Filmy or Banky

First up, this post is dedicated to Noy and Sisay's kid, who I rote about a couple of weeks back. Remember "Bobby"? Well, they've recently discovered another Bobby in the village, so they've decided to change his name after a few short weeks. Down to two choices now: "Film" or "Bank". I kid you not. Whatever the bizarre reasons for these preferences, I challenge anyone, categorically, to find a single Lao person who can pronounce the word "film". Seriously. And anyway, whatever happened to nice traditional Lao names? There are thousands to choose from!
Imagine being called "Bank".

Crimestoppers
As if to prove one of the points I made in my last post, this week I saw a cop writing a text message while directing traffic. Seriously. He even got so absorbed at one stage that he dropped his arm and his whistle altogether, leaving one side of the roundabout stranded.
But these coppers do get some things right. I think I mentioned some time ago that my friend Mel had her bag stolen at knifepoint while riding her motorbike late at night. It was about five months ago now, but last week, Mel rang me at work to tell me about the strangest thing. The police had called her that morning to tell her they had all of her stuff back. Bag, camera, wallet with the entire large sum of cash she had just taken out of the bank in Bangkok on the night she got robbed- five months later. A mystery! And the police were unable to completely explain to her, through the translator, how it all happened, except that they had come by each thing separately, and the boys who robbed her were all in custody.
Well, I don’t work at a newspaper for nothing, and I got one of the journos to use his police contacts to find out more. Here’s what I got.
The four guys who stopped her had been on something of a rampage before they got busted, snatching bags in public, flashing knives and ripping necklaces off women’s necks in the street. Just for fun, too; apparently, they weren’t even on drugs, just bored after all the nightclubs had closed. They never wore masks or anything, and in fact, the guy wielding the knife had a tattoo, which Mel got a good enough look at to be able to get him nabbed.
The guy driving one of the motorbikes bike that stopped her was 14 years old; the guy who got off the bike, held a knife to her neck and demanded that she hand over her bag was 18. Knifeboy spent all the cash she had on her (20,000 baht) pretty quick, but his parents had to pay it back.
Last year, Mel’s neighbour had to spend three months in gaol because she was unable to compensate for her son’s robberies.
But, as Mel pointed out, she would feel sorry for the kids if it wasn’t for the knife. If the boys had stopped her and demanded the bag, she would have handed it right over; the knife was an unnecessary little flourish that took the crime into Violent Little Prick territory.

More than just a friend…
I’ve mentioned before how devastatingly simple the Lao language is – a fridge is a ‘cold box’, the tyres a motorbike are ‘motorbike feet’, your jeans pocket is ‘trouser bag’, etc – but every now and again you can come across a word for which there is no English equivalent. One such word is ‘gik’, which refers to a friend who is more than a friend but not a boyfriend or girlfriend, whom you may or may not be sleeping with. You can have a gik and a boyfriend at the same time.
There have been endless discussions over an English equivalent; all Lao people seem to have trouble in drawing the ‘gik’ boundary. But it’s a mystery to us. If it’s not a best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend or fuck-buddy, then what is it? Our Lao friends just think we’re narrow-minded, that we can't envision this type of relationship. But that's the power of the language, or lack thereof!

Sitting on a jewel
I’ve been hoarding all kinds of beauty products all year, for fear of running out of staples (as if that will happen!), and I came across a tube of moisturiser I got my parents to bring on their first visit, more than a year ago. Nivea from the supermarket, nothing special, and I’ve since moved on to other things, but I came across it this week and slathered some all over my hands and face, only to find it had acquired a nasty acrid chemical stench that drove me to chuck it out.
Related (bear with me here) is that the Boom Boom Room at Full Moon Café is up and running again, thank god, and in a fit of glee I went and bought a handful of albums last week. A mistake really; as my housemate Cait points out, it’s dangerous to buy too much music at once, because you take ages to get around to it all, and sometimes you realise you’ve been sitting on a gem for too long. I’m still absorbing some of the stuff I bought in Hanoi, and here I am stocking up with more.
Not that music would ever go off, but all this hoarding can be a dangerous addiction.
Cait and I, luckily, have similar tastes in music, and mornings are always made far more pleasant by the day’s soundtrack set running over the morning papers (on websites). Working out at the gym is also a joy, and there’s nothing like finishing work early on a Friday, pouring a gin & tonic and cranking up…something, whatever is obsessing me at the time. Elvis Costello. Regina Spektor. The Rapture. David Bowie.
But I also have a Lao boyfriend.
Are you with me here? Can you imagine the vast chasm between our tastes?
How can I explain to him the horror of Britney Spears and her ilk, when that’s what he listens to? And indeed, why do I feel the need to explain it at all? He dislikes all the stuff I listen to, despite my lengthy explanations of the evils of commercial pop confections that have no soul...

Bookworm
It’s a circular argument, exactly the same as when I try to explain why I, and other falungs, like to read a lot. It’s seems to be incomprehensible here that anyone would read by choice. And anyway, there’s not much to read.
I went to a talk a few months ago by an Australian academic, Grant Evans, who’s a world-class expert on Laos. He spoke a bit about this problem, saying that the government has never traditionally encouraged reading (very uncommunist, reading), but that they’re starting to realise how embarrassing it is for Lao officials to attend international forums or summits, and to be completely behind in terms of intellectual capacity. Grant Evans pointed out that there are plenty of books translated into Thai and that it would be relatively simple to have these Thai versions translated into Lao as well. The government usually requires permission to have books translated, but Grant pointed out that organisations could just have books translated and see what happens.
You know, if I could start again here, knowing what I do now, or if I had the resources, that’s where my money would be. It's one cause I would champion all the way, even if only in the main cities. Reading fiction shouldn't have to be a weird foreign fetish.

More hoarding
Talking of reading, in 2005, when I was cleaning out my desk at my old job, before leaving forever, I found dozens and dozens of articles that I’d printed out from the Internet. My desk was right next to the printer, and I would read the papers online in the morning and automatically print out anything that seemed worthy.
I don’t do this much anymore- ashamed of wasting too much paper, and anyway, the newspaper doesn’t always have paper or functioning printers.
But anyway, here’s some I downloaded and have kept on my computer:
On the weekend, I read this piece in the Guardian, and felt a rush of relief mixed with vindication- “Yes, yes, that’s right!” I said, aloud. And then I sent it to my parents.
I also read this essay in the Morning News about leaving a boring town that you’ve been trying to love, to move to New York. Jessica Francis Kane talks about taking walks and playing the Redeemable Element Game, in which she has to find something worthy in the “otherwise undistinguished suburban landscape…the café downtown where, if you sit with your back to the front door, it feels like Seattle; the wine bar downtown where, if you sit with your back to the door, it feels like Manhattan.” She could easily be talking about Canberra.
I also read one of those great 12-page long articles in the New Yorker that I love so much. I would kill to be able to write like this, about anything. And that’s the point: if the writing’s good enough, you will read about anything. The New Yorker is like that. I’ve never seen this show (although I’ll probably seek it out and watch it now) and I’ve never been to Baltimore, but it all resonates.
Also, here’s one about Jerry Seinfeld, who I was shocked to learn is 53 and has three kids!! I only point it out because Cait and I have been watching a lot of Seinfeld, lately, and finding comfort in watching about 30-somethings who sometimes have difficulty paying rent. And who are are crazy and obsessive and a bit vain...It's all a bit familiar, and not just in the sense of having seen every episode several times over the past five years or so...

'Cultural Sensitivity'

Well, I’ve just come in after being very nearly run down by a four-wheel drive. That’s another of the baffling things about Lao people in general- while they may be, as a rule, slow and laid back with little sense of imperative about anything, this all changes once you get them on the road and in control of a vehicle. Drivers here simply can’t seem to accept that sometimes you may just have to wait another millisecond for that light to turn green before you can shoot off, and that there’s a reason for the whole ‘give way’ thing.
Conversely, there is very little evidence of road rage here. There never seems to be anyone, other than me of course, getting the shits when they have to break suddenly because a car just couldn’t wait their turn.
Like many things, I think this is a metaphor for Laos in general. People here put up with all these self-imposed ‘cultural’ annoyances as though there’s absolutely nothing to be done.

Club Girls
Related is that I had a fight with the Island the other night over, of all things, his sister. We went over to visit the family for dinner, and the whole evening deteriorated into arguments when the Island discovered his father hadn’t been eating dinner because no one had been around to cook for him.
Ok, alright, that’s bad but that’s not the thing that incensed me. Mr Island has had a hard enough life - his health is failing, a lifetime of smoking has ruined his lungs, and at 50, he can no longer work. He’s never had to cook his own meals, so why would he start now?
The thing that had upset the Island, Jr, was that his 23-year-old sister was going out at night. I couldn’t see the problem, really. The Island goes out regularly til the wee hours with his friends, to my eternal fury (why would he go out when he could spend the night with me?) It’s an agreement we have come to- we go out with our own friends.
But apparently, Phonesavanh, being a girl, must stay at home and tend to the house, while her (younger and older) brothers go out at all hours.
Because, you see, the Island calmly explained to me later, Lao girls who go out are probably sluts and will never get a husband.
Well, I answered, maybe girls who like to go out aren’t interested in marrying a nasty little man who expects her to sit at home while he goes out every night drinking beer and having fun.
This suggestion was met with the usual “You just don’t understand Lao culture, things are different in your country, blah blah blah”.
And yet this country has aspirations, voiced daily in government speeches and quoted in our esteemed Vientiane Times, of becoming a ‘modern, industrialised’ country.

Meanwhile, Miss Apone Lao was crowned - “I will use the money for my education, but I will keep my crown to wear on special occasions and represent my country” - with one second-place winner and four runners-up. Strange, huh? Unfortunately, my personal favourite, Number A8, didn’t make it, probably because she was about 6-foot tall with buckteeth and a wonky eye. I kid you not. I think maybe she was related to some official, but it may have had to do with the fact that last year’s winner won because she was so tall, nothing more and nothing less.

Ordering In
I’ve been reading a lot of books set in New York recently, and getting all lovey-dovey about it. I love New York for all the clichéd reasons that New Yorkers love New York, especially the way you can get anything, pretty much at any time of day or night. Car services, laundry services, home delivered coffee from the local deli, etc.
But you know what? Vientiane is not that far off it – like in many Asian countries, service and income-generation are, for a developing community, pretty much 24-hour pursuits. So, when the Island ran out of gas the other night in the middle of cooking me dinner, he just rang up the gas company (run out of someone’s house) and got them to bring another canister. Last Friday afternoon, the whole office went over to view Noy’s new baby -

[side note: Noy had her baby, finally. And such a little one, too, even though he was 10 days’ late. And – you’ll love this – they called him ‘Bobby’. “Oh, that’s nice,” I said to Sisay, Noy’s husband, when he told us. “Short for Robert!” “No, no,” he replied. “I look in the dictionary and it mean ‘English policeman.’” Of course, why wouldn’t you want to name a Lao child after a cockney copper?]

- and everyone settled in for a long evening of cards and whiskey, ordering serve after serve of tam ma khun (Papaya salad) and beer from some local store, the owners of which just sent their kids over on bicycles, back and forth, for hours on end.
And you know what? I’m also thinking, as it’s raining, and looks set to rain for the rest of the evening, I may just order my food in. How am I ever going to leave this place?

Procrastination measures
I have been reading a lot lately. It’s pure procrastination, of course; I should be diligently carving out my career as a writer and a journalist each evening after work, but it’s just too draining. So it’s been short stories by Alice Munro and A.M Homes, Paul Auster, John Updike, Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb, and now, of all things, Crime and Punishment. Remember how, before I left Australia, I sent ahead a box of books to read in all the downtime I thought I’d be having here? And how I put in, among lots of other stuff, all those worthy books I thought I’d finally have time to get through? Well, those are the only ones I have left now. Now’s the time for C & M, Anna Karenina, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, etc.

Oh, what, you think I can’t do it? I’ll show you.

Office update:
Last Friday, I wore a pair of black trousers to work – nice ones from MNG that I bought last year in Bangkok – and couldn’t believe the reaction I got. I still wear a sinh to the office pretty much every day, for various reasons: it’s easy to get dressed in the morning, like putting on a suit or a uniform; I always get nice, appreciative comments, and the ladies all seem to see me wearing one as a sign of respect, or solidarity; and anyway, I really like them - they’re comfortable, and beautiful, and forgiving, and I’ll never have the chance to wear them again, probably. But anyway, it was my own personal Casual Friday, and there I was in black, man-style pants not expecting anyone to notice or say anything, and everyone, even the guys, all said I looked ‘sexy, like real working woman’! Isn’t that strange? I had no idea people felt that way about ladies in pants here. I mean, Lao girls nowadays wear pretty much anything they want outside the office, but what is it about these pants? A mystery.