Children's Laughter

As published at SubStack, 6/20/23:

[Pakse, Laos on 6/20/23]

“It began in the midst of children’s laughter, with their laughter it will end.”—Rimbaud

On my last day in Pakse, I had to go to the bank, so I walked by Ban Thong Elementary School during the recess. There is nothing more delightful than watching children playing.

Of course, I’m fully aware of all the evils tainting childhood, from within and without, for we are a mournfully sick species, and unspeakably ugly, often. That’s why beauty matters, for it’s a glimpse of transcendence. We’re not just vain shit.

Seeing those angelic children made me think of my one fictional account of childhood, in a story, “Dead on Arrival.” I’m posting it at the end of this article. If you don’t care for fiction, just skip it, obviously.

I published my first book as the editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996). I also translated half those stories. My next publication was a poetry chapbook, Drunkard Boxing (1998), then came a collection of my own stories, Fake House (2000), which includes “Dead on Arrival.”

I’m a self-taught writer. My first ambition was to become an oil painter. In art school, I did read, mostly on my own, Kundera, Kafka, Borges, Gide, Gorky, Rabelais, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Büchner, Weil, Milosz, Whitman, Carver, O’Connor and Hemingway, etc. Dropping out of college, I immediately devoured Céline’s Death on the Installment Plan and Journey to the End of the Night. That binge nearly killed me.

Any great writer contains something like the universe, supposedly, but in truth, all of writing in all languages, including every lost text, don’t amount to a speck of dust in the stinkiest and dankest corner of the universe. Further, one can make a very strong, if not unimpeachable, case that we’re only in the prehistory of writing, thus of thinking. Like some basement-bound retard who is whacked on the head repeatedly, we can’t answer the simplest questions, not even, “Who the fuck are you?”

“I go by he, she and it. I have an 18-inch dick, I think, on top of a vagina the size of the Grand Canyon. Though an atheist, I believe God is transitioning. (Ze’s already queer.) The blacker your life, the more it matters, so please kill me.”

The tiniest writers, then, can only portray, and praise, themselves. That said, any artist must use himself as a primary source, for he’s permanently shackled to this insufferably garrulous shadow, way past the point of nausea. Knowing this nuisance so well, he might as well dissect it, most objectively.

The narrator in “Dead on Arrival” is about ten-years-old. The setting is Saigon around 1973.

*

*

Dead on Arrival

I cannot wait to tuck an M-16 under my arm and pump a clip into the bodies of my enemies. I can see them falling backward, in slow motion, leaping up a little, from the force of my bullets. Die, Commies, die! Each day I stare at them in the newspaper, lined up in neat rows, some with their clothes blown off, their arms and legs bent at odd angles. I look at their exposed crotches, at their bare feet. (I cannot help myself: If I see a picture of a near-naked person, I look at the crotch first, then the face, if I look at the face.) Their captured weapons are also lined up in neat rows. Our soldiers can be seen standing in the background, neatly dressed, with their boots on. I cannot wait to get me a pair of black boots. Our national anthem begins like this:

Citizens, it’s time to liberate the country!

Let’s go and sacrifice our lives, with no regrets …

I’m willing to sacrifice my life and limbs for freedom and democracy.

*

My father is a police colonel. He answers only to Mr. Thieu, our president, and Mr. Ky, our vice president, and Mr. Khiem, our prime minister, and Mr. Loan, his boss. (Yes, that Mr. Loan, the general who shot a Vietcong on TV. The Vietcong was an assassin who had killed many people that day. He was wearing a plaid shirt, a “caro” shirt.) Mr. Loan is very famous, a celebrity in America and in Europe. It’s something to be proud of, having a father with a famous boss.

*

The Vietcong killed two of my uncles: Uncle Bao and Uncle Hiep. They killed my grandfather. That’s all they do. Kill! Kill! Kill! They’re born to kill. Mr. Thieu said, “Do not listen to what they say, but look at what they do.”

*

My father was born a peasant. He’s used to rustic ways. Although we have modern plumbing in our house, he routinely forgets to close the door when he sits on the toilet. If you walk into our house unannounced, you may catch him, just like that!, sitting on the toilet taking a dump with the door open.

*

My father encourages me to draw. He said, “Draw, Son, you’re good!” He gave me a big brown envelope and said, “Remember to save all your drawings.”

I would draw certain things over and over. A few months ago I drew tigers. I would draw a tiger over and over. Then I drew cowboys, a gunslinger wearing a plaid shirt (a “caro” shirt) and leather vest. Then I drew tanks, one tank after another. Lately I’ve been drawing ships.

There is a huge stranded ship in Vung Tau, with its prow stuck in the sand and its tail sticking out into the ocean. Inside this ship there must be thousands of fish that have swum in through the rusty gashes but are now stuck inside this huge stranded ship and cannot get out again.

*

Whenever I looked into the ocean, I would think, There, just beyond my sight, is America. If the earth wasn’t so round, I would be able to see it.

*

The earth is divided into twenty-four time zones.

If you go east, you lose time. If you go west, you gain time.

If you go far enough east, you lose a whole day. If you go far enough west, you gain a whole day.

If you go far enough west you will end up where you started and it will be yesterday.

*

We have several words for America. We call it “Flag with Flowers.” We call it “Beautiful Country.” We call it “Country with Many Races.”

*

So-called white Americans are really red (they look red). Black Americans are blue. Red Americans are yellow.

*

On Nguyen Hue Street is the tallest building in Saigon. I’ve seen it many times. I’d count: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve! That’s it: twelve! The tallest building in Vietnam has twelve stories.

*

I speak five languages. Aside from Vietnamese, I also speak French: “Foo? Shoo tit shoo? Le! La! Le! La!” Chinese: “Xi xoong! Xoong xi!” and English: “Well well?”

*

The hardest word to pronounce in the English language is the.

*
When people say “I’m buying a house,” what do they mean by that? I mean, what store is big enough to hold a bunch of houses? Or even just one house? And how are you going to take a house home with you after you’ve bought it?

*

Although a dragon only has four legs, sometimes, when I drew him, I’d give him two extra legs.

*

The three nos of Communism: No God! No Country! No Family!

*

As me and my father were entering a restaurant—a fancy Chinese place where we go to eat lacquered suckling pig and swallow’s nest soup—we saw my mother leaving with her new husband. I mean, as my father opened the glass door, we saw her standing right there, with her new husband.

*

There is a middle-aged Englishman in our neighborhood. He’s always walking around, stooping a little—when you are so tall, you should stoop a little—wearing a pale-blue cotton shirt (with four pockets), a pair of gray slacks, and carrying an old leather briefcase. He has deep-set hazel eyes and a nose like a shark’s fin. He’s married to a Chinese woman and cannot speak Vietnamese. Every time I saw him, I’d say, “Well well?”

*

If it weren’t for the Vietcong, we’d probably be shooting at the Chinese. There are many Chinese in my neighborhood. They have their own schools and like to play basketball. There is a song:

A Chinese asshole, it’s all one and the same.

The one who doesn’t clean his asshole,

We’ll kick back to China.

*

Chinese movies are the best. I like The Blind Swordsman. He’s blind and fights with a sword that’s more like a meat cleaver. It’s only half a sword really. It doesn’t matter: If you know what you’re doing, you can kill many people with only half a sword, even if you’re blind.

*

In one movie, Bruce Lee, “The Little Dragon,” fought a huge black man named Cream Java. I thought, This is not very realistic, is it? I mean, my man, Bruce Lee, can’t even reach this guy’s face to punch him in the face.

*

When I draw, I usually aim for absolute realism.

*

My favorite American movie is Planet of the Apes.

*

The best American band is called the Bee Gees. The second best American band is called the Beatles.

*

The “Country Homies,” the hicks, don’t listen to American music. They’re embarrassed by it. It frightens them. As soon as you push “play,” they become disoriented. These hicks, these “Country Homies,” only know how to listen to folk opera.

*

This is how you get a cricket to fight better. You pick him up by one of his whiskers, then you spin him around a bunch of times. This will make him “drunk.” You can also hold him inside your palms and blow into his face.

*

Some trees are so old that their branches sag and sag and sag until they reach the ground and become new trees. These new trees, in turn, also become so old that their branches sag and sag and sag until they reach the ground and become new trees. What you have, then, is an entire forest connected at the top, an upside-down forest, with the first tree in the middle.

*

Catholics are the best. All the important people are Catholic. The pope is Catholic. The president is Catholic. My father is Catholic. All the saints are Catholic.

*

There are many Buddhist kids in my school, which is a Catholic school. If their schools were any good, why would they go to a Catholic school?

*

What’s a buddha?

*

I go to Lasan Taberd, an all-boys school run by Jesuits near Notre Dame Cathedral and JFK Plaza. In the plaza there is a large plaster statue of the Virgin Mary holding a globe with a little cross sticking out of it.

*

Last week I accidentally dropped all my colored pencils on the floor and Frère Tuan, our teacher, whacked me on the head with a ruler.

*

I like Frère Tuan. He called me Dinh Bo Linh once in front of the whole class. (My name is Dinh Hoang Linh.)

*

Dinh Bo Linh ruled from A.D. 968 to 979. He was a village bully before he became a warlord, before he became the emperor. He was known as Dinh the Celestial King.

To the north was China—Sung Dynasty. To the south was Champas—savages.

In front of the palace was a vat of boiling oil. Criminals were thrown into this vat.

This is how he died: Do Thich, a mandarin, dreamed that a star fell into his mouth. He thought this meant that he would become the next emperor.

One night, as Dinh Bo Linh and his son, Dinh Lien, were passed out, drunk, in a courtyard, Do Thich slashed their throats.

As soldiers searched for him, Do Thich hid in the eaves of the house for three days until he became very thirsty and had to climb down for a drink of water.

A concubine saw him do this and went and told General Nguyen Bac, who had Do Thich executed. His corpse was then chopped into tiny pieces and fed to everyone in the capital.

The capital was Hoa Lu.

Everyone loved Dinh Bo Linh. There is a poem about Do Thich:

A frog at the edge of a pond,

Hankering for a star.

*

I told my best friend, Truong, this story, and he said, “Did they eat his hair too?”

“Probably not.”

“How about his bones?”

“Just the smaller bones.”

“How do you eat bones?”

“You chop them up real fine and cook them for twenty-four hours.”

Truong giggled. “How about his little birdie?”

“That they certainly ate.”

“You liar!”

*

Truong said, “A penis is so ugly to look at, so disgusting, so unnatural. Why do we have penises?”

I said, “They may be ugly, but women love to look at them.”

“No, they don’t!”

“They love to touch them too.”

“Who told you?!”

“They like to put it in their mouth!”

“You’re sick!”

“I know what I’m talking about.”

“Women are disgusted by the penis.”

“You’re an idiot.”

*

Truong sits behind me in class. One time he said, “You just farted, didn’t you?!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“How come I smelled it?!”

“I don’t care what you smelled. I didn’t feel it.”

*

One of the kids in my class has neither the middle nor ring finger on his left hand. No one really knows what happened. Someone said he picked up his father’s hand grenade and it blew his fingers off. Someone else said he lost his fingers in a motorcycle accident. Maybe he was just born that way. When we see him from afar—say, from across the schoolyard—we raise our fist, with index finger and pinkie upturned, to salute him.

*

There is another weird kid in my class. The skin on his face has the texture of bark and he cannot close his mouth properly. We call this kid “Planet of the Apes.”

*

The Americans have made a special bomb called “Palm.” It’s like a big vat of boiling oil that they pour from the sky.

*

At school, during recess, we divide ourselves into gangs and try to kill each other. I have perfected a move: I feign a right jab, spin 360 degrees, and hit my opponent’s face—surprise!—with the back of my left fist as it swings around—whack! So far I’ve connected with three of my enemies. I hit this one kid, Hung, so hard he fell backward and bounced his head on the ground—booink! Ha, ha! Blood was squirting out of his nose. He was taken by cyclo to the hospital, where he was pronounced Dead On Arrival.

Soon people will catch on to this move, which means that I will have to come up with another move.

*

It’s important to overcome one’s ignorance: Our cook, who’s illiterate, once told me that a person gains exactly one drop of blood per day from eating. “Otherwise,” she said, “where would all that blood go?”

She’s very stupid, this woman, although an excellent cook. She knows how to make an excellent omelet with ground pork, bean threads, and scallions. She smells like coconut milk. Every now and then I stand near her as she squats on the kitchen floor snapping watercress and peer into her blouse.

*

I walked into the dining room and saw Sister Lan—that’s the cook’s name—sitting by herself. She wiped her face with a hand towel and smiled at me. Her eyes were all red. I said, “You’re crying!”

“No! No! I’m not crying.”

“Your eyes are all red!”

“I was chopping onions!”

I ran out of the dining room, screaming, “Sister Lan is crying! Sister Lan is crying!”

I told my grandmother about it and she said, “She’s thinking about her boyfriend.”

*

Once the foreskin of my penis got caught in the zipper of my pants as I was dressing to go to church. I screamed, “Grandmother! Grandmother!” and my grandmother ran over and pulled the zipper down. That was twice as painful as having my dick caught in the first place.

*

My grandmother is a good Catholic. She paces back and forth in the living room, fingering her rosary while mumbling her prayer—hundreds of Our Fathers and thousands of Ave Marias—as fast as she can.

I only pray when I’ve lost something. Once I lost a comic book—my Tintin comic book—and God helped me to find it. I mean: He didn’t say, “There, there’s your comic book,” but as soon as I finished praying, I knew that my comic book was under a pile of newspapers in the living room.

My grandmother goes to church twice a day, once at five in the morning and once at three in the afternoon. Sometimes she makes me come along with her.

*

The worst part about going to church is having to hear the priest talk. You cannot follow him for more than a few seconds. It’s very hot in there. You look around and all the people are fanning themselves, some with their eyes closed.

Father Duong can go on and on and on: “Charity is the key, a camel cannot walk through it.… Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, forty she-asses and ten foals.… The Lord will give thee a trembling heart, the sole of your foot will not know rest.… And so many cows besides?”

*

A whale spat Jonah out into the desert. It was noon. The sun was blazing.

Jesus felt sorry for Jonah and gave him a gourd for shade.

Jonah slept under this shade.

When Jonah woke up, he was no longer in the shade because the sun had moved.

When Jonah became angry, Jesus said, “And so many cows besides?”

*

At the end of each sermon, Father Duong always says, “O Merciful Father, please bring peace to this wretched land.” That’s when you know it’s almost time to go home.

*

As Father Duong walks toward the door, he shakes a metal canister at everyone. That’s “holy water.”

*

My patron saint, Saint Martin de Porres, was a black man.

*

Many beggars stand by the door outside the church. Once I saw my grandmother put a 200-dong bill into a blind man’s upturned fedora, then fumble inside it for change totaling 150 dong.

*

I often think about getting married when I’m in church. About how I’ll have to walk down the aisle in front of everyone. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that. I mean, what if you trip and fall as you’re walking down the aisle?

*

To kiss a girl would be like eating ice cream. Her lips will be cold. Her teeth will be cold.

*

To kiss a girl would be like eating ice cream with strawberries, with the pips from the strawberries getting stuck between your teeth.

*

My father said, “Women are like monkeys. If you’re nice to them, they’ll climb all over you.”

*

There’s a saying: A French house, an American car, a Japanese wife, Chinese food.

*

My grandmother has told me this one story over and over (usually when we’re having fish for dinner): During the famine of 1940, when the Japanese invaded, the villagers in Bui Chu, her home village, would place a carved wooden fish on the dinner table at mealtime “so they could just stare at it.”

*

My grandmother is deaf in one ear because, as a little girl, she punctured an eardrum with a twig when an ant crawled inside her ear canal.

*

My grandmother said to me, “Are you going to be a priest when you grow up?”

*

My grandmother was trying to teach me how to tie my shoes. It’s the hardest thing in the world, tying your shoes. I could never figure it out. My father screamed, his face red, “You’re an idiot! An idiot!”

*

I would think about shooting my father, only to have to force myself to think, I do not want to shoot my father. Then I would think, once more, about shooting my father, only to have to force myself to think, again, I do not want to shoot my father.

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