“How was your day today?”
It was the nice 64-year old (though looks at least 20 years
younger than that) Vietnamese lady staying at the hostel, that I had met on my
first night in the country. I had just
run down to reception from my room to try and see if I could drop some laundry
off to have done the following day. I
was just interested in that, having a quick smoke, and heading back up to the
room. I was in weird head space as it
was, having spent the day at the War Remembrance Museum, seeing pictures of
massacred children and victims of Agent Orange.
It had left me with a strange mixture of anger that always accompanies
my interaction with anything about war, bizarre American guilt about what we
had done (even though it realistically had nothing to do with me), appreciation
of the fact that I had grown up in a time and place where I could live the
cushy life I have, and admiration of the Vietnamese people being able to bounce
back from such devastation in such a relatively short time. Even though I had left the museum hours
before, it was still with me, and I wasn’t incredibly interested in making
small talk.
I dealt with my laundry and focused my attention back on her,
responding to her question.
“We went to the War Remembrance Museum today. It was an incredibly good thing to see, but
really hard. I was pretty devastated by it;
I was almost in tears the whole time.”
“Yeah, I suppose it’s really hard for you to see being an
American.”
We had met the first night we arrived in Ho Chi Minh
City. Kelsey and I, in typical fashion,
had decided to celebrate our arrival by consuming mass amounts of cheap
beer. The hostel had it on offer for the
equivalent of less than fifty cents per bottle, which was slightly less than at
a café or bar, so why not hang out there?
We had gone to dinner and had a couple, then came back to the hostel and
were sitting downstairs listening to music, trying to do various things online
and write, as we knocked back a few Saigon beers. She was just sitting around down there as
well, which I would discover was her nightly routine.
I replied, “Yes, it is hard as an American to see those
images, but I’m glad I went. Sometimes
hard things need to be seen.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette in the
hope the conversation might be over after that, and I could escape to the
anonymous cacophony of the street outside for my smoke, and then retreat to the
cubby hole of a bed I had upstairs to try and unwind a bit. She went on undeterred by my obvious
cigarette ploy.
“What did you do yesterday then?”
I mumbled something about seeing the Reunification Palace,
and it being really interesting. Not wanting
to admit to her that I was mildly hung over the previous day from the first
night of beer consumption, and had stayed up really late, and so I didn’t get
out of bed til almost noon. So going to
the Palace for a few hours was really the only activity we managed to get in,
on our first real full day in Saigon.
What an irresponsible traveller I would seem! I hoped she wouldn’t ask what else we had
done with our day. She didn’t.
“Ah, the palace.
That’s a beautiful place isn’t it?
I agreed, and again muttered something about it being
interesting, and cool that it has been left as it was in 1975 when the forces
from the North crashed through the gates, ending the war. I said something to the effect of being able
to picture things as they were back then by being in the building.
She continued. “Yes, sometimes it’s good to be the
president.”
I thought this was a strange direction for the conversation,
but agreed while mindlessly fumbling with my cigarette.
“Would you ever want to be the president of Vietnam?”
I was befuddled by this new line of questioning from her. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to
answer such a query.
“I don’t know what to say to that! (I said trying to buy
some time.) I think being the president of any country would be a hard job and
I don’t know that I would want that. But
then again being the president does have its perks, like living in a palace
like that.”
I was mildly satisfied with my answer. I thought it was non-committal and diplomatic
enough. Though nothing could have
prepared me for the new direction this brought in our conversation.
“Yes, like Obama. He
has a tough job, but he is good. He
killed Bin Laden!”
She was Vietnamese, born in Saigon, but had moved to
California in 1970, and had lived there since.
She was back in Vietnam for an undetermined amount of time, as far as I
could understand it, as merely a tourist.
She had no family left in Vietnam, so I gathered from her that she was
just here to travel and see how things had changed in her home country since her
departure. I agreed with her on the
Obama comment.
She replied. “Not
like President Bush, he never could get Bin Laden.”
Ah, I saw my opportunity.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about being an American while
travelling, it’s that bashing Republicans is always a useful tool to get others
on your side. I’ve rarely, if ever, met anyone
outside the US that thinks the Republican Party is where it’s at.
I joked back, “Well Bush never really was too good at getting
ANYTHING done.”
She seemed a bit confused by this response, and I wasn’t
sure if she just didn’t understand my attempt at humor. I would later find out why she had not
enjoyed this response, but as of this moment I was unsure what sort of tenuous
foothold I had in this conversation. I
began again nervously fidgeting with the cigarette in my hand, she continued on
undeterred.
“I wrote a letter to President Obama telling him that he
needed to catch Bin Laden, and he did.
God told me I must send him the letter, so I did, and then Bin Laden was
dead.”
Unsure how to react to this, I laughed a bit, until I
realized she was serious as a heart attack.
I replied, “Well good you were around then to make sure that
was the case! If you hadn’t written that
letter, who knows what might have happened.”
She agreed without a trace of irony in her voice.
“I also wrote a letter to President Bush. God told me to do that too. I told Bush that we needed to invade Iraq and
kill Saddam Hussein, and right after I sent that he announced we were going
into Iraq. I had written in my letter
that it would be ‘difficult, but not impossible.’ When he gave his speech to announce we were
going over there, he used those very words.
That’s how I knew he had gotten my letter, and that was his response to
me.”
She began to laugh at this point, which was welcome to me,
as I was straining every fiber of my being to not laugh hysterically at the
very idea of all of this. As she
laughed, she asked:
“And do you know where I got that quote from?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“The Godfather! Al
Pacino says it in The Godfather!”
(Though after the conversation I googled it, as I did not remember the
quote from the film. It was from the
Godfather, however, not spoken by Al Pacino.
Perhaps I should let her know, so she can correctly attribute the quote
to Rocco, instead of Michael.)
She chuckled quite hard at this, and again I was happy to do
so along with her. She seemed to have no
sense that it was kind of bizarre she would be using a quote from a violent film
about a crime family to carry out the “will of God.” At this point I was pretty much resigned to
the fact that I was drawn into a rollercoaster ride with her about her conversations
with deities. She began explaining to me
that the Babylonians destroyed a temple thousands of years ago, and that God had
pledged to get his retribution for this.
So modern day Iraq was now being punished for it, however many millennia
later, as God’s grand revenge plot. She
quoted verses from Revelations predicting both Iraq wars. I was busying myself by trying to act as
though I thought she was sane, while at the same time having visions of running
out into the street and being run over by a motorbike to get myself out of this
interaction. Instead I just stood by
half-heartedly nodding and smiling at her, all whilst trying my hardest not to
bust out laughing at her many proclamations .
“In 1992 God told me to send a letter to the President
saying that we needed to kill Saddam, but I didn’t listen. Then when 9/11 happened I knew that I needed
to act. I thought if this was happening
in New York and Washington, it was only a matter of time before they come to
L.A. next, and I couldn’t let them come to where I live and get me! So I listened to God this time, and sent the
letter, and we did invade Iraq and kill Saddam!
God finally had his revenge!”
“Well, of course, you couldn’t let something happen to where
you live!”
Apparently I had given in to the madness and had begun
encouraging this. I really had no
choice.
“Do you remember the first time that President Bush got
elected?”
“Yes, of course, all the chaos with the recounts and such.”
“Well I was watching all of that, and God told me that he
was going to be the next president, and I knew it needed to be so. I called my friend and asked her who she voted
for, and she said she voted for Bush.
And of course she did, she is a Christian, and God made it so all
Christians voted for Bush, so that the rest of it could happen!”
“That makes complete sense.”
I’m not sure how that sentence could’ve escaped my mouth in
those circumstances; insanity was obviously infectious in the Budget Hostel
that evening.
“And do you know why Bush was never able to get Bin Laden?”
I was breathless waiting for her explanation of this one. I responded with a negative.
“Because Bush is from Texas.
He is a gentleman. He gave Bin
Laden warning that he was coming for him, that’s the gentleman in him coming
out. Since he had warning, Bin Laden
went into hiding in Pakistan or wherever.
Obama is from Chicago, he doesn’t have that problem. He was able to just go after him without any
warning. Two totally different
upbringings.”
She began laughing uncontrollably at herself for this one,
and I followed suit. I wanted to ask her
if her letters were so powerful, why she hadn’t sent a letter to Bush telling
him to stop being a gentleman and just kill Bin Laden. I was sure given the track record of her
letters this would have worked! I
refrained from this, as I didn’t think I wanted to delve that deep into her
theological thinking.
“I also wrote another letter to Obama telling him that I
could see he loved his daughters very much, and that if they ever decided in
the future that they wanted to be president, I would support them in that.”
I responded back to her that her comments were nice, all the
while thinking how relieved Barack must be to have her blessing on that
one. After all, without her support, how could poor Malia or Sasha hope to make it through a term as president?
“After all of that, you know I still have problems with
clergy back in California not liking me?”
“Really? That seems
crazy.” (Though that seemed absolutely plausible to me.)
“Yes, they never like the prophets in their own time. Prophets are only appreciated after they’re
gone.”
Yet another burst of laughter from her, and I knew I needed
to act. I took the split second lapse in
her narrative to make my excuses about being tired, needing to go have my smoke
and go to bed. She seemed reasonably
satisfied with this and bid me a good night.
I slipped out the door to the sweet relief of the street and the
nicotine.
