Mixed Blessings

Yesterday was the first day of Buddhist Lent (again), and we went to a temple in the evening for the candlelit procession. After the monks chant and people have prayed, they light candles and stroll slowly around the temple holding flowers and incense- a striking site in the early evening darkness, with not much sound except the shuffle of feet and some happy sighing.
I had come more or less straight from work, and wasn’t wearing a sinh because Sundays- especially in the office – are strictly casual. But you know what? It didn’t matter, because I felt quite peaceful, for the first time in the past week, as I strolled with the hundreds of other people, holding my candle and lotus flowers as offerings to all those dead relatives up there, somewhere. I made a few resolutions that really won’t be that hard to stick to, and went home feeling quite happy.

Resolutions
One of the stories we had in the international pages last week was about a Korean (I think) actress who had received a world record number of hits on her blog – a ‘daily diary of musings on life in general’, how dull! But still, I felt a bit ashamed.
The thing is, every single person I know, except for my old housemate Tom, is currently obsessed with Facebook – how I loathe it! – and, to paraphrase my friend Grant, if I had a kip for every ‘invitation’ I’ve received to be someone’s ‘Facebook friend’ or somesuch, I’d be able to buy a bowl of noodles by now.
I don’t get it- I’ve never been all that curmudgeonly, at least not when it comes to technology, but really, Facebook? For grown people? Summing up your personality in a series of retardo questions? Posting on each other’s ‘walls?’ ‘Sharing photos’? What’s wrong with email, I ask you? Why do people get so bored so easily with something that’s really just entirely functional and works just fine?
Then someone pointed out to me that I already had a blog, so what’s the difference, and I was momentarily chastened, mid-anti-Facebook tirade. And didn’t post for ages.
But now I’ve thought no. The blog is in my own chosen format, I don’t answer arbitrary questions on some list, and I’ve tried to find my own voice instead.
And some Korean actress has been disciplined enough to post every day? I’ve got to get my act together. Resolution: I need to post more often so as to keep my voice going, and not degenerate into a foul-mouthed whinger.

And in fact, that’s another of my Lent resolutions- to stop wanting everyone to agree with me on everything. My heart almost skipped a beat a few months ago when I was reading The Golden Notebook, and came across this passage in the first few pages:

“But now, sitting with Molly talking, as they had so many hundreds of times before, Anna was saying to herself: Why do I always have this awful need to make other people see things as I do? It’s childish, why should they? What it amounts to is that I’m scared of being alone in what I feel.”

I think of it now whenever I find myself feeling perplexed when someone disagrees with me. I like certain bands, don’t understand ‘other’ types of music, I hate karaoke to the max, I like green mangoes, I think Orlando Bloom looks like a 12-year-old gay boy, I hate Radiohead, I think vitamin supplements are a rort, and so what?? Who cares if others might not agree? Honestly.

Daily diary
This should, in theory, be the beginning of my efforts to document my days on a more regular basis, get a bit of a conversation happening.
From when I was 10 to when I turned 21, I kept a diary religiously. I stopped cold when I went to Montreal, and haven’t written a serious diary-style word since. I just don’t see the point of writing something that no one will read. I need to be kept on my toes. I’m supposed to be a journalist, after all. And even when I did keep a diary, I always half-imagined that one day, someone would come across them. Eventually, that thought mortified me so much that I just stopped.
But people do read this, I know, even if they’re just being polite. So here goes.

I applied for a job with UNDP a few weeks ago and actually got an interview. It was basically down to three people, and I sort of thought I was in with a chance. It would have been a big deal, based in Luang Prabang. It would have meant leaving my current project early, moving away from the Island for a bit, finding a new place to live in a new town, etc etc. I waited and waited to hear something until finally, late on Friday night at Sticky Fingers, a girl I know who works on the project stumbled up to me, completely off her face, and said “as soon as you walked in I knew I would have to tell you that you didn’t get the job but you were a close second I’m so sorry the girl who got it was already working on the project so we had to choose her etc etc etc…”
So now that I know, I’m interested in exactly how long UNDP will take to let me know, you know, officially, that I’ve been rejected.

In the meantime, here’re some things that make me feel better:

- The fact that I don’t have to part from the Island just yet.
- The fact that I don’t have to betray everyone at work by pissing off early…just yet.
- The big stack of excellent new music I bought in Vietnam (more about that later), which has just renewed my faith in the beauty of the world – the music world! I’d been feeling so deprived of new music, and then my bestie Brookie arrived brandishing a brand-new album (23 by Blonde Redhead) and a $50 itunes voucher. Yay for her! And then I found a whole lot of great stuff in Nam, and feel like everything is ok again and it wasn’t even bad before! Such is the mystical power of music…
-My new black sinh – all black, with a black band - which is the envy of all my friends (all-black ones are quite rare), so much so that I may even buy another, similar one, just to spite everyone.
-Most of the clothes I picked up at the tailor in Hoi An.

Hanoi, Hoi An and Halong Bay
Vietnam was so great, and I did indeed find myself wondering, constantly, both to myself and out loud, why on earth I wasn’t living there.
Because it’s too damn hot! I thought, triumphantly. It really was consistently about 5 degrees hotter than here in Vientiane, almost unbearable really. But then I remembered that in fact, Hanoi gets really cold in the wintertime. Gosh that lake would be lovely with all those beautiful trees in the wintertime, I thought as I morosely purchased a painted sketch of Hanoi in autumn, with leaves on the ground, and almost stepped right in front of a boy on a devastatingly cool navy-blue Vespa…
Everywhere I looked my eyes were instantly pleased by all the quaint, haphazardly tall terraced houses, and the crowded cafes, and the never-ending stream of motorbikes.
But I will say this: Vietnamese people aren’t very nice, at least not in Hanoi. They were grumpy and unhelpful and uncooperative, basically, and I had a difficult time feeling any sort of warmth deep inside my heart for them the way I do for Lao people.
Hanoi is also kinda nuts- people sit all day long on the pavement outside their houses and just shoot the breeze for hours and you have to navigate over and around them, and meanwhile the traffic just never stops moving, and you have to learn to just step right into the open traffic and walk quite slowly and artfully so that people can just swerve around you. And they all beep their horns constantly, for no apparent reason except to let you know that they are, in fact, on a bike, with a horn, and quickly get out of the way, now!
But, surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly given the state of the Vietnamese government, the whole city stops bang on midnight, which I can’t help appreciating since I became such a nanna when it comes to going to bed at a reasonable hour.

We also spent a night on a fancy sort of boat in Ha Long Bay with a bunch of annoying tourists, and were also stunned to discover that all sleeper trains down to Danang were completely booked out.
And that’s although another resolution that Brooke, Niamh and I all made, during the 15 most miserable hours of our lives, that we would never, ever get a long distance train (unless it’s a first-class sleeper), ever again. We’re too old! The revelation! The relief! It was enough to make those 15 hours from Hanoi to Hue in a filthy, ‘soft-seat’ carriage filled with slightly menacing Vietnamese yobs, slightly more bearable…

Luckily, our hotel in Hoi An, when we finally arrived, was plush and lovely and be-rose-petalled enough to make us forget our worries and just focus instead on the matter at hand: getting right into the vast buffet breakfast to fortify ourselves for the relentless, pushy tailor women.

Brooke and Niamh went AWOL on boots and suits and coats and all the sort of stuff that makes me feel so grumpy about not being able to wear, ever. But I had seen an excellent tangerine bag at Nine West in Hanoi for US$100, and consoled myself by getting it semi-copied by the tailor for half the price, as well as a couple of Marni-style dresses, some ballerina shoes and other bits and pieces.

Hoi An was just like Luang Prabang but with a beach, a lovely beach within cycling distance where all the locals came to drink beer in the evenings.
See pics, I can’t be bothered going in to much more detail. The last one is of a pair of sisters discovered near the St Joseph’s Cathedral in the Old Quarter. We had spotted Albino Girl a few days before, but I was alone this time and seeing her made my heart stop with sudden fear.
Also, the face shots where our angles look strange are the result of a queer experiment, the 'look down, look up and click' technique. Supposed to make you look sexy. YOU decide!

We flew back to Hanoi. Yes we did. And when I got back to Vientiane, sad as I was for my holiday to be over, I breathed a sigh of relief and pushed my backpack into the cupboard way back where I can’t see it, I hate it that much. It hurts my shoulders and I can’t find anything in it!

Weather update:
Last night I awoke to an apocalyptic downpour, and couldn’t get back to sleep. In the house where I grew up, my bedroom was a walled-in veranda, and one of the windows always leaked when I rained. It gave me a life-long insecurity; even today, whenever it rains, my mind races to think of anything I might have left outside, or what on the windowsill might get soaked.
I did love that bedroom though.

Work Update:
My heart was in my shoes when went back to work last week, knowing that my newsroom mentor of all things calm, Liz, was still back in England and would be for some time.
I’ve been struggling to finish before 8pm each night, but you know what? IT’S NOT MY FAULT! It takes exactly four hours between the reporters finishing their stories, layout putting them on the page and the editors giving them a final check- a process that should really take an hour. Do you think I would allow this to happen if I had even a modicum of control in this place? No, I wouldn’t.
That said, things are definitely more organised with me in charge. The staff are slowly coming round to the usefulness of lists, and the sheer beauty of being able to cross things off each day. So I must be making some difference.