Errmmm....can I please have some of those 'shrooms that ya got there......?

Was teaching a class tonight on festivals and holidays, and we were going into various US and Vietnamese festivals and holidays. So, to get the kids actually speaking (always a chore), I had them ask me about different holidays observed in America. Then, I randomly picked a couple of Vietnamese holidays offa Wikipedia that I had never heard of before and I had asked them questions about those holidays.

One of them was something called Giỗ tổ Hùng Vương, which was created to honour the Hung Kings, who ruled Vietnam around 250 B.C. or so. The second was an unofficial holiday (like Halloween or Valentine's Day) called Ông Táo chầu trời. Now Wikipedia called this "Kitchen Guardians" (which is what I am when I am cooking and Tam walks in and tries to force me to stop cooking and instead eat some lovely, mouth-watering Vietnamese food that her mother has prepared).

So I ask some girls in the class to tell me what this translates to and what this holiday is about.

After a few minutes of silence, one of the girls said "Mister Kitchen rides on a fish into the sky"

SEVERE Jerry Brown-look......

....I sat there, silent, for, like two minutes digesting this....all the while having flashbacks of when Dewey Cox meets The Beatles in India and was inspired to do some artwork on the board.....

So, what I got was that back in the day (last week, meebee....I dunno), they used to burn straw to heat and cook foods in kitchens in Vietnam. This created much smoke, and therefore, Mister Kitchen was a sooty-faced character (kinda like a chimney sweep, I'd imagine) and he would ride a fish (no, not a shark) up into the heavens to report on people to the higher powers........

.....sounds fascinating.......weird, but fascinating. I haven't been this captivated by folklore since I read about Skunny-Wundy......

....although, if I ever write a book about my experiences residing in Vietnam, it's gonna be titled: "Mister Kitchen rides a fish into the sky"

Still, though, later.....after class sitting down with a pint, I thought about it: I mean, imagine some Vietnamese person coming to the U.S. with NOOOOO idea of American/Western folklore, and some person tells him how, over there, they celebrate a holiday where a fat, old Cracka guy with a flowing white beard flies through the sky on a sleigh pulled by flying deer, dropping off presents to good little boys and girls.....so, it's all in perspective, I guess......

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Saw a website that just really pissed me off.......

I mean, the sheer and utter arrogance and ignorance and lack of personal accountability by placing blame on others that this guy displays is unreal! Dude - it's a third-world country! You claim that you've travelled all over the planet!! Is it the fault of the Vietnamese that you are either too ignorant to actually bargain and negotiate or just simply walk away to the next vendor (and they're all over the Goddamm place....'specially in Ha Noi) if you don't get the price that you desire?

Is it their fault that by, being dirt-poor and trying to save on property taxes (that happen to be based on the length of street frontage that your building faces....thusly, the skinny houses), they made their houses and hotels high and narrow for that reason?? Is it their fault that you knocked up your wife and they should accommodate YOU and ONLY YOU by building lower, wider hotels???

Hate their language? How the fuck you think YOUR language sounds to them? (As an aside, my wife has told me that when Hai Phong's few English speakers get together and talk over beers, that it sounds to her like a live lobster being spun in a blender while 500 sewing machines are going full-speed in the background). And to compare their spoken language tonal patterns to a developmentally disabled person?

Christ - I'd compare your (in)ability to write an objective, narrative piece to that of a developmentally disabled person......but that would be insulting to the mentally-challenged.

I mean, oh, no doubt - I got my issues with Vietnam.....several of 'em as a matter of fact....but it's part of the adventure....ya learn to live and deal with stuff like this (and a lot of additional things that this wankshaft didn't mention) on a daily basis! IF I were to ever say that I hated Vietnam, well, shit - I (and several others) have earned that right by residing here for longer than two weeks!

I could tear this brain-surgeon's points apart piece-by-piece........but I fear I've wasted enuff time and given this wankshaft enuff undeserved attention, so I'll leave it at that.

Later on, did a bit of looking around on this guy's web production, and found out that he's some sort of I.T. geek. Figgers, I though to myself......here we go with the entitlement mentality.

I had resided in a High-Tech boomtown during the height of that bullshit, and watched rents in my little Bohemian hipster neighbourhood go through the fucking roof as these artificially over-paid I.T. dipshits were moving in (they somehow found time to move into my 'hood when they weren't busy playing foosball and fucking ping-pong at work all day) and driving up rents with their $80,000-plus/year salaries (which they would incessantly defend over trendy-ass martinis about how they deserve every penny, if not more)....

....needless to say, as much as I asbo-fucking-lutely despise Capitalism, I was dancing on the streets when the market self-corrected this artificial over-valuation and created the dot-com "crash" of '01 and rents started coming back down to more reasonable levels.....

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OK, rant done.....not enuff pics on this blog recently. Next post, in a few days.....nothing but fotograffs.....

-E-