Counting the ways

This week marked my 18-month anniversary here. Can it have been that long? Yes, and I’ll tell you why: because I no longer care quite as much about what is happening back in Australia. Or rather, I still care, but I no longer have half a mind residing there, the way I did this time last year.

"Ecrire tous les jours, génie ou non." ("Write every day, genius or not.")

That's a quote by Stendhal, sent to be by my old French professor in Canberra during a recent email exchange.
I’ll tell you what, though: I’ve really got to start updating this thing more regularly. I’ve got it in my head that one day, I will be writing for a living, probably for the Guardian, or as a freelance journalist in New York. Why not, right? Never mind that I seem to love small-town life more and more – the fact remains that my output in the past 18 months has been pitiful, and I can hardly blame poorly trained Lao journalists for sapping my strength and will to write independently on a daily basis. Dammit, a real writer can overcome all that external stuff!

Clearing the mind
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve been getting up at 6.00 each morning to walk it off before work. It’s better, somehow, than the gym. Walking is something I haven’t really done much of since I came to Vientiane, what with the zippy scooter and the long stretches of busy road with no footpaths, etc. I used to love walking in Melbourne- with no car and only a pushbike, I often used to opt to walk to and from work, especially if it was raining.

Anyway, the world is such a different place at 6am, especially in Vientiane. People are generally early risers here, not to mention the monks, who are out giving their alms at this time. I’ve tried taking my camera with me a couple of times, but the things I notice really can’t be captured: old and young women showering, covered by a sarong and frothy streaks of soap and shampoo; a boy on the back of a truck, carefully plaiting his little sister’s hair; a man cutting his toenails while a cigarette hangs precariously from his mouth; teen boys meandering behind skinny cows, absently slapping their rumps with sticks; two young women squatting on flat feet and watching, proudly, while a toddler parades around in a pair of black patent heels.

It all changes, too, in the hour between 6am and 7am. When I set out from the house, I have to keep bowing my head for the monks, and often catch small curls of smoke coming from the top of fenceposts, the source obscured by foliage. If you look closer, you’ll see a stick of incense, surrounded by flower petals and a ball or two of sticky rice – offerings for ancestors; it’s oddly comforting to think that everyone, no matter how poor, has dead relatives they can call on for help.

There are so many more temples in my neighbourhood than I had realised, and the other day I came across a series of fishponds, surrounded by cool green and palm trees, eerily misty like something from a poem, practically in the middle of town.

By the time I’m nearly home, I’m passing old men sitting at roadside noodle shops, arguing over cups of coffee, and people, washed and showered, watering their plants and stirring huge pots of rice soup. I walk until my legs ache and the day has kickstarted- all before 7.30am.

Road to nowhere
I mentioned last time that I hadn’t really been taking many photos lately. Well here’s one to illustrate all my griping about the roads, chiefly one of the town’s main arteries, which happens to run right part my work, and which I have to negotiate, in some way, each and every day.
I just can’t work out what they’re doing: they dig holes, and then fill them up again. They lay pipes and cables, seal them, then dig them up and take them out. The ruts fill with water and become slippery with mud and clay every few days. The piles of rubble heaped around the footpaths are starting to sprout weeds and wildflowers. And for this, the Japanese have donated millions of dollars.

We ran a story last week about another road in town, the Kaysone Phomvihane road, which runs from the Friendship Bridge into town, and on which repairs are finally complete. The story took care to explain, quite matter-of-factly that the reason it took so long is because the road was dug up and resealed last year, before the workers realised they had forgotten to lay the water pipes! So they had to do it all over again.
Anyway, that’s the only thing I’ve been bothered enough to photograph in the past few weeks.

“Gentle facial cleansing; Effective skin exfoliating; Enhance the youthful looking.”
So it says on the tube of this truly excellent cleanser I picked up at a local supermarket. Main ingredient: tea tree. Brand name: Young and Beauty.
Do you find it amusing? Do you think it’s funny that I have ended up in an Asian country, I who am capable of actually having a conniptic fit at the merest whiff of bad grammar???
I just don’t understand it. If the good people of “Young and Beauty” made the effort to look up these words in the dictionary, why didn’t they also see the various alternatives for adverb, adjective, etc?
I read a great short story in the New Yorker recently, and it had a lot about language in it, specifically, what it means to be able to speak more than one.
Incidentally, I sent the link to my old French professor at ANU in Canberra, and I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said he loathed it -"It left me rather flat, taken aback and still wishing for a young writer who knows how to design a fine sentence". But that’s by the by- the point is, you certainly see and hear things differently, depending on the language at the front of your mind at the time.
I still lapse fairly easily into French, but learning Lao has helped me most in what I’m doing now. If I weren’t taking lessons, I wouldn’t understand that the Lao language is largely circular, imprecise and riddled with tautology. Sentences begin and end with the same statement. There is no word for ‘it’. There is no system for inferring subject matter. There is no different formula for plural and singular, or masculine and feminine. Knowing this makes my editing work much easier, if not less frustrating.

Retail therapy
I’ve been to Bangkok in the interim- took 4000 Islands and Housemate Cait this time. The more time I spend in Bangkok, the more I feel sure I could never live there. Not that I’ve got any insight into the city beyond the central shopping district and Chatuchak market.
And how awesome are they!! The Island bought three pairs of jeans while I stood and watched, because they only cost 200 baht, or $6 each. And then I bought some myself- black skinny ones, like I’ll be needing those in the coming months, ha!
That said, I’ve become a very sustainable shopper since moving to this part of the world. You’d think that access to such a large variety of dirt-cheap fashion would cause me to gorge myself on a regular basis, but this is far from the case. Basically, if it doesn’t go with a sinh, or won’t suit the weather, or is too formal/prissy for my current lifestyle, I simply put it back.
I also got a great haircut at Toni&Guy, one that is sure to last.

Backyard barber
Speaking of which, I actually took the Island up in his offer to cut my hair last month. I had already made an appointment at a local salon to have it cut by a woman who had been “trained by a falang” and usually did “an ok job but you might have to touch it up when you get home”. This was going to cost me $12, and I was apprehensive. “Don’t waste your money, my darling,” the Island said to me. And, based on the photo I had recently come across in a Vogue of the model Stella Tennant (granddaughter of the Duchess of Devonshire, otherwise known as the sister of Nancy and Jessica Mitford etc etc) with a shaggy sort of bob with a fringe, I let him go ahead.
He actually did quite a good job! Because so many locals set up hair and beauty salons in their own homes these days, you can buy quite decent hair utensils in the oddest places. It was pouring with rain that day, and after breakfast, we stopped at a tiny minimart and the Island disappeared inside. He came back with a professional-looking razor with a handle, the kind you use to sort of raze strands off a chunk of hair to make it look layered, instead of cutting it straight across with scissors. It only cost 1000 kip!
It certainly took me back to my days at Napier Street, when Oliver used to cut my hair in backyard or, if it was raining, in the kitchen. Those were always the best haircuts, and not only because they were free.

Cultural norms
Next week, in a few days actually, me, my bestie Brooke and her bestie Niamh of Dublin are taking a trip to Vietnam. I can’t wait. I’m especially excited about Hanoi, although I’m a tad concerned that I’ll wish I had ended up there, in what by all accounts is a fascinating, bustling metropolis, instead of here, a kind of riverside could-have-been with half-dug-up roads everywhere. Grass greener, etc, but that’s my brain’s default setting.
Anyway, I’ve been poring over the Lonely Planet at every spare minute and dreaming of our getaway, and in the process, I came across one of those typical lists of cultural do’s and don’t’s for countries like Vietnam:

• “Always smile and be pleasant • Don’t run around complaining about everything • Expect delays – build them into your schedule • (and this one made me laugh the most) Never show anger – ever! Getting visibly upset is not only rude – it will cause you to lose face.”
Whatever. The thing is, these rules are all very well when you’re a tourist- around just long enough for these little local foibles to seem quaint and amusing.
But when you live here, even when you know exactly what to expect, it’s difficult not to get angry at the level of base incompetence that exists in the service sector. And you know what? I still refuse to accept this notion of 'elastic time', even as I can see myself having already adapted to it, to an extent.
I guess I have become what the LP might term as ‘culturally insensitive’ because I often get quite impatient, and let it show.
I’ve yet to actually raise my voice and shout, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time…