Rainy Evening

I've been walking in the rain--I attempt to walk on the sidewalks--which like many places in Asia really aren't sidewalks (they are motorcycle parks, food vendor territory, and places for people to sit and socialize). I just came back from a coffee shop. I found a nice chair there near a window to read. It's a good life.

Yet the day was not without its troubles. Actually the trouble was somewhat amusing if not tragic. The trouble was my tour guide. (I went on a tour of a place where the Viet Cong used to hide in tunnels.) The tour guide was this man who was a peculiar mix of anger, bravado, and brokenness. His tour consisted of a recounting of the history of wars in Vietnam (starting with the French in the 1800s) and his own life story (a playboy father who abandoned him, years spent in reeducation camps because he fought with the Americans, famous people he hob-knobbed with.) He knew so many famous people and he had been at so many famous moments in Vietnamese recent history that his story had a Forest Gumpian fictional feel to it. He also hated everyone and everything. He hated the Americans for coming and he hated them for leaving. He hated his life. And he hated tourists. (Yes, he told us two times--maybe three--that the Communists ruined his life because they wouldn't let him do any job but be a tour guide and that he hated tourists because they were arrogant and cheap.)

Despite his hatred for us he really liked to talk and talk. At times he could be interesting and he had a natural flair for teaching as well as occasional humor that showed through all his anger.
But overall I had the impression that he would be the kind of man that would go to a bar, drink all night, and corner anyone to hear his story. Sometimes I simply couldn't bear listening to him anymore and I would simply look out the bus window and observe the green green fields that we were driving past. I felt much pity for him and wished there was something I could do for him, some kindness that I could show him, but I could think of nothing. After the tour was over I tried to shake off the sadness that soaked into my skin from it. (It's hard to explain but I often feel unprotected from other people's emotions.)

The bright part of my day came from two Singaporeans befriended me on the tour. They bought me a Coke, took pictures with me, and even worried out loud if I was surviving under our tour guides hail of anti-American comments. I laughed and said, "Well, what was I to expect?"