Entry Wounds. Episode 08: Spirit, Opportunity & Giving a F#$K!

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19/01/2003 1pm Ho Chi Minh City
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There's something to be said for the modern daycare system in the developed world; it's pitiful. Leave junior in a Fisher-Price feedlot throughout the day, so that Mr and Mrs double income can return just at the right time to tuck junior into bed. That's bound to nurture a well balanced child.

Vietnam has a lot of children. It's the one thing that has struck me here,.......well that and public urination, bottles of vodka with Cobras in them, and a dried penis from some unknown animal. The Vietnamese's fecundity I think is due to two main reasons;
a) Here, like everwhere else in the world, people love shagging.
b) Parents are happy to let their kids walk around on the street unescorted rather than locking them up in the backyard, giving the impression of many children. Which means that despite the sordid underbelly of Vietnam's cities, kids explore the sidewalks and alleyways like it's their backyard. They're all confident,
free spirits and invariably smiling. And with good reason, they're taken care of with such passion by not only the parents but all the family and neighbours. At no point is a child alone and not the absolute centre of attention by some member of their extended family. My landlady's infant is always being talked to,
tickled and doted on by at least one person at all times. And the little one is always grinning from ear to ear. It's pure hedonism for the kids, they don't even have to sit at a table to eat, they're just followed around by an adult with a spoon and a meal. The life!
So as a consequence I haven't heard one baby crying yet (that wasn't starving)or seen a mother whacking a trantrum chucking toddler.
"Muuuuuuuum, I waaaaana Bertie Beetle!"
"They don't exist here, so SHUTUP or i'll really give you something to cry about."
"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum, I waaaaaaannaaaa Bertie Beeetle!"
"Fine then........ chances are you're going to grow up in abstract poverty and probably end up as slave labour for Western interests."
"Sniff, Sniff..... waaaaaaaaaahhh!"
"There see, I told you I'd give you something to cry about!"

There's an especially insidious form of slavery that is becoming common here;
prostítution. The gubberment takes a pretty strong stance against it. Firstly prostítution is illegal & secondly it is illegal for a Vietnamese woman to enter a hotel room with a foreign man. These are both punishable by deportation for the foreigner, and a hellish 3-8 year jail term for the girl. Personally I think
it would be far more appropriate if the punishments were reversed. She should get the free ticket out of Vietnam, and he should be thrown in the hole! Tell me that doesn't make more sense!
Despite the gubberments strong stance it's pretty evident off the streets and in the bars. The city is awash with young, YOUNG, looking girls being groped and rubbed by leering, dunken fat, old white men, licking their lips and working themselves into a hormanal frenzy. It's these belching, druelling, gyrating
flacid hulks of flesh that are the really ugly side of Ho Chi Minh City.

"But hey, you know.... like.... , the money they get for it buys them food and a home." Bullshit! Spare us the false fuckin sentimentality, if you're that much of a bleeding heart, give'em your fuckin money no strings attatched. The sex slave industry is now the world's largest form of slavery (27 million and
counting) on the scale and size that makes the slave labour economy of the past 400 years look like a lamington drive. Young girls and boys are lured from the country with the prospects of employment, then sold to pimps. Most commonly they are 'broken in' a.k.a. gang raped then drugged. The main purpose of which is
demoralisation. From then on it's equal parts opium addiction and physical violence that keeps them working. Women are forced to work even when pregnant,and once the child is born, it becomes the property of the employer as payment,for the debt incurred by her lack of working while in the final stages of pregnancy. From here the child is either kept or sold to another slave trader.
The child then incurs the debt, and spends the rest of his/her life paying off his/her debt while perpetually being bought and sold. Often these debts are over $3000 US, which means of course he/she will never pay it off.
So knowing this and then seeing these pot-bellied sleezeballs so happy with themselves it can make your blood boil, and if I wasn't so committed to the idea that violence only breeds more violence, I'd ice-pick the spines of every last
one of these muthafuckers! Then deliver these rapists with passports to the slums to meet their revenge. This is why Bali happened, people sick of being fucked. All it needed was spark and religious fundamentalism to fit the bill. Undoubtedly in the eyes of some, Bali was just a slap on the wrist, if they were
playing an eye-for -an-eye we'd all have lost a close friend.

Hmmmmmm.............. seems we've touched a nerve. Time for a hot chocy and some Thorazine injected straight to the temple. Mmmmmmmmmmm Thorazine. Talking about pharmaceuticals, they're pretty lax about self medication here. All for
sale, no prescriptions neccesary; Valium, Barbituates, Benzo diazapene, Dex amphetamine, Pseudoephedrine, beta blockers, and Viagra. Meaning that if one were so inclined you could be; swimming in cotton wool, while feeling detatched from your senses, wired for sound, euphoric, fearless, and hard as a rock for a couple of hours. All of it climaxing in a mixture of massive heart failure, neural meltdown and exploding nether regions. It'd make for one hell of a coroner's report!

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20/01/04 4pm HCMC
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Well I'm not working at the moment thanks to the lunar new year holidays, which means I'm five fifths broke during the entire country's biggest celebration. A week where the whole city goes ape-shit.
The streets are all decorated and the city parks are teeming with people buying softserve icecream and looking at the 100,000's of bonsai's on display. The downside to all this is that when half the people of Ho Chi Minh City's total
population of 8 million hops on thir scooter the pollution gets chronic. Normally when I arrive home at night I can feel the layer of scunge on my skin,a tasty cocktail of sweat and petrochemicals. When riding in traffic you have to wear glasses, without them you soon end up with stinging, bloodshot eyeballs, as
countless little flecks of dust and tyre rubber cling to them. Many motorists wear SARS masks as the air tightens your lungs as well, and as your body does its best to reject these materials it causes you to be coughing up disturbing dark imitation oysters. Fortunately spitting in public is perfectly acceptable.
Every few minutes you hear.. 'Hwaaaaark thoo! As some darling old Nanna launches one onto the footpath , next to the guy taking a leak on the wall. It seems that Vietnam never inherited the hang-ups over bodily processes that we in the West have. One of the first pieces of advice I received when I arrived was to "be
prepared for the fact that you can be half way through talking to someone and they'll just start picking their nose!" Ha! I've spent five years in houses with guys, picking my nose isn't just a habit, it's a sport. The best scene I've seen so far is a beautiful girl in a traditional Ao Dai, a long full length silk
dress, the most elegant garment I've ever seen. She is the picture of elegance and beauty as she rides past on her pushbike. Then she simply tilts her head to the side and lets a massive teardrop shaped lugey dangle from the corner of her mouth, before it breaks away and hits the bitumen beneath her. She dabs the
corner of her mouth with her finger and continues on unphased, without any loss of dignity. Classic.
The consequence of this freedom of body fluids is that in combination with the rubbish, pollution and tropical heat, the city smells a bit like a nightclub toilet. A little bit spicey, a little bit smokey, a little bit sickly sweet. What really concerns me is that I don't notice it anymore. Which possibly means I smell like it too now. . I can't to see what summer does to this stench, 35ºC, 110% humidity, and flooded sewers. Mmmmmmm what a recipe. I'm off to buy a SARS mask.

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22/01/04 11.00am HCMC
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Within four days a temendous mark in human achievement will be reached, a second state-of-the-art robot will land on Mars, and begin to answer the question we've all be asking each other: Are we alone? The news of this has fillled me with hope and pride for humanity, so much so that I decided that on
the cusp of this lunar new year, I would ask some of the people of Ho Chi Minh City if they too shared my excitement.
First contender, the saleswoman in Sapa fine silks store.
Me: "Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy new year)"
Saleslady: "Chuc Mung Nam Moi"
M: "It is going to be a good year, yes?"
SL: "Yes, good year, lucky year for Vietnam"
M: "Yes, a lucky year for our whole planet, and another I think"
SL: "???"
M: "Have you heard the news? A Mars rover has successfully landed on the red planet and another will land this Sunday. We humans are striving forward into the Universe and making our claim as a truely accomplished civilisation. Doesn't it make you want to just jump for joy!"
SL: "???...............You buy silk?....... very good, very cheap........you buy?"
M: "Think about it........ we've put a robot on Mars! Have you seen the photo's. All those red rocks as far as the robotic eye can see. How fascinating. And after the second robot lands we will have twice as many pictures of red rocks!"
SL: "No understand? I only have silk. You buy? ......very good, very cheap"

Perhaps she's more of the homely type and extraterrestrial exploration doesn't flick her switch. I know, I'll ask a person who isn't so homely. That homeless beggar looks like the perfect candidate.

"Chuc Mung Nam Moi"
He supports his upper body on the ground using his arms, as his legs are of little use. Paralysed from the waist down they are withered and thin to the bone, covered in ulcers and abrasions. Flies buzz around the cracks between his toes. Both legs are turned outwards and trail behind him as he shuffles
forwards. He looks up and reaches out with one hand and says: "Please".
"Pleased? I sure am, we're going to Mars, are you excited?"
"Please"
"You're pleased? That's great to hear, they called the first Mars lander,
Spirit. Isn't that a super name? How apt. Yes, Spirit has left Earth, and now calls Mars home. It's poetic don't you think?"
"Hungry"
"Hungry, Yeah I bet you are................... HUNGRY FOR MORE INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL! Well your prayers have been answered. The second NASA robot will land this Sunday. Yes 'Opportunity' is on its way to Mars as we speak. Yes we made 'Opportunity' here on Earth, then strapped some rockets to it and sent it hurtling into space, some 3.5 million miles away. I'm so proud of us humans.
Don't you agree? I sure hope it's a success, I'm sure you've been praying for 'opportunity' too."
"Please"
"Pleased... well I think we all are really. And you'll be extra pleased to know how easy it is on our pockets. Only 456 million dollars, why thats almost half of what the last mission to Mars cost. Aren't those NASA boffins resourceful!"
"Hungry"
"You want more?... Well there's plenty more where that came from friend. Our ol' buddy Bush has just announced that by 2020 we'll have a colony on the moon! And by 2040 there'll be a colony on Mars! Is there no end to our genius? Think about it..... if you were a beggar on Mars, your life would be so much easier, since
having only one third the gravity of Earth, those limp little legs of yours wouldn't be nearly as cumbersome, and there's ice at the poles which means you could be drinking pristine martian water. No more dysentery causing gutterwater for you my friend. No sir, you'd be living the good life on Mars, and all for a
bargain price of 130-250 billion dollars."
"Help"
"Sure you can help, but you're already doing more than enough buddy, thanks to the Word Bank and International Monetary Fund loans to Vietnam, the debt your country has inccured along with every other 2nd and 3rd world country, means that until you pay off the debt, global corporations have priority to your
country's resources, which of course is funnelled to the bank coughers of big business and the country's they call home, like America. There all that money works hard on making those country's rich enough to make such dreams as space travel a reality. And it's all taken care of for us by the gubberment, so we're not distracted from all the cool things we can do in our day to day lives, like; making silk, begging, and watching Julio Inglesias specials on MTV, and robots landing on Mars on CNN. How remarkable. Well I must say its been great to meet such an optimistic man such as yourself, especially one who is able to
appreciate the bigger picture. Chuc Mung Nam Moi"

So there you have it guys, Vietnam a land whose people share our planets grand vision; To get the fuck off this rock.

ET phoning home.