My OperaOn arriving home
Saturday, May 31, 2008 12:02:23 PM
These people, these glasses, these songs - they somewhat resemble the image I have had of this live music café since the last time I came. But the feel has changed, and that bothers me. I cannot find myself; and the person I was before suddenly becomes a mystery. What was she thinking, feeling, when she was sitting here, staring at the stage - was she tapping with the beats, or mentally playing along with the drum part like what I'm doing now? Time seems to have halted somewhere long ago. I could sense their immobility when sitting behind my sister on her electric bike, looking at the sides, feeling like Caufield inside the museum where everything remained simple and unchanged - except for the observer. A frozen, unchanged complexity. This is where I come from, but now I don't belong to it.
That inflexibility makes me feel like a different person.
Well, I might be a different person from the last time I was here last year, and from the last time I spent in Jazz Cafe in Costa Rica. The change to the latter happened in just one long day. Just yesterday, when driving home from HCMC, we stopped at Long Khanh to buy some durians. Mom kept on bargaining with an unpleasant, unwelcoming face, scorning the fruit - not for the sake of truth which needed to be told, but out of self benefits. The woman - the seller - consistently refused mom's request to open up the durian with the repeating argument that Long Khanh durian sellers had their pride on their products and would never trick their buyers with something inferior. Another durian seller, from Hue, strolled by us and stopped to show what he had. Despite our unhidden lack of interest, he stood blocking our car's door, wouldn't let go, steady decreased the price until he decided just to give us one for free. "You know," he said "everyone living in life has to have a heart to other people".
"Yes, right, right..." answered dad reluctantly.
"We from Hue," the peddler went on "never cheat anyone. Dare you say we do?"
"Look, we never said that. We just don't want to buy any more durian." And by that we managed to leave.
Suddenly now, in my own room up on the third floor, I have all the privacy and aloneness in the world but much less autonomy; suddenly I was reminded that sometimes life is so complicated, not in an intellectual or philosophical way, that integrity becomes a luxury - something which people fool strangers that they have but teach their children not to abide if they want to be survivors. People grow up being clichés and identically aggressive without noticing it. I had never thought about all those things this way before.
The lighting in the café reminds me of the nightclub in Tamarindo, at Chaseten's wedding. I was sitting away from the dancing crowd, next to Ken, whom I told that I had been a bad daughter. "Why, I don't think so, you got into MIT and your parents must be very proud of that." He said.
"That has nothing to do with being a good or bad daughter."
"Is it?"
I shook my head. I wasn't too surprised by what Ken said - in spite of his ages, he was raised up in a Western point of view, where some values different from mine are used to measure the quality of relationships. But it really bothered me that one of my Vietnamese friend - the only person I asked - thought the same thing. I cannot understand that; and I'm not sure since when I have been always taking it for granted that academic achievements don't say anything about how good a child you are. I thought that it was a crystal clear and logical notion that almost everyone, if not all, had. It seems like I have mistaken. But still, I cannot understand and for me there's just no connection between which school you go to and how treat your parents. No correlation, thus no exception.
Talking about Ken again reminds me of one evening when Atalya told him (and QQ and me) that her not doing her homework or preparing for exams was not a lack of respect for the teacher - as Mr. Villarino usually put it - but a personal choice based on the matter of priorities, or in other words, studying was just not her first priority there. When I think about it, the "Occupation" field on custom forms always comes back to me - and I disagree. One can only talk about priority when he has the choice to do or not to do it; and for students, studying is not to be ranked in priority order - it is a duty. Students would say "Student" when asked about their occupations, just as teachers "Teacher", doctors "Doctor, businessmen "Business", housewives "Housewife". It is the students' occupation in the society, something they have committed themselves to as their duty, and thus, it becomes a matter of doing all what they have to do when they have they have to do it, than a matter of preference. I'm saying this because joining education is optional - although taking advantage of this optional-ness is strongly discouraged and preference to it is often not affordable. So if someone chooses to get an education and does get it, for me it's been always his duty to fulfill all he's expected to do - the way a doctor is not supposed to say "no" when a patient knocks on his door, or a teacher when his students request a tutorial. And, it's also a matter of gratitude.
That leads me to think about the talk that shifted my decision and the next 4 years. Life, college, career - it's not a race, you know. But this is an education that I chose to strive for and did get it. Once I finish my drink, stand up and walk out, I'll be looking into this spaceless society again and trying to break this timelessness - for me it's a duty, and more than that, a duty that I enjoy fulfilling.
That inflexibility makes me feel like a different person.
Well, I might be a different person from the last time I was here last year, and from the last time I spent in Jazz Cafe in Costa Rica. The change to the latter happened in just one long day. Just yesterday, when driving home from HCMC, we stopped at Long Khanh to buy some durians. Mom kept on bargaining with an unpleasant, unwelcoming face, scorning the fruit - not for the sake of truth which needed to be told, but out of self benefits. The woman - the seller - consistently refused mom's request to open up the durian with the repeating argument that Long Khanh durian sellers had their pride on their products and would never trick their buyers with something inferior. Another durian seller, from Hue, strolled by us and stopped to show what he had. Despite our unhidden lack of interest, he stood blocking our car's door, wouldn't let go, steady decreased the price until he decided just to give us one for free. "You know," he said "everyone living in life has to have a heart to other people".
"Yes, right, right..." answered dad reluctantly.
"We from Hue," the peddler went on "never cheat anyone. Dare you say we do?"
"Look, we never said that. We just don't want to buy any more durian." And by that we managed to leave.
Suddenly now, in my own room up on the third floor, I have all the privacy and aloneness in the world but much less autonomy; suddenly I was reminded that sometimes life is so complicated, not in an intellectual or philosophical way, that integrity becomes a luxury - something which people fool strangers that they have but teach their children not to abide if they want to be survivors. People grow up being clichés and identically aggressive without noticing it. I had never thought about all those things this way before.
The lighting in the café reminds me of the nightclub in Tamarindo, at Chaseten's wedding. I was sitting away from the dancing crowd, next to Ken, whom I told that I had been a bad daughter. "Why, I don't think so, you got into MIT and your parents must be very proud of that." He said.
"That has nothing to do with being a good or bad daughter."
"Is it?"
I shook my head. I wasn't too surprised by what Ken said - in spite of his ages, he was raised up in a Western point of view, where some values different from mine are used to measure the quality of relationships. But it really bothered me that one of my Vietnamese friend - the only person I asked - thought the same thing. I cannot understand that; and I'm not sure since when I have been always taking it for granted that academic achievements don't say anything about how good a child you are. I thought that it was a crystal clear and logical notion that almost everyone, if not all, had. It seems like I have mistaken. But still, I cannot understand and for me there's just no connection between which school you go to and how treat your parents. No correlation, thus no exception.
Talking about Ken again reminds me of one evening when Atalya told him (and QQ and me) that her not doing her homework or preparing for exams was not a lack of respect for the teacher - as Mr. Villarino usually put it - but a personal choice based on the matter of priorities, or in other words, studying was just not her first priority there. When I think about it, the "Occupation" field on custom forms always comes back to me - and I disagree. One can only talk about priority when he has the choice to do or not to do it; and for students, studying is not to be ranked in priority order - it is a duty. Students would say "Student" when asked about their occupations, just as teachers "Teacher", doctors "Doctor, businessmen "Business", housewives "Housewife". It is the students' occupation in the society, something they have committed themselves to as their duty, and thus, it becomes a matter of doing all what they have to do when they have they have to do it, than a matter of preference. I'm saying this because joining education is optional - although taking advantage of this optional-ness is strongly discouraged and preference to it is often not affordable. So if someone chooses to get an education and does get it, for me it's been always his duty to fulfill all he's expected to do - the way a doctor is not supposed to say "no" when a patient knocks on his door, or a teacher when his students request a tutorial. And, it's also a matter of gratitude.
That leads me to think about the talk that shifted my decision and the next 4 years. Life, college, career - it's not a race, you know. But this is an education that I chose to strive for and did get it. Once I finish my drink, stand up and walk out, I'll be looking into this spaceless society again and trying to break this timelessness - for me it's a duty, and more than that, a duty that I enjoy fulfilling.
