Shortly before that all-important ’24 Hours Missing’ stage, seemingly under his own volition, Stu had returned to us; still worrying me though was the genuine concern I’d seen in his eyes when he spoke of fearing for my safety.

“Dude,” ignoring his drunken ramblings I commenced my interrogation, “where have you been – where did you go?”

I watched Stu’s eyes widen in recollection, watched the big stupid smile grow bigger and stupider, before refocusing and looking at me, “When?” he asked with a puff of air, like I was playing some silly game with him.

“Last night man … We were ready to go, you ducked back inside to grab your fucking jandals, and that was it, you never came back out … So what happened – where’d ya go man?”

Again, Stu put on his thinking face. I awaited explanation. Stu stared at me as though waiting for me to speak. I nodded, prompting him. Stu snapped back to his thinking face.

“Stu,” after an enduring silence I decided this was going to take more than basic interrogation techniques; I needed to lead the witness. “Last night, Crazy Girls…”

Stu nodded, an even larger grin forming on his face, as recollection seemingly returned.

“…You remember, we were at Crazy Girls, yeah? But then we left…”

I watched Stu’s face, taken by stupor as, looking now to the sky with glazed eyes and a wide grin, he seemed to slowly mouth the words ‘crazy girls’.

“…Rather, I left, Stu, but you didn’t leave, you went back in for your fucking jandals, then you didn’t come back out – remember?”

Stu was nodding rhythmically; I was unsure if it was agreement or if there was a song in his head.

I glanced down at the pitcher of local beer clenched in his fist, from which he periodically swigged, and which was periodically sloshing onto his legs as he knelt at my side. “Have you been drinking since then – since last night?”

Stu smiled and slowly nodded.

“So where’d ya go, where’d ya sleep, man – have you slept at all?”

Again, Stu became vacant; I gradually came to realise that I was witnessing a veritable shell of a man who, across the last 24 hours, had not stopped imbibing alcohol, much less taken a few moments to lie down.

Suddenly I had a sickening thought. “Stu, check your wallet.”

Stu did as he was told, maintaining eye contact as he reached around to his back pocket. I heard the button ‘pop’ (a fastened back pocket is the only kind of back pocket that one should ever use to hold a wallet in Vietnam); I breathed relief as I sighted the palm-sized leather envelope. Still though I felt bile in my throat. “How much money’s left, bud?”

Stu very slowly, gingerly, as if he was snooping in his little sister’s diary, pawed through the various folds, the pouches of his wallet. I watched his eyes again widen then, with fingers of one hand splaying the divisions of inner material, above my table he speechlessly inverted and shook the wallet. Three crumpled tens and a twenty dong note fell out (they never bother with the small stuff).

I nodded knowingly, “How much should be there – how much did you have yesterday?”

Stu’s typically swarthy façade turned pale; he looked horrified as if just now realising what must have happened.

“It’s cool man, that kind of shit happens here – your cards are still there though, yeah?”

Once more, Stu checked; he came up nodding, yeah.

For the first time since Stu’s disappearance I felt light-hearted; thankfully, it seemed, Stu was not about to become another victim of the Curse of Vietnam. Mind you, I still had a lot more interrogation to do before I was letting the man away tonight. “So how much money were you carrying, bud – how much did they get?”

Just like that Stu was sober (more sober, anyway). “At the airport,” I couldn’t even tell what accent he was currently employing, such was the meek nature of his speech, “I converted ten thousand rand…”

I recall being shocked; in fact utterly aghast – 10,000? According to my hasty arithmetic, 10,000NZD would have been around 150.000.000VND; enough to buy a new car in Vietnam. I calmed myself though, knowing the rand was worth somewhat less than the dollar, and tried desperately to recall the NZD/South African Rand (yeah, I couldn’t even remember their damned currency code, and no, thank you, it is not ‘SAR’, in fact, as I recalled at the time, SAR was reserved for the Saudi Arabian Riyal) exchange rate; generally, similarly to international capital cities, international currency codes along with the approximate exchange rates they represent is something that I pride myself on knowing by heart (evidently, South Africa’s currency code is ZAR and it turns out there are currently, approximately 9.5ZAR in 1NZD). Alas in this case, at this time, consoling a dejected Stu, with that particular line of recollection not forthcoming, it was all I could do to downplay his obvious sense of violation…

Skip forward to the present. Having spent a great deal of time considering the aforementioned chain of events, I would like to offer my best theory on what happened that night. Here it is: Stu was spotted, by me, on multiple occasions throughout the night, in discussions with a rather large, somewhat ill-favoured, woman who, apparently, had some indirect affiliation with Crazy Girls bar; I believe she was an ‘errand lady’ or something. I never pushed Stu at the time regarding the content of these conversations, suffice to say the (clearly English speaking) woman in question appeared delighted to have such a charming gentleman taking the time to speak with her. Now, whether Stu did or whether Stu did not, at the height of his inebriation, deliberately organise an after-hours tryst with one or more disreputable ladies, is incidental. The reality, as I believe it to have happened, is that when Stu went back into that bar to ‘collect his jandals’, his mind had become distracted, his plans diverted by lingering female staff members then, suggestable as (anyone could appreciate) he already was, this level of intoxication was then likely heightened/prolonged through whatever toxin these crazy girls had at their disposal at the time – alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, crack cocaine, meth, or it might have been any number of colourful pills I would always see floating around on tabletops in that bar. They will then have done exactly what those crazy girls in Crazy Girls bar are paid to do – they will have entertained the hell out of our poor Stu. The thing though about entertainment, particularly entertainment in Vietnam, it seldom comes free; thus while he sat in an entertained stupor those licentious ladies will have been steadily depleting his wallet – not stealing strictly, simply charging a(n exorbitant) fee for services rendered – until his wallet was bare, of all but 50 dong. I didn’t ask at the time, but Stu would soon have discovered just how much the possible trips to ‘ATM!’ (positioned conveniently about 12 metres from the Crazy Girls doorway) cost him, because an empty wallet, to those girls, means nothing. When it comes to extortion of White men, Vietnamese woman are merciless.

…Depending on how much money he spent that night of his own freewill, given that 10,000ZAR is tantamount to somewhere in the vicinity of 16.000.000VND, fair to say Stu was taken for more than ten but less than fifteen million dong; to put this in perspective, the boots that I had made in Hoi An in 2017, my ‘Vietnam boots’, cost 1.400.000VND.

In other words, effectively, Stu lost ten pairs of exquisitely hand-crafted, Vietnamese leather boots that night; judging by his post-warzone appearance though, he had one hell of a time doing it so I guess, it could have been worse.

Fair to say most men have a blowout during their first week in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Vienna Meece

Photography by Viola A Shurn

 

 

I wandered home from Crazy Girls bar that night, alone, confused; what had happened to Stu? In fairness anything might have happened to Stu; highly intoxicated, first-time-in-Vietnam, solo traveller Stu, and while I wasn’t worried per se – reckon the man could talk his way of any situation – it was certainly odd.

As it happened, a few days after that ordeal Noobie emerged from her den up the dark end of Bui Vien and afforded me a visit at the Yen Trang hotel (in reality I think her conscience was eating at the inside of her brain); I was stationed outside Loan’s Café at the time, contentedly sipping a glass of café sua da, when she showed up. Deciding it might be nice for Noobie and me to have lunch together, and although I was aware her preference is pizza, in buying a greasy meal of ‘Hamburger and Fries’ from Loan’s Café, I really thought I was doing the next best thing; she nevertheless grumbled and moaned her way through much of it, clearly pining for her squalid upstairs shared-living quarters also the dankness of the Crazy Girls bar and obviously not wanting to be there in the daylight much less the open air, additionally complaining of a sore stomach throughout…

I was asking around, but nobody had seen Stu; of course, everybody remembered Stu – that amazing British/South African dude whose dreamy smile and radiated warmth appeared to have touched the hearts of all involved (women were smitten and guys had man-crushes) – they just could not seem to explain his disappearance. At this point, while I was still not willing to concede ‘worry’, upon having made it out unscathed to then witness your buddy dash back inside a seedy bar, to fetch their footwear which they have inexplicably removed and left therein, then not return, if nothing else did elicit a decided sense of bemusement. That afternoon I sat in my usual afternoon spot and, as I usually do from my afternoon spot, I pondered.

…Noobie’s stomach pains were worrying; she had assured me they weren’t the usual bought of womanly pains and in fact they’d been a feature of almost all our time together. Evidently alcohol aggravated the discomfort which, given her profession, made it particularly worrying (I didn’t say anything at the time but shooting around my brain were the terms ‘ulcer’, ‘cyst’, ‘tumour’, ‘stomach cancer’ among others) therefore, being the gentleman I am, I had insisted that whenever I bought us drinks at her bar, she was to make mine the regulation Johnny Walker Black Label but I wanted hers to be Coke, or ginger ale, or something of a similar hue that she could pass off as alcohol but which was not going to aggravate her stomach pains like alcohol did…

Since checking into the Yen Trang and becoming a regular patron of Loan’s Café, as well as perceiving passers-by in their daily activities, using my limited grasp of basic Vietnamese, (also some English depending who was the target audience) I had been passing the days in a concerted effort to drum up custom for the incipient business that was Loan’s Café; before Stu arrived I had been relying on a charming demeanour and mispronounced vowels to win over tourists and locals respectively – then imagine my delight to have at my disposal a bona fide advertising guy. That was it, I was now officially concerned for Stu’s wellbeing.

…In fact the masterful deception of a bargirl drinking soft drink and passing it off as liquor (in order to satisfy the ‘bargirl’ expectation) is not a concept for which I can take credit; as I’m sure is documented in one of this year’s earlier instalments, given that it’s the bargirls who work the floor and it is also the bargirls who work the bar, the duplicity of ‘false drink representation’ was a scam to which I fell victim during my first week frequenting Crazy Girls; if a lady feels she is becoming perilously inebriated while her mark is not, instead of pouring a round of, for example, vodka for her and the aforementioned male, she’ll make his a vodka and hers a tonic water or similar, invariably still charging ‘220’ (the price of two alcoholic drinks) for the service.

Evening had descended upon Bui Vien and still the people were bereft of Stu. Several hours earlier Loan from the cafe had asked me if I knew of Stu’s whereabouts then later Lieu from reception had asked me the very same thing; his room at the Yen Trang was still ‘occupied’ yet he was not there.

Stu had come to Vietnam, following a career in advertising, as an insanely youthful 45-year-old man (in fact upon meeting for the first time, the question had come up of our respective ages, where he had – at the time, of course, drunkenly – responded, ‘Guess how old I am then’. I had said, ‘I dunno, let’s say, what, 35…?’. Then regarding his attempt at my age, ‘Hm, your look, your overall presence, hm, I reckon you sound, oh, reckon you’d be, say, 45…?’ Suffice to say we were both surprised; more-so to find that the correct ages had been guessed, they were just around the wrong way), where Stu was intending to secure employment as an English Teacher for Vietnamese students.

In Vietnam ‘English Teachers’ are very well paid, reportedly, even by Western standards. I believe Stu had lined up a number of interviews over the coming days and I was becoming concerned (I suppose like every good fleeting acquaintance ought) that should he not resurface soon he might end up like so many other Western-Vietnamese hopefuls; come to Vietnam on a one-way ticket, ready to shirk the old life of obligation, keen to live it up amid a world of heat and beauty, excited to throw off the shackles of oppression and just cut loose – only to blow out in the first few days, to become disorientated by flashy lights and seductive aromas, to grow infatuated with so much smooth skin and batting eyelids, enamoured by promises of unimaginable delights and to be cajoled into wilfully giving away everything, then be forced to abjectly retreat, with nothing, and to mope home just a few weeks’ later on a friend’s credit card, bewildered, penniless and dejected, yet another victim of the insidious ‘Curse of Vietnam’.

I was determined to not let the same fate befall Stu; it seemed like he was genuinely keen to make a go of this ‘English Teacher’ racquet and he was, after all, ‘such an amazing guy’. At this point, relaxing out front of Loan’s Café as I was, in the semi-darkness with a fruit concoction pleasantly spiked with a double measure of Beam, I am not ashamed to admit, I was very concerned about Stu.

That was when I heard it, the unmistakable South African timbre – momentarily I forgot whether this meant he was drunk or sober – so glancing to my left, to the backpackers’ hostel, which appeared little more than a threshold for scantily clad European women – often giggling and usually trailed by a horde of eager men – to emerge and disappear, along with the seating out front of this threshold, there he was.

Engaged in one of his fabled ‘heart-to-heart sales pitches’ Stu had employed his typically stooped posture leaned over a table, placing himself awkwardly up on one shoulder to ensure eye-contact with his audience, positioned ostensibly at the ‘behest of his client’, and looking as though he was attempting to convince this (presumably English-speaking) tourist of something rather complicated. From my position not ten metres behind Stu (admittedly, feeling massive relief), in full view of the adjacent seating arrangement but technically at a different establishment, in a loud voice I called, simply, “Stu you wanker.”

I watched his ears prick up, watched him slowly turn; the grin, the animated expression on his face telling me that yes, he was still very much the drunkard. Standing now at full height Stu threw his arms in the air as if in celebration, “Tim you cunt!” he yelled with similar volume to my own then, dismissing his prospective client, slowly jogged the short distance between us. He stopped half a metre from where I sat and took a knee by my side, his mouth agape in a wide smile; I turned, grinning and nodding slowly, gazing upon the droopy-eyed, swaying specimen before me. With that, unexpectedly, Stu lurched forward, throwing his arms around my shoulders, stuffing his whiskery face into my neck. A moment later he pulled back, “Oh Tim mate,” slobber speckled my left cheek as he enunciated in his South African tone, “it’s so good to see you … I thought they might have killed ya.”

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Stuart Reet-Urn

Photography by Con Fusan

 

I was battling. My head felt on the verge of combustion. Too much information coming in; so much unwelcome speculation going out.

That evening I sat, sipping one of Loan’s brilliant fruit concoctions – which I’d had her spike with a generous measure of bourbon whiskey (not real whisky but best she could do) – and tried to straighten out the recent influx of knowledge in my brain…

Lin Aug appears to have married a Yank by the name of Gary Cooper.

Gary Cooper appears to be some deranged middle-aged creeper.

Across Ho Chi Minh City, sex is money and money is love.

As established last year, ‘HCMC is the unequivocal arsehole of Vietnam’.

Most people here are not above lying and/or cheating to get what they want.

Men don’t typically work, and Ho Chi Minh City is ultimately run by women.

Bars in Southeast Asia use ‘bargirls’ to seduce men/promote the sale of liquor.

A family’s eldest daughter is beholden to provide for her parents in later life.

That being so, ‘Moneeey!’ is an eldest daughter’s number one priority.

Eldest daughters will say and/or do just about anything in the pursuit of money.

A bargirl will act/say however/whatever is required to push the sale of liquor.

Pleasant as they may appear, in Vietnam, no person is to be trusted.

Most Vietnamese women are not ‘prostitutes’, yet many accept money for sex.

Sex is money and money is love.

…I had reached the final week in my tour of duty; there was a chance I was going to make it after all. It was from this state of mind that I came upon perhaps the most enchanting character (and as it would turn out, perilously so) who I would meet while in Vietnam. I ran into this paragon of charisma, this personification of enigma, out front of the Yen Trang hotel on Bui Vien Street. Name was Stu, and Stu did what he could (I originally imagined unintentionally but now am not so sure) to ensure that in my final week, I would struggle to make it out alive…

Perusing Facebook profiles of the few Vietnamese ladies I had come to know well – then perusing further, more deeply into Facebook’s astonishing breadth of stunning Vietnamese women – I noticed there was a hallmark; a quirk or idiosyncrasy that many of these ladies tended to project in their photographs – just as one might witness a Japanese person displaying the ‘peace’ sign, in these Vietnamese women’s photographs the fingers of one hand were brought up into a light fist but with their thumb and forefingers held together, with these digits crossed at the first knuckle (also I imagine, in real time, gently oscillating), in the internationally recognised symbol of, there it is, moneeeeeeey!

…He wore a hat not unlike my own, dressed not unlike myself, displayed mannerisms not unlike my own, was a solo traveller not unlike myself; in fact the first time I saw Stu, seated as he was at Loan’s café, looking down as I was from the Yen Trang hotel lobby, such was the nature of his presence, indeed such was the present fug-state of my own brain, I actually thought, albeit briefly, that I may have been having an out-of-body experience and, in total seriousness, I actually thought, if just for a moment, that the gentleman I was viewing down below was me…

One afternoon, a few days before I was due to leave Vietnam for Singapore, Noobie came by the Yen Trang, because apparently, after all I had done, all I had given her, she believed she owed me one last visit (I would have liked to have learned the formula she used to equate those factors; over the past month I must have spent around twenty nights at her bar, with every pair of drinks I bought us earning her a commission, and at an average spend of five million dong per night, thus, 20 X 5,000,000 = 1…?

…When he was sober, he was clearly British; when intoxicated it could not be overlooked that Stu came from South Africa. I suspect this was a game he liked to play with people, although it did not take long to appreciate that this – evidently England born but South Africa grown – former advertising executive might just have been the most charismatic chap I’d met to date; certainly, Stu knew how to speak to people’s souls.

That night I showed Stu along Bui Vien; I wasn’t surprised to end up at Crazy Girls bar, nor was I surprised when, around eight hours later, the place began shutting up for the night. Stu had become exceedingly drunk in the meantime; that didn’t surprise me greatly either, the guy was a big drinker. He and I began making our way out and onto the street then unsurprisingly, Stu realised he’d forgotten his jandals.

He ducked back inside; I waited for over ten minutes, but he didn’t come back out.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Darce Ted Lee

Photography by Anne Ticks

One month ago, I found cause to cease my incessant derision of the New Zealand Government and the fuel prices they so clearly dictate.

In fairness the Government still pisses me off and even when my preferred right-wing party is back in power, you can be damn sure I’ll still be vociferous in my bemoaning of the Opposition.

Back before Christmas 2018, as documented in an earlier instalment, our beloved Jacinda reduced the price of petrol from an unprecedented $2.45 per litre to a decidedly reasonable $2.03, then assured besotted Kiwis there would be ‘no more price hikes in the next twelve months’.

As I saw it, and despite our Prime Minister’s mellifluous wording surrounding the issue, fuel prices were only ever going to become increasingly unaffordable, and the thing is, although I was only clocking up a comparatively meagre 4 to 500 kilometres in a week with a relatively fuel-efficient car and with an extremely conservative right foot, I was done having my weekly budget dictated by the fluctuating cost of petrol.

Since Jacinda’s pre-Christmas fuel cost reduction – ultimately Government respite from massive Government tax increases – the price at the pump has been increasing steadily, by at least one cent a week, as we all should have known it would (from $2.03 over Christmas, what is it now – what will it be this time next year?).

After a great deal of researching and an even greater deal of real searching, I stepped into the 21^st century of motoring and purchased an electric car.

The Nissan Leaf goes like a dream – in that no one on the outside can hear it running – it is remarkably well appointed – the interior is plush and reportedly constructed from recycled materials – it is technologically advanced – from my old-school perspective it’s dead-set mind-blowing – and, other than a few trivial, superficial aspects, one month on, I have zero complaints about my new car.

Nissan’s entry into the world of Electric Vehicles appears to have been a successful one, devoid of any significant mishaps; the moment one begins to operate a Leaf it becomes clear that these are well thought out vehicles. In order to keep up with the world’s growing desire for sustainability Nissan could have so easily rushed into production of their debut EV, neglecting vital aspects thereby bringing to the market a car of substandard quality; Nissan most certainly have NOT done that. The countless electronic features – Keyless Entry so you’re not always digging your keys out of your pocket, or the Reverse Camera which I had thought would be a waste of time (I back with my mirrors, don’t try to change me) but is actually awesome because you no longer have to leave that half-metre ‘gap of uncertainty’ between bumpers, or Charging Timer so you can choose when and for how long you charge, and then there’s that little (electric rather than electronic) light that comes on when you clip open the charge-port flap just in case it’s too dark to see what you’re doing – are so logical yet are the kind of thing that could have so easily been overlooked by a manufacturer trying to save time or, pointedly, money.

Like most cars, driven economically, the Nissan Leaf is not a fast car yet like some other cars, when one totally disregards economy, one finds themselves driving a very fast car indeed; I can comfortably, sedately, drive over 100 kilometres in my 2013 Leaf (after around a 4% annual battery degeneration), or I can race, foot right up it, for about 40.

Most evenings I sedately drive a 70 to 80 kilometre circuit, then park up and put the car on charge overnight. Given my solo living arrangements, also my inherently frugal nature, in the past a heavy month of electricity usage would have cost me under $60; charging my Leaf effectively doubles that thus, fair to say it is costing me around $2 a day to run – used to be more like $20.

At this rate, and providing no major expenses along the way (which after numerous reviews, I can’t help feeling, this is the expectation), based on a past fuel bill of over $4000 per year, in three to four years I’ll have funded my Nissan Leaf in petrol savings alone; then let’s not forget there is also the cost of lubricating an internal combustion engine, and the associated engine wear/repairs/costs that come with that.

Of course I understand that electric motors wear and may similarly require repairs but come on, electric motors have far fewer moving parts and if they are not abused (thinking of an antique shearing plant motor in a hundred-year-old woolshed that still ticks away), they can go forever.

I’m doing my bit for the environment, too, which is additionally awesome.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Leigh Fuss Great

Photography by Nee San Leif

Less than 48 hours after capitalising on a ‘$5 Haircut’ from a lady who had apparently cut just ‘four hairs’ previously while using equipment they had likely bought second-hand in the ‘80s and who could doubtfully see straight anyway, I returned to this Bui Vien ‘Health Spa’ for a do-over.

Having since found two adequately positioned mirrors to give me a clear view of the back of my own head, then witnessing with horror the strip hacked up the back of my skull with an obvious number one comb while the surrounding hair was a number two, I was irate…

Granted to make a mistake cutting someone’s hair is not unforgivable, but to say nothing about that mishap and to let that customer leave your premises thinking they have a reasonable haircut when in fact what they have is laughable, that cannot be forgiven.

…I stormed to the front desk, calmly removed my hat and, indicating the back of my skull, said, “You made a mess of my hair … You are going to fix it.”

The lady, the taller woman from last time, seemingly accepting that their in-house joke had come to its end, nodded apologetically. “Yes, OK,” she conceded, before asking, “how you wan fix?”

I shook my head in dismay, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; they were the ones advertising to cut people’s hair, yet it seemed it was the customer who needed to have the barbering know-how to make it work. Regardless, and hairdressing incompetency notwithstanding, I had decided exactly what needed to be done.

From the chair I explained, attempting to downplay the sarcasm in my voice, “As you’ve hacked up the back about a hundred mils with a number one comb when you were supposed to be doing a number two cut, all you need to do – all you ever needed to do and I can’t believe you didn’t have the initiative to do this the first time – is to cut around the entire back and sides at that height and at that same length … Number one…”

“You wan, number one?” she pointed to the side of my head in confusion.

I shook my head in futility. “Honestly, how do you not understand?” I stared into the taller woman’s eyes. “All I want, is a haircut that looks good … Do you understand that?”

“It look good, yes.”

“No,” my head dropped to my hands, “it does not look good, that’s the problem … I need you to make it look good.” I looked at the lady beseechingly and awaited her response.

She looked back at me vacantly.

I closed my eyes, hung my head and almost cried; never in my life had I experienced such overwhelming exasperation. “Number one,” defeatedly I held up a finger.

She in turn held up the number one comb.

I took it from her and crudely ran it around the side and back of my skull in demonstration, then gave back the comb and stared at the woman.

She appeared to understand and relayed this knowledge to her lazy-eyed counterpart. “No no,” I promptly intervened, “not her – that woman does not know the first damned thing about how to cut hair.”

“But she, hairdresser,” said the taller woman, as though it was the most simple thing ever.

“She is not, a hairdresser,” I disputed vehemently.

“She cut hairs, we cut no hairs.”

Another hour after entering the premises I was walking out the door. My hair at the sides had been trimmed down to a number one and supposedly matched up with the errant strip at the back. No more money had been paid; none had been earned. What an utter waste of time.

For the record, the previous year, in Hoi An, Vietnam’s marketplace, I paid 180.000VND for a barbershop haircut and, aside from the result bearing unnerving similarities to the preferred style of Kim Jong Un, it was a precision cut. My strenuous recommendation, therefore, transcendent as the Vietnamese seem to be at turning their hands to just about any job, task, skill-set or profession, it would be unwise to try and pick up a haircut at any place in Vietnam other than a bona fide hair salon/barbershop.

I wandered back towards the Yen Trang, feeling depleted, although my spirits were lifted somewhat by the comical array of multi-coloured kiddie furniture outside Loan’s Café. Suddenly I felt I was choking on my own heart; seated comfortably on one of the chairs, smiling contentedly as he drank his coffee and smoked his cigar, exuding such a grandiose level of self-importance that his presence was quite impossible to avoid (that ‘presence’ in fact smacking of wealthy Western traveller, particularly Yank), was a well-dressed, clean-cut, fat-bellied, middle-aged gentleman. Our eyes locked as I sauntered by. He gave me, what I considered at the time to be, a nod of familiarity; I was given a chill, as I endeavoured to swallow back down the lump that had risen into my throat.

As you will have noticed, in the previous edition, with that disappointing Facebook share – which incidentally had no trouble displaying in full colour on a Microsoft Word Document – this website struggles to project that kind of page/layout/font. Nevertheless, it was while in the process of ripping and sticking that segment of social media text that I happened to enter onto Lin’s profile; the very first thing I saw left me stunned…

More curiously still, around one week after my unauthorised copy and paste, her Facebook page had shifted from ‘Lin Aug’– formerly ‘Ga Ra Lin Ayun’ (the Viet’s do like their name changes), a page which I believe still exists – to simply, ‘Facebook User’, and while my messages are still there, all of her past entries now claim ‘This message has been temporarily removed because the sender’s account requires verification.’

…Now, had I been aware that her page would effectively vanish I might have been a little quicker ripping and sticking details of the horror that faced me that day; she had posted on her site a lengthy YouTube video (not uncommon among FB users and not an altogether startling action, no) but, in fairness it was the title of the video that shocked me the most – Wedding Ceremony of Gary Cooper and Lin Aug…

Bear with me; that was viewed only recently, yet around eight months prior, from HCMC Vietnam, I have just engaged in heated online discussion, then possibly even encountered in the flesh, the man behind this developing fracas.

…I was seriously beginning to wonder just how far this so-called Gary was willing to go to ensure he landed his prize.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by G Cooper

Photography by D Ranged

The next time, from the Yen Trang lobby computer, that I spoke with Lin, evidently on the 13^th August, 2018 (pretty sure the time you’ll see there, 10:21 p.m., is NZST; Vietnam is six hours behind, so assume it was 4:21 one muggy afternoon in HCMC), as you’ll see  I very quickly become exasperated with the whole game.

 

8/13/18, 10:21 PM

He hacked your accounts tim

Tim Walker

I don’t give a shit if he hacks my Facebook accounts; what’s he going to do, post a rude picture?

I dont know.he said that

Tim Walker

Said what?

I am fighting with him .he hacked my accounts today and unblock him

But he said he didnt do

I am very upset now

Tim Walker

Who CARES?! Lin, it’s Facebook, it doesn’t matter…?

He hacked your accounts?you dont care??

Tim Walker

Why would I – what’s he going to do?

Oh he said bad things about you

Tim Walker

Lin, this is ridiculous; you have to just forget Gary and his childish manipulation and get on with your life.

Really, he SAID bad things about me…?

Yes

Tim Walker

Do you realise how stupid you sound right now?

They’re WORDS Lin; they can’t hurt us.

But his words hurted me before.

Tim Walker

Only because you let them hurt you.

That’s why I say Lin, ignore the silly old prick.

8/14/18, 12:45 AM

Okay

GAry: hey timmy

it’s Gary

How are you?

Do you really want to meet with me and tell me how you feel?

I can tell by the size of your little kids mouth, I would hurt you so bad

you can talk shit behind a computer tho

you can write mr writer

my job was infantry

its to fight

so don’t think you can ever walk up to me and talk shit in your lifetime

you are just a kid to me

You talk shit about me because you want what I already had with her

You get half truths from her and want to judge wholey

but I’m american timmy and I just bust you in the mouth when i see you in HCMC

write your books and talk shit behind a compute all day, but you won’t hit it like I did with her and I’ll bust your little ass up and down the streeet

Go do your little side jobs and lie about the stock market to people who don’t know. Because you are fake

Yes Lin needs money

2.5k to be exact

meet with me and bring it to me

if you so well off mr writer come meet me pay what she owes me

Easy to walk into a relatinship with problems and share your 2 cents..

And I can tell you have a small penis

don’t change the subject

your mouth is so small

everything about you small

you are not long and strong like me

and you got a temper

lin will never marry you

but you can take her for a spin

You know what is funny to me

you asking her to tell you about her guys

here your are just meeting her and you want her to be honest

I’m the guy that was going to marry her after 8 months and she didn’t tell me the truth

A blowjob behind my back

with james

telling me she only had 3 lovers in her life

but she sleeps with her best guy friend

you better learn all these names timmy boy

James, Dale, Justin, Gary, Mon, and thats just the serious relationships in the past year

1 night stands you will never know

so don’t bother asking her to tell you about her guys

you are nothing special

And you are just like her with your I searched all over vietnam for love act

lets see who hurts each other first, I got the popcorn

She has that I’m a conservative farm girl from Dak Lak act.

Timmy boy just make sure you carry on the tradition of warning the next guy like James warned me……….

[07/06/2018 20:15:04] Lin: Why you lied him?i have never asked you to buy camera for me and i have only this zalo
[07/06/2018 20:19:33] Lin: I didnt many guys,when i met you i broke up him
[07/06/2018 20:19:48] Lin: You should tell the truth
[07/06/2018 20:20:05] James Leigh: Stop playing with this poor guy! He’s dumb and actually believes you. I won’t tell him all about you because he’s a nice, dumb guy and doesn’t need to be hurt. Why aren’t you using your other Zalo
[07/06/2018 20:20:47] Lin: I have only this zalo
[07/06/2018 20:20:49] James Leigh: You don’t need to use some old guy to get out of Vietnam
[07/06/2018 20:21:14] Lin: I d̀ont use him
[07/06/2018 20:21:28] Lin: Which the a nother zalo you say?
[07/06/2018 20:21:33] Lin: I even dont know
[07/06/2018 20:21:45] Lin: I havent talked to you for long time
[07/06/2018 20:21:59] James Leigh: Ha ha? What? Is he reading this? Okay, keep lying, if he’s stupid enough to believe you! Let’s chat on your other Zalo so I don’t embarrass you
[07/06/2018 20:22:04] Lin: I didnt ask to meet you in June
[07/06/2018 20:22:10] James Leigh: Ha ha
[07/06/2018 20:22:13] Lin: I will marry him
[07/06/2018 20:22:24] James Leigh: Switching to your other Zalo
[07/06/2018 20:22:28] Lin: I dont have another zalo
[07/06/2018 20:23:18] James Leigh: It’s funny this one has no pictures or timeline
[07/06/2018 20:23:35] James Leigh: I’m going to your other Zalo now

Lin was never the victim

she will play the role of the victim

but she was never the victim

But you need to stop pretending to Tim, you just want a piece of ass

8/14/18, 5:07 PM

Tim Walker

Gary, you are insane. To infiltrate people’s Facebook accounts is deranged. Fortunately I have better things to do with my days than play immature games with a 50-year-old kiddie fiddler.

8/14/18, 6:40 PM

Tim Walker

You want to do something today Lin?

8/15/18, 12:00 AM

I just read your text.i am sorry

Are you there??

Maybe you went out already now

I didnt know you text me .i am sorry respomding you late

I am at home.i just had dinner

8/15/18, 3:23 AM

Tim Walker

It’s fine, Lin.

How are you?

Tim Walker

You know Lin, when I met you, you were easygoing, carefree.

Now through your own actions,  you’ve made your life a lot of work.

I worked in the morning today

I am at home

Tim Walker

I know.

I know.

But he texted me much so i dont want to open my messegers

Tim Walker

I know.

I am sorry for everything he talked to you yesterday

Tim Walker

Yeah, about that, Lin, you’ve turned yourself into more work than I can be bothered enduring.

 

That conversation continued for a little longer, with me becoming progressively uninterested in the awkward situation that she had made…

It only occurs to me now, and while I was in Vietnam of course in the heat of the moment I believed everything that Lin told me, but the above Facebook message, dated over eight months ago, including – especially – the apparent entry by ‘Gary’, is utter shit. She was clearly doing what eldest daughters in Ho Chi Minh City do best – attempting to scam money out of White folk. Reading over that Facebook conversation over eight months since I last saw it (which, admittedly, didn’t transfer from Facebook quite how I’d hoped), it’s seems so obvious – how did I not see it at the time? Lin reveals to me in person that she owes Gary $2500 for a camera, to be later corroborated in Gary’s apparent Facebook interaction, particularly his invitation/demand that I should pay this debt; the whole thing now seems so comical.

…I did however, while scrolling over Lin’s and my FB conversation, for the first time in months, just happen to check out her profile.

You won’t believe what I found; I barely believe what I found.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Lin Aug

Photography by Gary Cooper

In line with the rest of Vietnam’s outdoor seating, the kiddie furniture out the front of Loan’s Café caused me and my Western stature continual problems.

On the plus side Loan’s tables and chairs were made of timber rather than plastic, so that was something.

Constricting as it may have been, I found that if I turned side-on, rather than attempting to wedge my wiry frame under the table, it did provide a fine vantage point from which to view the everyday shenanigans of Vietnamese locals…

I was seated contentedly outside Loan’s Café as dusk fell one afternoon/evening, sipping a fruity, icy beverage that Loan had whipped up for me (she used to regularly prepare ‘testers’ for me to sample and critique; a largely pointless endeavour as anyone who knows me will be aware, I eat and enjoy most anything), when I saw what I perceived to be a familiar face.

…Street vendors continuously walked by with their trays of novelties, merchants cruised by on motorbikes, some towing trailers, laden with their wares – bottles of water, bags of ice, fresh fruits, desiccated meats, exotic vegetables, smoked fish or indeed, just about any item of produce imaginable…

I recall experiencing a wave of surrealistic vertigo; I recall thinking how this could have been the plot from one of my own novels – a character from the beginning, largely unremarkable, of little noteworthiness to anyone, somehow returning to the story at the end to surprise, or perhaps to startle, the reader. As I stood to command this character’s attention, I recall witnessing the look of shock – with my being a presumed short-overstaying tourist he seemingly expected to have never seen me again – then uncertainty, or even of fear, on the young man’s face. I smiled, the only lasting trace of injury to my face a small horizontally linear scab on my right cheekbone, “Kohm ko chi (No worries),” I attempted to reassure him.

…It was from this vantage point, sideways seated outside Loan’s Café, that I would go on to  witness the kind of mechanical ingenuity that would surely impress even the most creative Kiwi mind; motorised trolleys, carts, or precarious three-wheeled monstrosities designed solely for shifting produce along HCMC’s potholed streets (then there was the ‘ice-guy’, who I saw most mornings, wearing a heavy waterproof hat and stiff plastic homemade poncho, riding his tiny motorcycle carrying bags of ice to supply local produce retailers, with – no exaggeration – a one metre square stack of 10 kilo ice-bags balanced on a tray immediately behind him and towering over his head at – I swear – around three metres high, on a bike whose rear tyre was perpetually flat and whose front wheel barely even contacted the road, and each time he stopped he was met with a veritable cascade of icy water, but which he had to do frequently, and which he did do using a homemade support/brace he would wedge under the stationary bike’s frame to keep it upright while he stepped off to unload before moving on to the next premises) which, at a glance, were just crudely appointed, comically basic, home-built vehicles but when I looked closer, these contraptions, dilapidated as they appeared yet functional as they clearly were, had all been built around the frame, the basic structure and feeble engine of one of Vietnam’s myriad worn out, broken down and disused motorbikes…

As the young man made his tentative approach, I again marvelled at how good-looking he was; wheeling a motorbike – hitched to a wooden trailer stacked full of grapes – he came to a halt a few metres before me (in fairness I had seen this street vendor around but only from a distance, thus had never identified him as ‘Petty Thief’ from my third night on Bui Vien) where, as I suppose he would any other potential customer, through gestures and broken English, he offered to sell me some grapes. Petty thief indeed; he wanted 70 dong for one kilo – I bought a half kilo, watched him bring out his scales and carefully weigh the goods, then paid him 30. Given the circumstances I didn’t think he’d complain.

…Typical of scooters/small motorcycles these things tend to run at inordinately high revolutions; given the modifications involved in transforming a small bike into a flatbed truck, exhaust systems/mufflers are seldom reattached.

Petty Thief turned out to be a reserved, respectful young man who clearly worked for a living; as he wheeled away his rig I guessed the reason for his tethering a trailer to a motorbike then pushing both, had a lot to do with a regard for potential customers – few tourists enjoy the obtrusion of discordant noise, particularly when the vehicle behind that noise is showering your fresh produce with exhaust fumes. Noise was ample on Bui Vien anyway; as if to bolster my assumption of the gentle-spirited Petty Thief, at that moment the most abrasive sound I had ever heard caused both he and me to cringe and turn our heads from the incoming audio, as a three-wheeled, pseudo-military, but merely scooter-powered monstrosity lumbered by, of course, pulling massive revs.

The aforementioned situation is not what one would consider a rarity in the daytime on Bui Vien, and probably explains the closing of this particular street for one afternoon, as I was fortunate enough to become an uninvited guest for my first ever Vietnamese wedding ceremony; which I witnessed from the steps and out front of the Yen Trang hotel…

A downpour had just ended and the stench on the street was horrendous yet, chaperoned/ushered by the only genuine Police I saw in Vietnam (this, as opposed to ‘security’ guys), along with the apparent Chief of Police (a stout little chap who stood at around 5 foot 2 with a generous belly, was dark-skinned, bald on top with longer stringy hair around the sides, complemented by a brilliantly polished dome and with a smouldering, unmoving cigarette hanging from the corner of his feverishly delegating, clearly self-appointed ‘Chief of Pomposity’, mouth), were a meticulously attired bride and groom who, carefully avoiding puddles and potholes, lovingly carried out their nuptials, concluding with a tentative kiss and a cheer from anyone who happened to be watching.

 

I had noticed that, by the two week point, as I had hoped would happen, so recognised was my presence, I was now being treated less like a tourist and more like a local; Bui Vien massage girls and other street vendors had become sufficiently familiar with me that they had, largely, ceased in their otherwise relentless approaches and seemed to have accepted that if I wanted to buy something from them, I would ask for it (and if you think back to retired expat, ‘Canadian Aiden’ from week 1, this is just what he had said happened to him after he moved here; Vietnam becomes a different place once one has experienced that transition from ‘tourist’ to ‘common-placement’).

While my presence may have appeared commonplace to most, during my final week I was approached by a woman I had not before seen around Ho Chi Minh City. She was gorgeous, she was vivacious, she was intriguing, she was captivating (yet strangely, I didn’t get/don’t recall her name); that night I took a 45 minute taxi-ride across to District 4 in order to capitalise on the coupon for a ‘Free 60 Minute Full Body Massage’ (retailing at 220.000VND – around 20NZD) that this woman had given me. I felt as though this was a challenge I could handle; I now understood how to avoid taxi-scams but importantly, I understood how to pay for a massage that was just a massage, and this was a free massage.

The next 50 minutes were spent in oily heaven with a gorgeous Vietnamese masseuse (not the one I’d met in District 1, but close). Of course I was timing it and yes, fifty minutes later, of course I did query the missing 10 minutes, to which she responded innocently, “But you say you no wan boom-boom…?”

“The coupon said, ‘Free Sixty Minute Massage’ – you only did fifty minutes…?”

“Last ten, for boom-boom – you say you no wan boom-boom.”

“Aha, I see, so it’s more like a ‘Free Fifty Minute Massage’, then pay two million dong for boom-boom…?”

“Three million – you wan?”

“Thank you for the wonderful massage.”

Several hours after leaving I had returned; District 4 was a different place, much less busy than District 1 and more geographically spread – District 1 everything is crammed tightly into spaces along street edges while in District 4 things don’t appear nearly as squashed. I walked back into the bustle of Bui Vien Street and sat outside drinking local beer with a group of expats/travellers (this location in fact was where I overheard the fable of the ‘White man beaten by Viet Cong street-youths’, mentioned in an earlier instalment, and realised, with a sickening jolt, that this ‘fable’, which may just be on track to become Vietnamese folklore, referred to the incident outside the banh mi vendor on my third night on Bui Vien – Vietnam XXI). Hoping to mentally abscond from the situation, I unthinkingly accepted and sucked back some awful Vietnamese weed – overlooking the fact that I had recently ‘recovered’ from a serious chest-borne illness – only to have my lungs spasm and convulse their way to bed that night.

The next morning, after placing my breakfast order with Loan then heading back up the steps and spending over half an hour on the hotel’s public computer in ‘talks’ with a rather ‘distressed’ Lin (original object of my affections) regarding ‘hacking’ of her Facebook account…

According to what Lin had told me, the current object of her affections, a middle-aged American man named Gary, and she had ‘broken up’ (this was, reportedly, following Gary’s multiple visits to Vietnam to see her, also after Lin’s admission of her ‘extracurricular’ antics with other American men she’d met around town); yet apparently, during their time ‘together’, under Vietnamese rule the two had become ‘engaged’ and, presumably along with a lovely ring, Gary had bought Lin a rather expensive camera, which he now wanted returned. Truth is I forget/didn’t understand the exact circumstances of this case, but for some reason Lin was not able to give back the camera thus needed to refund the money; now back in NZ and with an objective mindset it occurs to me that, obviously, I mean if Lin was any kind of Vietnamese eldest daughter at all, she would have sold the camera for the cash. Reportedly the item was worth somewhere in the vicinity of 2500USD – tantamount to around 75.000.000VND – over a year’s salary for an average Viet worker. It seemed ridiculous that this wealthy American ‘Gary’ should be demanding the return of such a gift and in fact, the deeper I ventured into this tale the more unbelievable the story became; furthermore when she had announced to me – this was prior to the ‘camera’ thing – that despite the cessation of their relationship Gary would now not allow her to officially expunge their ‘engagement’, yet was still insisting that she reimburse him for the camera.

…From what I could tell Lin was hysterical (although this was Facebook communication, and we all know how easy it is to misinterpret dialogue via Facebook communication). Honestly, I struggled to see the problem; ‘hacking’ somebody’s Facebook account seemed a pointless thing to do and besides, it was online, he was in a different country – he couldn’t actually do anything…

It occurs to me, again, the content I am describing, indeed the manner in which the above plot is reading, this saga is playing out along very similar lines to a novel that I might write; let me please assure the reader, everything I have written in my Vietnam Chronicles to date, everything that I have yet to write, much as it might be coming off ridiculous, far-fetched, or even farcical, (in fairness I believe the reason for the similarities, is that, rather than the author of a novel developing a protagonist then creating a story around that character, in this case it is the author who is the protagonist and, much like a story I might myself create, while the author is doing their best to control the story’s path, realistically, life will always dictate life’s story; I’m merely telling that story), to the best of my recollection, is 100% truthful.

…Or so I thought.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Gary Cooper

Photography by Rhyll Guy

As well as everyday Vietnamese dishes of pork/beef/unidentified meat with vegetation/spices/indescribable heat and rice/noodle, at Loan’s Café Loan specialised in classic Western dishes – hamburgers/fries, steak/sausages, bacon/eggs, etc.

Arriving at the Yen Trang I had noticed, over the other side of the road, as many hotels do in Vietnam, along with basic accommodation a number of these premises were advertising a ‘spa service’ (which I believe is supposed to be more of a makeover/massage service than it is actually immersing oneself in a bubbling bath devoid of bubble-bath, or soap), with many flaunting large headshot posters of a chiselled young man and his svelte ‘60s-style hairdo, advertising, ‘Haircut – $5’…

Although Loan’s Café was only in the early stages of its trading life it was already a hit with many, particularly the kind of arrogant middle-aged Westerner who, although it mightn’t have been above them to travel to a Third World nation, while they were there, they were not going to make any attempt to assimilate the culture, to speak any of the native tongue, to mix with the locals in any way, and they were certainly not be cajoled into eating any of the local food.

…As mentioned, most everything in Vietnam is related to US culture – if you’re White locals seem to assume you’re American and when converting currencies, invariably the translation is to USD (which I then double to reach the approximate NZD value) – meaning that when a poster/billboard reads ‘Haircut – $5’, chances are, it’s somewhere close to 120.000VND, which is actually more like 10NZD, which is still a cheap haircut,  if it’s a good haircut…

As I recall, when I emerged from my room, seedy wreck that I was, in preparation for my fourth (or perhaps fifth) dentist appointment, I had legitimately not eaten for days – this, for someone who typically struggles to go three hours without a sustenance top-up – I therefore wasted no time in heading down the stairs and locking in my order with Loan for the priciest thing on her menu, a ‘Big Breakfast’. This gargantuan meal of sausages, hash browns, eggs, toast, tomatoes, (Vietnamese) mushrooms (which may look peculiar but in fact taste no different to Kiwi mushrooms), came complemented with my very own condiment basket – spices, herbs, and four sauces including tomato – and took me the best part of an hour to eat after which, I had to conclude, it was worth each of the 120 (thousand) dong I had paid for it.

…One morning, freshly showered and shaved (also almost passed out in front of the bathroom mirror, indicating my health still could have used some improvement), I headed over the road to take advantage of one of these ‘$5 Haircuts’. Stepping into the building’s lobby, four women, some seated, some supine, but nobody appearing particularly fussed, eventually acknowledged my entry; the place was dark and, other than for these ladies, the place was deserted. Nonetheless I asked for a haircut. I was shown to a chair. A tall, well-dressed woman with marvellous hair, the woman I expected would be cutting my hair, stood behind me, making a task of covering me with a sheet. “What hair cut you want?” she asked brusquely.

“Two around the sides and back,” I indicated as I spoke, as always, maintaining eye contact in the wall mirror, “cut up quite high at the sides, blended into a short trim on top … Oh and, do the sideburns,” again indicting, “number one, thank you.”

“OK,” the woman looked bemused, as though she had no idea what I’d just said which, honestly, was a little worrying. Another woman, in a shady corner of the room, was fossicking through a well-used cardboard box I’d watched her pull from some cupboards along the wall. I stared through the shadows; it appeared to be a box of hair-clipper attachments. This lady stood and laboriously walked towards the tall woman and me, chirruping something to the woman at my rear. The other two women could be seen mooching about the premises, sometimes sitting, often chatting, usually watching, but never really doing much else. Suddenly the lady behind me was speaking loudly in what sounded like admonishment. The one carrying the haircutting equipment stopped, turned, dropped to her knees and started rummaging on the floor, through a pile of what appeared to be hair-clippers. Selecting one set from the tangled mass she resumed her steady approach, while the lady at my back breathed menacingly down my neck. The two exchanged more words then the taller woman moved aside. I looked in the mirror at the laboriously-walking newcomer; I didn’t want her cutting my hair. As she raised her eyes to meet my gaze I admit, I struggled to hold eye contact; I genuinely wasn’t sure which of her two differently-angled eyes my eyes ought to be contacting. Lazy eyes (or some other issue, I didn’t inquire) notwithstanding I didn’t want this woman cutting my hair. I heard the clippers start. They sounded awful; underpowered, undermaintained, underperforming. Right now, I didn’t want anyone cutting my hair.

Too late. She’d slipped on a comb and had already hacked into the hair at the back. This was horrible; the blades – moving sluggishly as the were – were clearly blunt. Where a good Kiwi hairdresser can have the back and sides down to a number two in a few minutes, this woman took a few minutes just to perform one stroke/swathe/blow. The tall lady was positioned to the side, overseeing the job and suddenly stepped forward to halt the lazy-eyed woman. I heard stifled snickering behind me and felt my neck again become hot with exasperation/infuriation. The lady performing the cut leaned around beside me and showed me the clippers. She took off the comb, held it up, as if for clarification, and asked, “This?”

I looked down; without my glasses and in he murk of this room I couldn’t see a lot anyway. I studied the comb; I thought I understood. “Yes,” I said, nodding, “this is number one … This do sideburns.” I drew the comb quickly over my sideburns in demonstration, then handed it back to her. She clipped the comb on the clippers and attempted to run them up the side of my face. They gripped, they bumped; she drew them back and tried again. She held the clippers more forcefully; this time, fighting to keep my head upright, the clippers gripped and crinkled the skin of my face, but still the comb refused to slide. “It’s because I’ve just shaved,” I pointed out, “the skin is moist, smoother, you have to lift the comb more onto the points.” (For the record, I always shave before haircuts in NZ and they never seem to have too much trouble; I just know what it’s like from my own sideburn-trimming experience.) Unsure if the woman had interpreted what I had just said – far be it for me to be offering hair-cutting advice to a ‘hairdresser’ anyway – I sat and tensely awaited this hairdresser’s next movement. She clearly had no idea what she was doing; looking, tentatively cutting, assessing, unsteadily trimming, reassessing – regarding hairstyling this woman appeared clueless. The tall lady returned holding a picture of a classically handsome man wearing a clean-cut, classically handsome hairstyle, not unlike the one that I usually wear. She showed it to me; I smiled, nodded and gave affirmation. She then showed it to my lazy-eyed hairdresser who also nodded and went back to work.

Alas with each stroke/swathe/blow taking around ten minutes the haircut was a time-consuming procedure; with each pointless, time-wasting action I saw occur before my eyes in the mirror, and the delayed, time-wasting reaction I saw follow it, I felt myself becoming increasingly agitated. At one point, such was my disbelief at my hairdresser’s incompetency, I recall turning to the taller woman – who was always looking on – and demanding, “This is ridiculous, has this woman even cut hair before?!”

To which another of the four women replied, “Yes, she has cut, four hairs.”

“Four hairs,” I muttered to myself, “fucking wonderful.”

About an hour after the nightmare had begun, after I had instructed the incompetent hairdresser precisely what she needed to do before she could consider the haircut complete, I stood and walked to the front to pay (I’d had a lot of time to consider and had decided that I must suppress the compulsion to just walk out). From what I could tell the job was as much done as it was ever going to be therefore, much as I didn’t believe the situation warranted it, I was obligated to pay. I removed a 100 and a 20 dong note, handed them to the tall lady at the desk then in a calm voice said, simply, “That was awful … If you are going to advertise five dollar haircuts, you at least need someone who knows how to cut hair and, for God’s sake, get some decent bloody equipment.”

The lady smiled and took my money although, as I walked toward the exit, I swear I heard them snickering at me.

I walked back past Loan’s Café and warmly acknowledged Loan, sitting out front with her husband, not a customer to be seen. “You buy something now?” Loan jokingly inquired as I passed.

“Ga kohm tien (Have no money),” I jested in response.

“You can’t use that on me,” she laughed, “I taught you that!”

“Doi kohm hew (I don’t understand),” I fired back, as I climbed the stairs.

Walking past the main desk I smiled at the receptionist, Thao (remember, ‘Towel’; Thao worked mornings while Lieu came on after 3 p.m.), then took the stairs to my room. I collapsed onto my bed, closed my eyes then ran my hands over and around the back of my head; my hair was a mess, I didn’t need to see it to know that.

Given the current state of my health, given all that had taken place that morning, I was questioning why I hadn’t just stayed in bed.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Bosch D Hare-Cot

Photography by Celia Woman

Just days on from Christchurch’s most recent ‘darkest day’, amid a nation forced to accept that New Zealand’s hate issues are no different to those of any other country and that things need to change, what has changed?

In the opinion of some, religion ought to be outlawed. It seems to do nothing but pervade prejudice and incite hatred across the world; yet in the opinion of others, religion builds the foundation, it provides the structure and gives the strength to work through these dark times, it brings people together by promoting harmony and inspiring love…

Friday 15 March 2019. Two Christchurch mosques, one Australian gunman; the lives of 50 innocent people are ended.

…Every one of the world’s great wars have been ultimately inspired by religion, and there is nothing harmonious or loving about pain and suffering; in fact, realistically, across the last hundred years, if not for religious disharmony the world would have been just about devoid of conflict. Still though, ‘religion’ is maintained as projecting the ‘values of good’, the ‘essence of peace’…

The March 15 massacre was a hate crime, that much is clear. While Brenton Tarrant isn’t affiliated with Al Qaeda or other known terrorist groups, he is a White-supremacist and he is an extremist.

…In these modern times where the facts of the world are beyond dispute, how is it still acceptable that there are large portions of this world who are permitted to not only partake in, who are encouraged to worship, the belief of an intangible entity who is purported to have committed deeds of a miraculous nature, deeds in fact akin to magic, and whose presence is, overall, very much akin to make-believe? …

Tarrant’s movements were calculated, and they were deliberate. This Australian national targeted Christchurch’s mosques seemingly because he believed that Muslim worship was damaging to New Zealand’s identity.

…The Greeks, the Romans, long ago accepted that their array of gods were merely mythical and, as is currently taught in New Zealand school’s curriculum, were essentially developed by a primitive populous hoping to provide understanding for all that happened in the world beyond their comprehension…

Breton Tarrant, this Australian-born 28-year-old who has resided in Dunedin for some time, was known around town and by all accounts appeared ‘normal’.

…Religion is one hundred percent a belief system. There is no, nor has there ever been, physical evidence to support religion which is how, even in this modern era with all our supposed knowledge, zealots are able to develop new religions, new belief systems, new logic, then brainwash, exploit, abuse and, as is becoming the fashion among religious sects around the world, sexually assault, its followers…

Tarrant acquired a firearms licence in 2017; five different weapons were then used across two locations to carry out the massacre.

…The embracing of religion, 2000 years ago, was understandable; these people had nothing, they knew nothing. Religion gave them something to believe, gave them some reason to hope, and moreover it gave them some semblance of control…

Tarrant had reportedly spent some considerable time at a shooting range, presumably in preparation for Friday 15’s act of inhumanity.

…Control though, undoubtedly religion has always been about control; convince a generation of supple-minded youth that if they don’t behave, they will incite the wrath of a vengeful god, resulting in a generation of well-behaved – God-fearing – youth.

Of all the liberties that world Governments have ever outlawed because they were too damaging, too costly, or not socially acceptable, religion has not once come into focus; yet the truth, the irony is that religion is in fact the most damaging – in that it has ruined innumerable lives worldwide – the most costly – in that it cheats money out of the trusting and the impoverished – and the most socially unacceptable because, simply, society refuses to accept the sequence of events that took place in Christchurch that day.

It is my belief that, in the 21^st century, we no longer have any need for the crutch of religion; we know enough about the planet and its creation to dispel these insidious myths of creationism, allowing us to live in a world of genuine harmony.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Weka Upp

Photography by Meke B Leif

 

What is it in human nature that causes us to show the least regard to those we consider familiar?

Familiar – Familial – Family.

Most of us would never dare treat a person we just met with the disrespect many of us show towards family members; they’re just family though, it’s easy to say – it’s not that important to maintain relationships with family members because they’re always going to be there, always going to be your family…

Until they’re gone and all you have left is regret. They’re gone and all you can do is wish you didn’t take them for granted while they were here. They’re gone and you wonder why you didn’t show them a little more respect while you could; why you never told them how much you cared or how much they meant to you while they were still here with you, beside you, every day.

…Invariably we put on our best presentation to meet someone new, with the intention of laying down that scintillating first impression; then once that first impression has been delivered – however disingenuously – once our impression has been accepted and initial opinions have been formed, we seem to feel we no longer have need to impress thus we revert to our former, sometimes abrasive, often boorish, painfully apathetic, selves…

Appreciation is a tremendously basic, but in this modern world a very much overlooked or often a forgotten, emotion. Complacency is what takes over when appreciation is forgotten; once appreciation has been forgotten and a person’s lifestyle has fallen complacent, they will only ever become less able to appreciate hence be more likely to take for granted the lives, or particularly, the goodwill, of their familiars.

…Familiarity is a killer. It’s a destroyer of relationships and it’s an annihilator of the gentle spirits among us. Abuse – sometimes physical but mainly mental – is a common result of familiarity between loved ones; a spouse becomes overly familiar thus bored with their significant other and over time uses a dominating demeanour to assert their authority over the other, something they would never consider doing with a mere acquaintance or work colleague…

Even familiars have their limits though; no matter how close or strong a relationship, there is always a breaking point. Here’s another notable aspect of human nature: push someone hard enough, push them away enough times and quite simply, they won’t come back. The love that you might once have considered unconditional may just have revealed its conditions.

…The dominating counterpart will use manipulation and affront to keep the other beaten down, unable to generate the self-confidence to ever stand up for themselves or to fight back. That weaker of the two will lose self-worth to the point they can no longer see they are deserving of anything or, least of all, anyone, better.

It’s dangerous, it’s detrimental, it’s destructive, it’s downright devastating; it’s the effect of familiarity and if you allow it into your familial life, it will likely consume you too.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Tiki Foregrounded

Photography by Sal F Reece-Pact