Notes on Lao people picked up over the past two weeks

There’s nothing that Lao people love more than a good bit of slapstick. Sight gags and Charlie Chaplin will send each and every one of them, old or young, into apoplectic fits of giggles. People falling over, being slapped on the bum or shoved is just pure, gold-plated, champagne comedy.

I’ve come to realise here that laziness, or at least the word ‘lazy’, is a multi-faceted, multi-purpose concept. It’s a thought, an action, an emotion, a state of mind, a way of life:
“Why did I do this? Maybe I am lazy.”
“I am lazy to work today.”
“Be careful, or you will be lazy.”
“Today, I am lazy.”

The Lao love to play cards. It’s just the one game- I think it’s actually Vietnamese, but it can go on and on and on for nights and nights. They play with actual money, too. The Island won $100 the other night, although it took him from dusk til dawn.
Unfortunately, as I have pointed out elsewhere on this blog, I loathe cards to distraction, along with all other games. There’s nothing more mind-numbing to me. I can’t see why anyone would voluntarily play cards or board games unless they were holed up in a remote house where there was no TV, where it was raining, and where you’d run out of conversation with all the other people there.
But, cards: everyone here, young and old, loves them.

Postscript
Later in the week, I was sitting in the family living room, peering at a tiny object in the Island’s hand- his mother’s tooth. We flicked through hundreds of photos and watched a DVD of the funeral with his older sister, two older brothers and father. My sister was with me, and with the family we ate fresh, glistening duck’s blood soup- a crimson delicacy!- and watched the past week’s events unfold- again.
[I forgot to mention that bit, didn’t I? A guy with a camera and a professional photographer were on hand throughout to capture each day in minute detail.]
Naturally I stuck out like a retard throughout the whole thing, and not just because of my hair and skin. It had more to do with the perpetually confused look on my face, and the fact that I kept doing things, you know, wrong, drawing gales of mirth from my fellow living room spectators. I even had to watch myself pouring water into the coffin- thankfully The Face was out of the picture- and also giving alms to the monks…with the wrong hand, of course.
There was a lot of laughing during the viewing, strangely, almost as if we had staged the whole thing for our later entertainment.
I did enjoy the bits that I didn’t get to see the first time. The day after the cremation, the family went back to the temple to sift through her remains and pick out bits of bone, teeth and gold, which they put into a pot and carried out on a rowboat to the middle of Mekong.
Before they did that, through, they moved the ashes around into the shape of a person and prayed over it, which looked quite creepy.
They also put a shrine in the temple, and a spirit flag in the temple grounds.
The tooth is now in a matchbox in our room.

Post-post script
On Sunday, I was finally relaxing. Sitting at the Sunset Bar, spending my Sunday evening in the usual way with the usual people, trying to capture the perfect sunset on my camera (see left), my phone suddenly rang. It was the Island. You must come quickly, he said. My sister is getting married in the living room…at this very moment!
Oh for christ’s fucking sake, I thought petulantly, as I made my over there AGAIN. And there they all were- the family, the boyfriend (with whom I share a peculiar bond, as he too was present during the death and funeral), his parents, the village chief and the local Holy Man. The Sister was not, as I had nastily assumed, up the duff. It just happened to be an auspicious day to marry, or something.
It was very fast- a signing ceremony, really, the equivalent of going to the registry. A long, handwritten document read out and signed by the village chief and all present, followed by a raucous baci with lots of whiskey, followed by yet another hefty meal, followed by some very fast-paced drinking which left the blushing bride practically comatose on the couch within an hour, and me practically pouring water down her throat.
As nice as any apparently spontaneous wedding between two people who have known each other for two months, I suppose.

Nobody can stop the music!
This guy in Phnom Penh started selling his downloaded collection of music a couple of years ago, and now runs a full-scale business, with more than 5,000 albums on offer. He’s just opened up a music shop at the Full Moon Café here in Vientiane, which is the answer to my prayers, really.
I used to get all snarky about downloaded music for the obvious, tiresomely righteous reasons, but that was only because I used to hang out with so many musicians who whined so much about never getting enough money/recognition/girls/drugs/happiness. But around the same time that I finally accepted that I never really fit in with that crowd anyway (quite a recent revelation, I’m sorry to say), I also read an interview with Patti Smith who gave such types a dressing down for not getting a job and getting on with it. It made me feel better- go Patti, you old grey lovely punk, you!
And anyway, my friend Patrick and I used to argue about it- he downloaded freely despite being in a band and being a dedicated music-head, and he said it was a dead issue.
He’s right: it’s a dead issue, and I can’t live without new music, every day, all the time.
Make that new and old. Without the benefit of high-speed internet at my fingertips, since the Boom Boom Room opened in Vientiane, I’ve bought at least 20 albums (70 cents each) of all kinds of stuff. Stuff I’d missed the boat on the first time round (Morrissey, Joni Mitchell), stuff for nostalgia’s sake (David Bowie’s greatest hits, my long-lost copy of XO by Elliot Smith, the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack) and surprise new hits (Broken Boy Soldiers by the Raconteurs, the Babyshambles album- why do I even like it? It has nothing to do with my life-long love for Kate Moss, I swear. It’s just grubby and good.)
[Incidentally, Brooke Glorious Brookie did one of her monumentally rare updates recently, with her best of 2006 music list, and I must confess I am humbled. Humbled! I’ve hardly heard of any of it! Well-played, my dear, well-played.]
Even without my usual balance of nerdy obscurities of the sort I usually favour in my downtime (my laptop is already chokkers), I feel almost whole again.

Now all I need is for a branch of Boots to open in Vientiane so that I can get my monthly moisturiser, hair product and mid-priced cosmetics fix without having to cross the border, and I’ll be totally and completely at home.
It’s becoming alarming. I ride around town in the balmy evenings, on my way to dinner/cocktails/movie nights/home, and find myself thinking, like, I could actually live here! As in, for some time! When did this happen?

Speaking of movies- or rather The Movies- Academy season is upon us, and we the Vientiane Academy are once again taking our role VERY seriously indeed, make no mistake.
But before we can sit down to watch the films and ponder our choices, it’s the Aus day reception tonight, and I am NOT going in a sinh- I wear them every day for work! I’ve taken my one and only Black Dress to be cleaned, ready to perform its all-purpose duties once again. It’s a great dress- I had the tailor here copy it from Vogue- and always draws admiring comments, (especially when I say it’s Prada, which is only half a lie).

It's just a day
I never thought it would happen, you know? I never thought I would find myself in the vast, bewildering second-floor jewellery section of Thalat Sao bargaining over a ten-karat gold chain. But then I never thought I would be dating an Asian man either.
It was the Island’s birthday yesterday, and although he swears he turned 24, his birth certificate and passport tell a different story. And that story goes like this: when his family moved from rural Luang Prabang to Vientiane in the early 90s, they suddenly had to apply for birth certificates for all the family members. His parents simply forgot his birthday, and came up with some random date- November 3, 1982. But it was his grandmother- his recently-bereaved, blind, 75-year-old grandmother who remembered the real date- January 24, 1983. As good a date as any, I suppose, but maths has never been a strong point here in Laos. I even had an argument with one of the Island’s brothers the other night, who was adamant that, as he was born in 1977, of course he was only turning 29 this year!
I gave up on that one early on.

The chicken and the egg
A hen has been laying its eggs in a grubby old piece of tarp outside our back door. I got annoyed at first- I hate those fucking chickens- until the Island got excited and told me that having a hen lay its eggs at your door is- you guessed it- lucky.
So, what? Will my misplaced tax return finally turn up? Will I find the perfect hair conditioner at the local supermarket? Will I start sleeping properly like an adult? Will the inspiration hit so that I start writing at last? Is this about me and my luck or not? No, actually. When the Lao talk about luck and luckiness, they mean peace, health, prosperity, success, and winning the lottery. It’s not very subtle.