  It does not begin to rain, as one would say in English.  The rains come.  They deserve their plurality, splashing on every surface of Hanoi with abandon.

            The rains march in heavy plods down the alleys, carrying along pomelo rinds, broken furniture, and newspaper.  Pedestrians don ponchos that stick to their bodies and hang down to their knees.  Sloshing through the water, they swat at their ponchos as the plastic gathers in between their legs.

            Though the rains appear without the audible warning of thunder, the rushing sound, like a wild boar charging through a thicket of reeds, makes it difficult to hear.  The droplets are so thick that they fall in visible white streams.  The Vietnamese retreat to the cafe nearest their parked motorbike, the rains inspiring a thirst for a yogurt smoothie.  In Hanoi, this means a matter of yards--one can expect at least two on any street or alley.  Straining to slurp the thick liquid through the curled straw, the displaced look out the window and wait.

            Sunlight forces its way over Hanoi, drenching the city in brightness.  Since no one has yet realized that the sound of rain has dissipated, the light startles.  Slowly, the beeps of motorbikes start up and crescendo until the city reaches its usual cacophony.  During the months of June through September, there is never a question of whether it will rain.  Instead, the Vietnamese wonder at what time it will rain and how many times. 

Motorculture

They beep at every corner. They beep from behind, from ten feet in front, from either side, from head-on. They beep at 4:30 and don't stop until midnight. Two beeps warn; one long one alerts others of high speeds. A woman in a pencil skirt beeps on the way to the office. An aging man in green linen pants beeps on the way to the farm, with two pigs stacked on top of each other, lying in a cage behind him. A teenage couple beeps on the way to the movie theater, the girl's arms tight around her boyfriend's waist as he swerves down the road.

There is a game commonly played amongst foreigners living in Hanoi--let's call it The Things They Carried. Merely a quotidian occurrence for motorcyclists, we visitors stare in awe as entire families pack in to one Honda Wave and zoom away. Past winners include two children standing in front of a seat with two more wedged between a couple sitting on the seat; three men with four bags of squawking roosters; and four adults with one air conditioner.

Not only are motorcyclists able to observe what others are carrying, they can also view the jean brands of every passenger or the type of candy a child clutches. In American traffic, cars trap passengers into a secluded compartment of glass windows and metal doors and no one moves. In Vietnamese traffic, motorcycles squeeze as close together as possible as everyone streams down the French boulevards at a similarly slow pace.


The sense of camaraderie fits the socialist political system. Xe ôms, which literally translates to hug the driver, pepper street corners as an alternative to bulky taxis. Men catch naps after work as they wait for customers to haggle with them. With feet resting on the handlebars, they nestle their torsos into the seat cushion. The side mirrors become an extension of the bathroom. The drivers pick at their teeth with toothpicks, shave, and clip their nose hairs. Private life seeps into the city of Hanoi.

Every motorcycle serves as an extension of the owner's house. It travels down the twisted marketplace alleys, it provides a space to lounge on and read the newspaper while escaping the midday sun, and it provides assistance to vendors who pack up clothes or pottery and move to another street to continue selling.

The motorcycle craze involves a high degree of trust. The vehicles are small enough to wheel away inconspicuously. The engine is close enough to cause serious injury if another driver overshoots a swerve, gets distracted by a Western pedestrian, or meanders home after a night of rice vodka shots. Passengers pack into a seat tight enough and drivers pack a street dense enough for strangers’ legs to brush against each other. A hundred breaths mingle with exhaust fumes.

Why Vietnamese?

Most courses in college need no explanation--microeconomics, psychology, Latin literature, 18th century art, chemistry. But Vietnamese always brings with it a story, a burning reason as to why any student would think to suffer through it. Even other East Asian languages do not receive the same wide-eyed "Why?" from students.

My reasons for learning Vietnamese morph as I grow academically. I studied in Hanoi the semester after I graduated high school because I yearned for the unfamiliar: to speak an Asiatic language with tones, to learn the environmental concerns of a tropical region and the economic issues of a third world country, to live with a family and listen to their stories, to participate in lively celebrations and rituals, to experience a communist society, and to sympathize with a history of an underdog trying to prove itself and a lingering series of identity crises.

After my semester abroad, my reasons changed to a desire to speak more with the people I met. By the time I left Hanoi, I could keep a conversation going in a taxi for twenty minutes and throw in a few sentences at the dinner table, but I felt like I had not made many connections. My host family was well versed in body language, but how much can be said with an awkward laugh or emphatic gesture?

My study of language has led to an understanding of culture through the structure of its language. The Vietnamese language is fascinating and unique; its vocabulary and syntax are so logical. The word for "furniture" is the combination of the words for "table" and "chair" and the word for "refrigerator" is the combination of the words for "machine" and "cold". The lack of cognates frustrates me, but the linguistic simplicity makes me smile. My midterm is this week and one of the words I am responsible for is "to be worry free," which translates literally into "eat until full, sleep soundly." As I study, I will remember to take the true meaning to heart as well as the definition.