Almost Malaysia

 So my girlfriend and I were about to head for a 6 day vacation together in Malaysia. We arrived at the airport, went through baggage check, and then queued up to go through the check-in for the flight. She scanned her passport and headed through the automatic doors. I scanned mine and was taken to the immigration office. As it turned out, I had neglected to extend my exit permit. I had no idea I was supposed to do this. When I purchased the 5-year foreign residency here, I had no intention of ever leaving the country, and so I paid no attention to the rules for a possible exit at that time. As far as I knew, the 5-year foreign residency permit included a permit to leave and come back anytime I wanted. But no, it appears that I have both to pay to stay here and to pay to leave here. Lol. And so I am very depressed this evening, as my girlfriend continued on to Malaysia, as she should have done, and I returned ignominiously to my house in Sanur. I don't get to see my girlfriend often, as she lives in Central Java and can only visit me once every two to three months, and so this is especially painful to have ruined the opportunity to spend a week with her. But this is just one in a series of catastrophic brain failures for me. It seems that my cognitive abilities are swiftly deteriorating. I pay for things that I am not supposed to pay for, and I forget to pay for things that I should have paid for. I often have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing without seeking help, as if I were a child again. The only consolation is in the thought that she will probably have a better time without me in Malaysia, as I would always just slow her down and require assistance. I feel sad and angry and imbecilic and  and hollow. When immigration got done with me at the airport, an officer came to me and said "You must leave the airport immediately." As if I am some kind of criminal. And maybe I am. Criminally stupid, anyway.

The Sympathizer

I am reminded in reading the block-like, densely packed pages of Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel, The Sympathizer, of Conrad or Melville, not only for the complexity and precision of the prose but for the monster and the enigma lurking between and beneath the lines, the heart of darkness, the white whale: the Vietnam War, the meaning of which is forever both brutally present and bitterly elusive. 

The novel concerns the testimony/confession of a communist sympathizer, long embedded in the staff of a South Vietnamese general; half white, half asian; half Eastern, half Western, a living dichotomy of cultures, ideologies, sensitivities and, yes, sympathies.

Here I present a rather long segment of the narrative as an example of the sheer deliciousness of Nguyen's voice, for this is a novel chock full of such shimmering passages and well deserving of the literary acclaim it has received.

 Bang bang was the sound of memory's pistol firing into our heads, for we could not forget love, we could not forget war, we could not forget lovers, we could not forget enemies, we could not forget home, and we could not forget Saigon. We could not forget the caramel flavor of iced coffee with coarse sugar; the bowls of noodle soup eaten while squatting on the sidewalk; the strumming of a friend's guitar while we swayed on hammocks under coconut trees; the football matches played barefoot and shirtless in alleys, squares, parks, and meadows; the pearl chokers of morning mist draped around the mountains; the labial moistness of oysters shucked on a gritty beach; the whisper of a dewey lover saying the most seductive words in our language, anh oi; the rattle of rice being threshed; the working men who slept in their cyclos on the streets, kept warm only by the memories of their families; the refugees who slept on every sidewalk of every city; the slow burning of patient mosquito coils; the sweetness and firmness of a mango plucked fresh from its tree; the girls who refused to talk to us and who we only pined for more; the men who had died or disappeared; the streets and homes blown away by bombshells; the streams where we swam naked and laughing; the secret grove where we spied on the nymphs who bathed and splashed with the innocence of the birds; the shadows cast by candlelight on walls of wattled huts; the atonal tinkle of cowbells on mud roads and country paths; the barking of a hungry dog in an abandoned village; the appetizing reek of the fresh durian one wept to eat; the sight and sound of orphans howling by the dead bodies of their mothers and fathers; the stickiness of one's shirt by afternoon, the stickiness of one's lover by the end of love making, the stickiness of our situations; the frantic squealing of pigs running for their lives as villagers gave chase; the hills afire with sunset; the crowned head of dawn rising from the sheets of the sea; the hot grasp of our mother's hands; and while the list could go on and on and on, the point was simply this: the most important thing we could never forget was that we could never forget.

Christmas Eve

And so this is Christmas 

For weak and for strong 

For rich and the poor ones 

The world is so wrong

So sang John Lennon in his beloved Christmas song, heard continuously throughout every Christmas season since. 

The world is so wrong indeed. More wrong now than when Lennon penned the lyrics? Or just the same wrong? I don't know. Different wrongs for different times. But always wrong. Forever wrong. 

And so many of us are having a hard time feeling very merry this Christmas, as we find ourselves in the dark shadow of a government peopled by criminals, frauds, scammers, billionaires, perverts, rapists, racists, fascists. A hard time indeed are we having, and feeling the words of poor Mrs. Cratchit when asked to bless old Ebenezer Scrooge. 

"The founder of the feast indeed (said she). I wish I had him here! I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."

But our curses, and our heartache fall impotent on December's empty air. We do not have Mr Trump before us any more than Mrs. Cratchit had Scrooge.

Christ himself came in a dark time, for the times of this world have always been dark. He came to right the wrong, and himself was wronged by the world that was wrong. And yet, as it is written, on the cross he overcame the world, and in his death and resurrection dispelled the darkness. This we believe, and must continue to believe. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail.

I recently heard a sermon by one James Talarico. I had never heard of the man before. He just popped up on my YouTube feed. But things like that happen, don't they? 

He was talking about the virgin birth and how such virgin births were a thing in the ancient world, not totally peculiar to the gospel record. Such a birth happened not only in the manger. Such births are happening all the time. Spiritual births. Something new is born, not of man but of miracle, Christ of Mary, and yet also Christ in us. We are made new creatures, free from the bonds of the world. Let the weak, therefore, say I am strong, let the poor say I am rich. And let us have hope, not in the world, for the world will disappoint, but in what is good, in what is noble, in what is kind and compassionate and generous and patient and fair and honorable. And joyous. 

In Christmas.

So this is Christmas 

And what have you done 

Another year over 

And a new one just begun ...

Where shall we start? Surely not in despair.

Welcome the Stranger

 I was parking my bike just now in what seemed to be the last open spot in the lot at Plaza Renon, and it was a very difficult spot to negotiate, angled in the opposite direction, motorbikes resting on either side. As I attempted various unsuccessful efforts to enter the spot, a young man came along, headed for his own bike somewhere in the lot, stopped on his way, and wordlessly volunteered his assistance. He lifted the back of the bike on my left, scooting it several inches away, and then, as I continued to struggle into the spot, lifted the back of my own bike and scooted it to the right, thus directing my ship in a straight line to port. The man never uttered a word. He just moved on when the job was done. 

And here's the kicker: This is not an unusual kindness. It is a common thing here. And I think that, in general, this would not happen back home in America, for the first rule there is Thou shalt not interact with thy neighbor. The second is like it, thou shalt not invade thy neighbor's space, even if it is in need of invasion. Thy neighbor's problem is thy neighbor's own business. It is a gross generalization, yes; nonetheless, it is my impression based on 55 years of experience in my country of origin. Here in Indonesia a neighbor is a neighbor. There, a neighbor is a stranger.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, the scripture says, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Well, I'm no angel, but I surely am a stranger, and one sorely in need of parking assistance.

Rain

 Raining again. Raining for the last 3 days. Nonetheless, I don my coat, and then the big raincoat on top of my coat, and head for the cafe. Cannot go without my coffee and pastry. Rain be damned. After a journey through rain, puddles, lakes, and crazed drivers, I am at my customary table with my coffee before me, and a cigarette. It is 28° centigrade and I feel cold. I look up 28c on Google and find that it is around 82f. And yet I am cold. What is happening here? Is the transplant finally complete? Am I Indonesian now? What did cold feel like? What did winter in Oregon feel like? I cannot get a hold on it. I cannot remember it. I remember some facts here and there. The coldest temperature I ever felt in Portland was minus five degrees Fahrenheit. I remember putting on two pairs of pants and a sweater and a heavy coat and a hat with earmuffs and gloves and going out into the snow for just minutes at a time. That's all one could stand. But I don't remember how it felt. I don't remember it in my bones, in my veins. I have it in my head, that's all. A collection of autobiographical events. I don't remember the "winter" here either from year to year. I am always surprised by the severity of the deadly heat. And then by the periods of torrential rain. I know only the present day now. Yesterday is vague, tomorrow is questionable.

Whatever Will Be Will Be

 ... many a family was divided against itself, some fighting for the North and some for the south, some fighting for communism and some for nationalism. Still, no matter how divided, all saw themselves as Patriots fighting for a country to which they belong.

So writes Viet Thanh Nguyen in The Sympathizer, a novel about the end of the Vietnam war. But it sounds like us, doesn't it? We are the Patriots. No, We are the Patriots. You are insurrectionists. No, the insurrectionists are Patriots! And in the course of time, it is all meaningless. Lost in the cold soup of history. Studied by the impassionate scholars of the future.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the Sun.

A Dickens of a Message

There can be no better message to the modern day evangelical type, Trump loving churches than this from Mr. Charles Dickens: 

"There are some upon this Earth of yours," returned the spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol