Three weeks ago, I introduced you to Dzuy, my next door neighbor at DC Homestay. Though Dzuy said he had rented his room primarily for a Germany-based nephew, I’ve not seen this young man. His wife, also living in Deutschland, has shown up, however. They seem close when together.
On a quiet, side street, DC Homestay has a garden and swimming pool. In this oasis, Dzuy spends nearly all his waking hours, so it is a staycation, as paid for, I suspect, by his far-flung relatives. This 65-year-old does not work.
The street life that feeds and cheers me Dzuy stays away from, for he’s gotten tired of it. He’s never experienced anything but. With its statues, murals, posters and cutesy English on walls, DC Homestay evokes enough of the West for the homebound Dzuy. He’s never been to Cambodia, much less Germany.
Formerly a math teacher, Dzuy also knows enough poetry to accurately quote Phan Khôi (1887-1959), Vũ Đình Liên (1913-1996) and Bùi Giáng (1926-1998), etc. He also dug up the 8th century Chinese Wang Han, but misattributed his lines to the much more famous Li Bai. You ain’t gonna pull that shit past me, hustler! Wang Han has just one poem, a quatrain, in Sun Zhu’s immortal 1763 anthology, Three Hundred Tang Poems. No man can consider himself civilized, or just a passable biped, if he hasn’t memorized them all.
I’ve sketched Dzuy so you’d have some idea of who’s behind these assertions below.
Of Vietnam, Dzuy claimed it’s one of the poorest countries on earth, “It’s ranked 176 out of 200!”
“That’s obviously not true! Just in this region, we’re doing better than Laos and Cambodia, and the Philippines, too, I think. If not, we’re close.”
“We’re not doing better than Laos.”
“I just spent six months over there! They’re poorer.”
“Then why do Vietnamese go there to work?”
“So what?! Chinese are in Africa. That doesn’t mean China is poorer than Africa.”
Dzuy also dismissed my observation that most of Sub-Saharan Africa is poorer than Vietnam. Hell, even China’s rise is illusory.
“They steal technology, make junk no one wants to buy and erect buildings that crumble!”
“In Laos, China just finished a rail system that’s superior to anything in the USA.”
“Impossible!”
“In Indonesia, Chinese built trains are twice as fast those in the USA.”
Dzuy shot me a look of disgust tinted with anger, “Nonsense!”
“So China has made no progress?”
“It’s an illusion. It will disappear. People who go there are shocked by how poor they are. China is like this puffed up pastry. There’s nothing inside!”
“They have enough money to flood over here as tourists.”
“So what? Even some Vietnamese go places.”
“So who’s doing well?”
“America!”
“What about Russia?”
The word alone made Dzuy glower, “Russia is so backward, uses 1980’s technology and can’t even beat Ukraine!”
“So they’re losing that war?”
“Of course!”
To Dzuy, Russia is just a thinly disguised Soviet Union,headed by a KGB goon, Putin. Together with China, it will collapse soon enough. The future is in the West.
“Russia is so far behind! They’re Vikings! Pirates!”
I didn’t bother to correct him. As for Americans living in tents and under bridges, they’re just drug addicts or lazy.
“The US is humane and tries to help everyone, but some people just can’t be helped.”
“Did the USA help Afghanistan, or did it make money then run?”
To this, Dzuy could only mumble, “That situation was complicated. Afghanistan was part of the Silk Road…”
“Didn’t the USA abandon South Vietnam?”
“No, that was our fault.”
“Didn’t it kill Ngo Dinh Diem? They propped him up, then killed him.”
“What are you basing that on?”
“It’s a fact. During the war against the French, Diem lived in New Jersey. As for the coup, our generals wouldn’t have dared to stage it without American approval. They did pay for everything.”
Kissinger himself said, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
With Uncle Sam, it’s always about political expediency and raking it in, so he could be, in quick succession, Stalin’s ally, top crusader against Communism, business partner with Communist China, supporter of the Khmer Rouge at the United Nations and, now, container of those pesky Chicom upstarts. Beaming American presidents have also posed in front of a giant Ho Chi Minh bust in Hanoi. In grim Walter Reed Hospital in DC, brain damaged, amputated or castrated Vietnam vets could witness this heart warming “reconciliation” on TV.
Though my conversation with Dzuy went nowhere, I’m glad to have heard him speak so candidly. Everywhere I go, people do this. It’s not a perfect analogy, but any young blonde sexily dressed can expect similar reactions worldwide. If I had chest hair, I would flaunt them most shamelessly. Weaving them into a rope, I’d lash you across the face.
Most shameful, though, is Elon Musk’s recent conversation with Ben Shapiro. After visiting Auschwitz, Musk groveled at Jewish feet most shamelessly. Prompted by his icky host, Musk characterized demonstrations against the ongoing genocide in Gaza as “pro Hamas rallies.” That these in “vast numbers” have taken place “in almost every major city in the West blew [his] mind.” Most appalling are those erupting on top college campuses, “If you’re an elite college campus, you’re supposed to be enlightened, you’re not supposed to be fostering hate.”
Only Jews are fostering hate, Elon. Palestinians just want to live normally on their ancestral land, an impossibility since European Jews have moved in to rob, terrorize, maim or murder them.
The only genocide Musk sees, though, is the hallowed Holocaust, whose fantastic evidence can’t be disputed. History must be endlessly reexamined. Musk said he had seen videos of Hamas atrocities on 10/3/23, but Jews themselves have talked about being mowed down by Jews that day. As for babies being decapitated, that simply didn’t happen, so why did Musk lament the “delight in killing kids and defenseless women and men [by Hamas] There was no remorse, quite the opposite.”
No Hamas or Nazis ever filmed themselves gleefully killing children. Only Jews have done that, and of themselves urinating on corpses. Jewish civilians go on TikTok to mock the massacre of innocent Palestinians. Jewish kids sing of wiping them out. Again, Jews use distant or trumped up genocides to justify current and future genocides. Fixated on group guilt, that’s Jewish thinking for you. Jews are fueled by genocide. To ready his soldiers for genocide, Netanyahu said, “Remember what Amalek has done to you.”
Isn’t it bizarre that nerdy, slightly goofy or even awe shucks tone and demeanor of guys like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk? Though among the most powerful, they come off as boyish, thus more relatable. Woody Allen showed them how.
Musk confessed, “Two-thirds of my friends are Jewish, OK. Ha, ha, ha! I have twice as many Jewish friends as non-jewish friends. I’m like Jewish by association. I’m aspiration Jewish.” Maybe Elon was just auditioning for a sequel to Deep Throat.
While Dzuy’s distortions are earnest, Musk’s must be lies, for no man that saavy could utter such bullshit with sincerity. Even with a European Jewish Association audience, some must have cringed.
To remain kosher, you must speak nonsense with a straight face. Millions of politicians, journalists, professors and doctors have mastered this requirement. In many countries, even drunk garbagemen must curb their babbling, lest they get buried in a landfill.
Since returning to Vung Tau, I’ve seen clear signs of an economy in distress. Compared to late 2022, itinerant sellers of lottery tickets are much more numerous. Many are rail thin with sorrowful faces, for it’s disheartening, if not dehumanizing, to pester strangers constantly.
On this Friday evening, I’m sitting at Friendly Library. For two hours, I’ve been the only customer. Last week, a bargirl from Honey Lips popped in. For five straight evenings, they had not a single patron. As music thumped and screamed, the four resident whores perched on high stools just stared at each other.
The bargirl, Chi, is already 45-years-old. Some German once promised to marry her. At least Chi has a house inherited from her parents. Without kids, she has just one growling stomach to appease. In a dark garden, Dzuy sits alone, dreaming.
In the park outside, ten women, many in skirts, are dancing to cha-cha-cha. One scrawny man has decided to join them, and why not? “Those who were strange born, those who’ll die tomorrow, dance here today,” Stanley Kunnitz wrote.
As stoic as any, Vietnamese will keep dancing, and they’ll laugh, too, though some will rob or even kill, to feed their children or pay off debts. There’s nothing they haven’t seen. I trust there won’t be corpses washed back onto beaches. To escape to the West will be pointless.
2 comments:
"To escape to the West will be pointless." Why would they want to escape from their own country?
"Why would they want to escape from their own country?"
To survive.
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