Another Lockdown: Da Nang, Vietnam
Groceries from Da Nang, Vietnam, about $20.
I came here from the stars thirty-four years ago like a pissant in desperate neediness for … revenge. I was drinking beer at three years old. I shat in the hallway grunting like mad. I kicked my brother into the corner of a jutted wall at four years old while wearing a karate outfit, my parents rushed him to the hospital. A few years after that, my father took my three brothers and me to the Poconos. As soon as we got there, we were skipping stones in a nearby lake. My brother went to the opposite side of the lake. I skipped a stone and it hit the surface of the water three times then it jolted upward and hit my brother just above the eye, blood splattering, he began to cry. Immediately my father found himself rushing to the hospital.
Don’t fuck with me, man.
Heh, heh.
No, really. I’m a nice guy. I have khaki shorts and tealights and beers in cans here in Vietnam. And I’m wearing protective eyewear that I got in the suburb of Bangkok, Thailand — Nonthaburi. Back then, in September/October of last year, I finished my freelancer work and went out to the streets under the heat and banana leaves, usually going to the mall to cool off or going directly to a nearby open-air market for some grub. There were street vendors huddled together, all Thai locals … and me. The only white dude. Nobody cared about that, I knew how to spend Thai Bhat and I was quiet, composed, full of wonder and vigor and I rarely ever got laid. I wasn’t there for the women, I’d just broken up with my Chinese girlfriend and she was still back in Eastern Europe.
I’d take my food back to my little room, with a small balcony overlooking banana leaves … and I felt good about life. I drank big bottles of Thai beer, wrote, grew my hair out, and found the time to recollect myself in my aimless wanderings — the Earth was my home, man. That was a fleeting feeling. But Thailand — Bangkok, specifically, felt right.
Anyway, this is supposed to be about Da Nang.
After Bangkok, it was Bali for a month. Then Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Penang Island — the heat, drunk on Christmas Eve, hungover on Christmas in a Muslim country, heading for some beer at a 7–11 at 10:20 AM.
I flew eventually from a suburb of Malaysia to Da Nang, Vietnam. This is the city where I’ve spent most of my time abroad. I’d left the U.S.A. around October 2018 for Rome, Italy. Then it was Krabi, Thailand — where I began my journey unbeknownst to me why it was happening at all, I was following my gut, my instincts, my nuts, my feet, my beer-thirsty shit-stained soul.
Da Nang was a place I’d researched while living in South Philly for three years. I’d initially wanted to go to Costa Rica back in 2015 to start teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). It was a ticket out of a hellscape. I knew there were better things in store for me: cheap beer, cigars, poetry, ladies, beaches, white sand, scatter-brained panties on my floor, treehouses, noodles, and working hard. I was always hard. Working. I was always working hard.
Well, I’d planned to get back to Thailand in April. But as the Chinese New Year passed like a slow fart, I realized that the world was changing faster than I could keep up with it — before I began traveling around the world, I felt that America was heading for disaster, the world would be impossible to travel as before (climate change), and I needed or wanted to strive for something better as a writer that nobody knew nor cared about. I had to make a big move.
It was like Hunter Thompson back in the early Sixties when he went to Latin America … and discovered it was a hellhole. Only my adventures I forced on myself were somewhat better: internet, smartphones, a strong Dollar. I had everything going for me once I had decided to allow the Universe to guide me through the shit-stained forest of a planet lurching forward into Hell.
Southeast Asia wasn’t like that, though. It was gloriously intricate and the people were friendly, there was an immediate sense of abundance because I was white and I was born in America … and I had a blue passport … my eyes were brown, beautiful (I’ve been told myriad times by the local girls here in Da Nang). So what?
I guess I was forgetting about being a writer. The first lockdown, I rose to that occasion. Sure. I’d stopped talking to my Chinese ex after I said mean things about fortune cookies and her hairy vagina.
I wrote a new novel called The Basement, four one-act plays, a poetry book, short stories, poems. It took me a while to realize that about 98% of everything I wrote went unread. Just me and the editors. Most of them left me messages months later, some of them were getting more positive. But that hardly matters now.
What does matter? Being locked down once again here in Da Nang. Well, it’s another social distancing period. And I am feeling somewhat stronger than the way I arrived.
I started teaching online with a company outside of China (I’d been teaching on and off for Chinese companies the last two years) and I started having conversations with people from all over the world: Australia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, India, Bangladesh, Russia, Iraq, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Turkey, Cyprus, Taiwan, Brazil, Jordan, and the United States.
One thing I’ve learned the most about traveling around the world is how much I can’t stand Americans. Listening to them talking about politics has been the worst experience while traveling…
I can remember it happening to me in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The girl I had met saw my face, “What’s wrong?” She asked.
Some asshole douchebag was sitting at a table with three or four ladies, talking, talking, talking in English … obnoxiously … sucking out all the oxygen from the room. And it happened again in Belgrade, Serbia. Some kid at a table next to us … my girlfriend and I … he was going on and on, in English with an American accent, about Syria and Muslims, and fuck me, he knew everything.
Americans, unbeknownst to most Americans, are know-it-alls. They think they know everything except for why their country is so fucked up. So it’s good to be locked down in a foreign country, especially at the beach.
Capitalism has spread here because it brings people out of their lethargy. Or at least that’s what the dwindling years have supposedly taught us. Actually, the workers here are lucky to make $200–$300/month for a salary.
I guess that’s why I fit in here, as a freelance copywriter/English teacher for ESL online, uh, and a, uh, “writer”.
Making $12,000/year here … and you’re basically upper-middle class. Yippie!
And there’s a white sand beach that stretches for a few miles … it’s been my home these last few months, and then some.
I’m at my best during lockdowns here. I cook, clean, wash my nuts. Drink lots of beer. Smile at children. Help lost people find ATMs. Yell at obnoxious people. And even though I’m a terrible neighbor most of the time, cantankerous, laughing at nothing, blowing smoke rings at the hidden moon usually cascading toward sleep at 2 or 4 AM … I have palm trees growing from my neck and chin … and even my armpits … thinking about the days I used to nap in the park in Colorado Springs or Philadelphia because life felt dead and hopeless.
I don’t feel that way anymore.
Most of the people who helped me to see the light, I think about them. That lurches me forward with my writing, and more importantly — my life.
I can now affect others with goodwill or bad … but I know the difference, or at least I’d like to think so. My delusions are my clouds. I ride them day and night. I know, I know. I should probably wear a condom…
The lights burning inside of my nuts. Yeah.
That’s what carries me forward, anyway. And music, lots and lots of music. Good food. Here’s a list:
Grocery receipt
Baby onions (3) … 6,800 Dong = $0.29
Fresh garlic (1) … 1,890 Dong = $0.08
Silver Nan Mask … 27,000 Dong = $1.17
Chicken eggs (10) … 30,000 Dong = $1.30
Eggplant (1) … 30,000 Dong = $1.30
Cucumber (1) … 8,250 Dong = $0.36
Broccoli (1) … 25,875 Dong = $1.12
Frozen Striploin AUS (beef) … 50,000 Dong = $2.16
Chicken breast (2 packs of ground chicken, 1 breast) … 61,650 Dong = $2.67
Pepperoni … 33,690 Dong = $1.46
Fresh Salmon Fillet … 90,750 Dong = $3.92
American corn … 15,000 Dong = $0.65
Unrefined salt … 2,450 Dong = $0.11
Roasted peanuts … 13,320 Dong = $0.58
Coconut water 330ml … 19,000 Dong = $0.82
Lemon grass (1) … 3,400 Dong = $0.15
Water spinach/morning glory … 4,320 Dong = $0.19
Bok choy (3-pack) … 14,200 Dong= $0.61
Black coffee 37.5g — Box … 25,000 Dong = $1.08
Pickled baby cucumber (1 jar) … 21,000 Dong = $0.91
Ripe cut papaya … 6,300 Dong = $0.27
String bean (1 pack) … 6,400 Dong = $0.28
Sliced watermelon … 11,680 Dong = $0.50
Ah, yeah. Okay. I was shopping and it made me think of the Bintang Supermarket in Bali, Indonesia.
Then after paying for my groceries, I walked outside into the hot sunshine and the beach was out there, the burning palms, the empty skies, blue, white clouds, careless, and that crystal clear water, shiny, gleaming, glistening … I was in paradise. I laughed. Like an asshole. All the way back to my apartment.
I am once again “locked down” in a paradise. And I couldn’t care less about the rest of the world. At least for tonight.
And that’s good enough for me…
My 14th self-published book is now available as an e-book/paperback from Amazon, Lazy in Da Nang. These are poems I wrote while staying here last year with my Chinese girlfriend between March-June 2019.
My latest Bandcamp release is also available, What Are You Doing in My Room? I wrote these three songs between June-July 2020.
