Thịt chó

The meat sat there in her bowl, an anathema.

“Go on, have a bite! Be brave! You’re a tourist, do touristy stuff! This is an experience you can’t get at home.”
“It’s not one I am sure that I want.” A grimace. “What does it taste like?”
“It depends how it’s cooked, like most things. The one in the bowl is fairly rank - too much ginger and lemongrass. And there’s still the occasional hair on the skin. If you liked black pudding like Dad, I would have given you the stuffed barbequed intestines. But the sliced, boiled meat is like a gamey roast beef.”

Picture sourced from here The dishes at 12:00, 1:00, 30:00 6:00, 7:00 and 11:00 are to be found on the reasonable to delicious side of the scale. The soupy one I can take or leave, and the lemongrass and ginger one I'm not a fan of, nor another one which seems to be cooked with small sticks of yuck (but again, that's the fault of the spice).

This is obviously fiction, as my mother has categorically stated she won’t try dog, for the same reasons she won’t eat kangaroo. It wouldn’t be fair to trick her. The rest of it is true though. Mắm tôm, the purple dipping sauce can take a bit of a run-up as well, if you’re not Australian. It puts me in mind of a liquid Vegemite. An old wives tale here is that eating dog’s feet is meant to increase a nursing mother’s milk supply. Tho declined, but her sister was gnawing on two or three a day for a while there, not that it seemed to help.

The prompt for this piece was ...what does it taste like... for week number 78 of the 100 Word Challenge. I shouldn’t have written it before breakfast though, as now I’m hungry.

State of the Empire

All things considered, 2012 went pretty well. Could have had more typing in it, but I did get more words down, more stories completed, and do more effective editing. But more importantly (with the aid of Super Better), there's been a bigger change in my thinking about writing. Mentally, I'm more geared towards doing it. I spent some of the downtime in Dong Anh working out ways I can be more focused, and I think this time it will stick.

On the baby front, things are also progressing nicely. As expected, everyone else seems to have a better idea than us on how to raise our daughter, but we're figuring things out fairly well. We listen to all advice, and ignore what doesn't seem to suit us. She's going great guns, and while its still early days yet, Madeline seems to have a very sweet temperament - that's not just the proud father speaking, other people say it too, even random strangers. I do realise though she will enter the terrible twos sooner rather than later. And eventually she will become a teenager. But hopefully she'll emerge from that chrysalis and become just as wonderful as she is now. No teeth yet, but they can't be far off.

I do feel a bit silly nattering on here, as I'm not sure that there's anyone reading this but me, but if you are out there, I hope that 2013 is off to an even better start than you imagined it would be, and your happily ever after is progressing in a manner that makes others jealous.

Stars

I heard that October the 4th we were meant write something about Stars. Rather than whipping up a piece of fiction, I thought I'd instead write something based more on fact. These snippets are some observations about observation of stars, both here and back home. The picture is of the star chart from that most fantastic of games Star Control 2. The name Snellopy comes from there, his race is the Spathi, and their sphere of influence is marked out in yellow.

The sky in Hanoi is usually pretty sparse - there's plenty of smog, light pollution and other nastiness up there, so it's rare that you'll get many bright twinklies. On quite a few occasions we've been walking and my wife has said "Wow! Look how many stars there are!" and there's been maybe six, maximum. She said it wasn't always like that, back when she was a kid, things were different. There were lots of them. She used to fall asleep on the roof of their house, looking at them, and recalled being groggily carried downstairs in her father's arms.

I've seen lots of stars, not just on charts of various science fiction games when I'm battling aliens. I used to work out bush. When holidays came, we'd team up and drive back to civilization. One time on a drive when it was my turn to sleep, we were going past Brunette Downs on the Barkly Highway. It's a cattle station larger than Northern Ireland, so there's obviously not much light pollution going on. I only woke up after we'd stopped, and so my eyes were perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Looking up, I was amazed by the pinpoints scrawled across the ceiling, far more than I'd ever seen before. I pissed all over my feet as I leaned back in amazement, trying to get it all in.

At Tet a few years ago, I excitedly called my housemate out to have a gander at the skies. Just like me back when I'd been working in the Outback, everyone here had taken advantage of the holiday to get the hell out of Dodge. The roiling tendrils of pollution had relaxed their grasp on Hanoi somewhat, and we could see maybe 20 or 30 stars. But that wasn't what was so amazing to me - happily, I pointed.
"What?" he asked, "It's just Orion."
"I know," I replied, "But this is the first time I've seen the bugger in the flesh (so to speak) and he's not standing on his head. Damn you northern-centric celestial cartographers!"

I just got a necklace made for Tho. Originally it was going to be for her birthday, but just after I had paid the deposit she forbade me from getting anything custom made, so I kept it around for a while longer until a suitable occasion arose. It was of a starred star - A gold star (from the Vietnamese flag) with the Southern Cross (from the Australian flag) picked out on it in four sapphires for the cardinal points and a diamond for the wee one. It looks quite good if I say so myself, and it’ll be perfect to pass down to Madeline too.

We're now looking to head back to Australia soon, and while Tho did see a more representative smattering of stars when we were there for a holiday, I will make sure she gets to see them in all their glory. I didn't spend enough time looking at them before, but after losing them for the past few years, I'll try not to take them for granted in the future. There's probably a lesson there, I'd say, but I’m a slow learner.

Eating Out

 “A long time since I see you in my restaurant, but still I remember what you order with your wife! You will have a banana flower salad, seafood nem, crispy squid and prawns steamed in beer, yes?”

Inwardly I groaned. We had been here about half a dozen times and that was over three years ago... a lifetime ago. “Uhh, that’s what I used to order with my ex-girlfriend - I’d like to introduce you to my wife, we’d like to see a menu please.”

Picture from here

I know this is meant to be Five Sentence Fiction, but this is unfortunately based on a true event. I saw the funny side of it, but Tho wasn’t overly impressed. For a city of six million, Hanoi is a small town. The prompt for this week is awkward.

Bokeh on my visor

I’m generally a pretty upbeat bloke brimming with optimism and I definitely ascribe to the power of positive thinking. One day when I knew the traffic was going to be absolutely batshit insane due to rain and roadworks, I decided before jumping into the fray I’d focus on remaining in a good mood. So thinking happy thoughts and singing a soppy love song I set out, and managed to arrive 45 minutes later (instead of 10 with no traffic) still with a smile on my face. Similar road conditions on the way back and it worked for the return journey too, and while idling at a traffic light I started to think of how to put a positive spin on describing it. The obvious answer to me was poetry. While I don’t mind the occasional haiku, or a bit of ribald doggerel poetry never really did it for me.  

But I read recently on Buddhafulkat’s website that it’s Poetry Month. It’s perfect timing, as we’re slogging through a unit on poems at school. Not just any poems but... dun Dun DUN: 
Poems... 
Iiiinnnn... 
Sssppaaaacceee... 
Like comics, poetry was not something I ever really got into.  I don’t have any old angsty poems where everything is black and depressive squirrelled away anywhere.I’ve got a vague handle on it from teaching it for so many years, and know the basics. I have recently borrowed a colleague’s favourite poetry book and am working my way through them to see if anything rubs off. So far though, still not a fan.

OK so admittedly the traffic isn’t usually as bad as this picture from the Hanoi Grapevine, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of hyperbole.



Gentle rain falls like mist
Bokeh on my visor
Muted tones, dull and damp
Occasional flashes of vibrant colour -
Like small gleaming fish
The yellow of altar flowers 
Awaiting sale in a basket.


Red light; a pause for thought
Discordant cacophony of horns
Be still, contemplate the moment
This time while watching others struggle
Empathise with them, even as they 
Swim like salmon, upstream against the traffic


Easing back into the flow, leaving a gap
So that others may be grateful
For the proffered mercy; not naivete this time 
But a rare case of kindness
On these hectic roads.


Bottlenecks and jams
Accompanied by strident honking
Savour the pause by being lost in thought
Practice patience and generosity.


Enjoying the warmth of fond memories
Buoyed and cheered by who awaits
The journey enhanced by the destination.


Final stretch, muddy puddles splashing
Warm chocolate merely lacking marshmallows.


Back to the loving embrace.

From Sinfest - perfect illustration if this is too overwrought. Not being a fan of the style, I can’t really tell.