An Afternoon on Asphalt Street

I slept-in because I didn’t have to work. Cuckoo chimes and on goes the boob-tube to Air Guitar Nation, a documentary film about the 2003 US and World Air Guitar competitions. I watched as I washed my clothes in a tub and thought that air guitar would be an excellent TPR (Total Physical Response) lesson for an EFL class (more on that later). Get dressed and head downstairs to pay the rent. I wave my ATM card at Ms. Happy English learner, head across the street to withdraw some notes and hand her what’s due. However, one of the 500,000 dong notes has a half-square i.e. “]” taken out of one side. She’s so young and cute as she holds it. I grimace because in Vietnam any non-pristine bill 10,000 or over can be easily rejected. Though these notes are printed in Australia, they’re not particularly hardy. She smiles and proceeds to take out a pair of scissors to cut off the damaged wing. Before she does, I yelp “No, don’t do that.” She shrugs, smiles again and puts it into the drawer. I head outside to the café and order a Càphê đã. The Càphê đã (iced coffee) is too strong for my stomach so I dilute it with a bit of water and have a smoke while watching the steady stream of traffic whisk by on Cong Hòa Street. On Monday and Tuesday mornings you can usually see plenty of tourist buses heading into town from Cambodia and vice-versa, but it's just before noon and the lunch- hour people are rushing about on their motorbikes. I pay 8,000 dong for the drink and head down the asphalt to the corner pharmacy to get an ointment for a slight rash on my neck and some iron tablets, because sometimes the heat makes you feel as though you’re anemic.

***

I’ve been in this neighborhood for about a month now and I’m no longer cause-celeb. Luckily, for me the pharmacist understands my request and places a multi-vitamin packet and a tube of Flucinar -for the rash-, on the counter for 61,000 VND. I pay and meander over to the Internet Café to check out the latest on the Net. “Hai Chin”, the man says. I sit down at number 29 next to the cigarette smoking teenager and double-click. Surf…ing…Oh dear me, the Detroit Lions have lost their 15^th to the Saints. Ironically enough if they win their last game, they’ll tie the Saints’ 1980 record (1-15) as the losingest team in a season. Or they’ll achieve the dubious honor of being THE LOSINGEST NFL TEAM IN HISTORY at 0-16. All I want for Christmas is new ownership for the Lions. I’m itchy. I take out my tube of ointment and apply some. Flucinar has a Warning! on a medical website: “ Do not use the medication in larger amounts or for longer than recommended. Topical steroid medicine can be absorbed through the skin, which may cause steroid side effects throughout the body.” Mmm…Hey maybe I can go back for another round of lucid dreaming and wake up a bodybuilder. But, then again, I’d watched another documentary “I Love English” on the Discovery channel the other night and had a dream that I was teaching a thousand students without a microphone and the chalk kept getting wet and wouldn’t work on a whiteboard? because it was raining in the outdoor auditorium. Nonsensical??? Time for the couch or to lay off the mixed-meat package they sell at the Co-op. Anyhow, yesterday night Vietnam beat Singapore in footie to reach the finals in theAFF Suzuki Cup 2008 and needless-to-say the locals were glued to their TV sets in all the coffeeshops, shophouses and garment shops that line the street. It’s quite interesting to see people so adept with sew-machines that can excitedly watch a match whilst simultaneously stitch away. The net’s filled with doom and gloom. At least I learned from watching the BBC Nobel roundtable the other day, that if you shake a jellyfish really fast, you can make them glow. It’s true! A Nobel prize-winning scientist said so! Krugman said something as well, but his sips of water were a bit distracting. Quite angst, I pull away from my halo of secondhand smoke and head to lunch.

***

Lunch is back down the asphalt to a small restaurant, I order Bo Xao Thap Cam (a stir-fry veggie and beef with rice dish). The waitress lingers over my shoulder. She sits and we share a laugh. I order a 333 bia and wrap my mitt around a cold can of full-bodied 333 (ba ba ba in Vietnamese): 330ml can, 5.3% alcohol in VN, ingredients are H2O, malt, rice, and houblon (hops) and runs about 10-19,000 VND depending upon the venue. Finish the delicious meal, pay 33,000 dong for it, and the three new Vietnamese words I learned, and head over to the Stonehouse (a sidewalk café I dubbed the “Stonehouse” because of its façade and well big...Big like a fortress. I have another 333 with da and watch Lan as he plays Chinese checkers. He stops and talks about the betting prospects on the Vietnam-Thailand finals. I smoke a Jet cigarette as I listen to him and the real jets take-off from Tan Son Nhat Airport behind us. The ever-so-kind grandmother hands me another can of 333 with another glass of ice. I melt away. 15 minutes later, I’m back home at watching another documentary on the Discovery. This one’s Long Journey Short Reunion it’s as the docu puts it “is a story of South Korean families who will go to incredible extremes to meet each other. Desperate to see their long lost relatives, they attempt a dangerous pilgrimage to the border between North Korea and China where they have just one chance to make contact with their loved ones.” It’s quite sad. I lived in Seoul for 3 ½ years, so it keeps getting sadder. I put on my sneakers and head back to the Stonehouse because it’s Christmas-time and I don’t feel like waiting for the superlative of sad to end my afternoon.