I’ve mostly been making appointments with artists and shooting footage around the city. And sending out the occasional plea for help to my classmates via SE Blog. Musings are plenty but energy is limited, so I’ve been slow in posting.
A typical day here starts with rolling out of bed around 7AM or 10AM, depending on whether or not I have appointments/shoots planned. With relatives around, I would make the effort for breakfast (3 meals a day, what a luxury!), but for PiC and me, we just make do with a quick gulp of iced coffee for her and soymilk for me and try to hold out til lunchtime. Eating and drinking (nothing more refreshing than a pressed sugar cane juice in this hot hot heat!) are such essential components of socializing though and I couldn’t be happier about that.
Banh Beo
After morning shooting or meeting, we do lunch. Then I, like many people here, nap. (It’s in my blood, yes it is!) Then more of the same morning stuff or errands or thinking about dinner. After dinner, I usually review footage and brainstorm/think about the next day’s meetings.
The person putting me in touch with the artists is my cousin’s cousin, X, a friend from my ‘04 trip to Da Nang in search of ao dai histories. X has been invaluable and more than generous with her time, driving me around town for meals and errands and putting me in touch with a particularly interesting and well-connected gallery owner. From there, I’ve met with three artists of three different generations with distinctive styles. They’re all male though. The gallery owner has also introduced me to a male journalist/poet here who’s friends (from childhood) with Hue’s arguably most famous contemporary female poet. She’s currently out of town but hopefully I will get to record her. Meanwhile, trying to capture more footage of artists and landscapes. (Here’s an example of a lacquer artist’s work I’ve followed.)
One of the aspects of the city that’s been most captivating is the prevalence of huge banyan trees on sidewalks in which shrines have been placed. Twisting knots of bark and trunk enclose cubes of holiness. Broken relics, amulets, and joss sticks vie with crawling ants for space in the sand and litter. Wish I had ready digicam access to give you a pic. The spaces are highly spiritual. X told me young unmarried girls try to avoid such places, especially at night, since the ghosts that haunt these grounds like such victims. Once captured, the women are prone to illness. My xe om driver (motorbike cabbie) took me around to a few sites to shoot. He said they’re places where lots of accidents have occurred, where families pay homage to the victims.
I’m becoming visually fascinated by uncanny marriages, fusions, juxtapositions of man-made and ‘natural’ elements. Such as these trees. Or a tropical bird tethered at its foot to a tree limb by metal chain. Keeping my eyes peeled for more for the video essay!
Noticing the bizarre (not just exotic) here is not so easy, since it seems like they’ve worked hard to cultivate a sense of a pristine historic tourist city, a cultural city, a beautiful city. Flaming flower trees on both sides of boulevards provide a cool awning that frames the streets. At night, colorful lights flash on the frames of the famous Truong Tien bridge, spanning the Huong River. It’s designed. Coupled with the meandering pace of life (slow…measured…), people idling on coffee shop stools, one easily falls into routine and surface-level experiencing. Still, there’s something to be said for getting the rhythm of this place, especially in traffic. I realized that you have to feel the pulse of drivers here to be able to maneuver in a safe way around the throngs of motorbikes and bicycles and cyclos and cars at intersections. (It’s not as bad as Ha Noi or Sai Gon, but all the same technique…) That means guessing their intentions, their likeliness to swerve this way or that.
For now, I enjoy my spot on the back of motorbikes. I’ve started meditating on them in one for two instances. Being able to close my eyes while on a moving bike, as the wind licks my cheeks, down a stretch of concrete is trust, is release. Not so easy for someone who often has the urge to plan, to anticipate, to look down the highway and round the bend.
