I like rituals – not routine but rituals. Sometimes a regular pattern serves as a ritual but it’s a pattern with a purpose. In Vietnam our alarm goes off at 5am, we’re out the door on our way to the gym at 5:45, walk in the morning heat to the espresso bar at 7 and on to the office at 8. It’s not exactly the path to Nirvana but it is a pattern that serves a purpose. It gets us organized and moving, helps us stay healthy, and while we sip our lattes we have some personal one-on-one time. At the end of the day, if there is not an event to attend, we go out to dinner. We almost never eat at home when we’re in Vietnam. Latte’s in the morning and dinner in the evening are the bookends that frame our days in Saigon.
Archive for Saigon Diary – Page 11
This weekend I was in Santa Monica. It’s a magical place; but there is something surreal about it. I think it’s because I can’t help comparing it to Vietnam and the contrast is so astonishing. Don’t get me wrong; Santa Monica is fabulous. This morning I grabbed a coffee and walked along the boardwalk, actually a paved multi-use walkway that borders the beach. On Sunday morning, probably every morning, the whole spectrum of humanity is there to feast on – runners, walkers, roller-bladers, cyclists, people in wheelchairs, little people, BIG people, tall bikini clad girls with after-market augmentation, children, Russian speakers, Spanish speakers, Arabic speakers, Asians, Africans, Europeans, gringos, dogs and a guy on a tricked out bike with a huge boombox broadcasting loud enough to carry from Malibu to Manhattan Beach. It’s a crazy wonderful kaleidoscopic visual treat. But I still think it’s a bit surreal.
In 1962 I was in the entering class at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. There were 250 of us and we were divided into 3 classes sorted alphabetically. By the end of the year I knew almost everyone A-H.
Like all social organisms we also sorted ourselves – mostly by age and experience. When you’re 25, three or four years can seem significant. That year I made friends with Dick Duane. Dick had spent a couple of years as a Naval officer and I was coming off a 4 year stint as a Marine Corps pilot. He was a swimmer and water polo player at Cal, so we often went down to the pool at Pauley Pavilion to swim laps. Dick did 3 to every 1 of mine.
If the guy on top gets electrocuted the guy lower down takes over. That’s the power back up system in Saigon.
For the past couple of months daytime temperatures have been hovering around 100 degrees here. Even the natives are complaining. When it’s this hot you want to be inside with the A/C on and the fans turning. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough power in Vietnam to go around so power in the industrial and hi-tech parks is usually only available 3 days a week. Most of those plants have their own aux generators so they can keep going. In the rest of the city the power authority does its best to keep it on, but every day some neighborhoods get taken off the grid to save the system from catastrophic failure. If you’re lucky you find out ahead of time. If not, the lights go out, the A/C goes off, and you grab your laptop and head for a coffee shop with wifi in another part of town. I’ve come to know that if the power fails before 10am it will be off most of the day.
Marilynn made these observations about the women of Vietnam recently.
“The woman thing” here is fascinating—-it is very hard to get real info; so much of what I say is just based on observation and what people who have been here a long time say. All day long there are multitudes of men sitting on little plastic chairs on the street mostly in groups—during the day they smoke, drink coffee, gossip, or gamble. At night it’s the same but with beer.
People truly live on the street here even if they have somewhere else to go. Women only sit on the little chairs to eat and then leave. No ”lollygagging” as my Mother used to say.
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