I honestly don’t know how relevant this is in the present discourse anymore. It’s just something I quickly whipped up well over a year ago to convince colleges to let me pay an absurd amount of money for a four-year campus pass. It’s not to say, however, that I’m disinterested in this conversation at all; in fact I still like to think of myself as pretty committed to the fight against chauvinistic misogynists well pomaded with toxic masculinity and a dash of homophobia for good measure. But do take it with a grain of salt will you.
If one were to copy and paste verbatim said phrase into Google translate or some passing-grade Vietnamese dictionary out there, they would most likely receive a result of “woman” in any respective tongue. Makes perfect sense, since “đàn bà” IS Vietnamese for woman. But ask any Vietnamese who are up with the times what those three ostensibly innocuous words mean, and you should expect answers along the lines of, and excuse my use of profanity in this one, “What an effing woman!”
If the exclamation mark is any less of a dead giveaway, then yes, this has been vernacularized as a full-blown insult, and a rampant one at that. It has become a de facto staple in the home and out and about in the society at large, a constant whether you are talking shop or table. The sordid low blow is meticulously engineered to ridicule weakness, codependence, fickleness and gossip, all of which belong to the same propagated plane of female conventions. Most likely perpetuated by men, the insult is finding itself a fan-favorite even within women-led battle royales, accountable ( or commendable, as a particular few may insist ) for countless takedowns of genderless self-esteems. After all, it might not be so bombastic of a notion to say men are really from Mars ( not all of them of course ), considering how they are completely missing the gravity of the situation they themselves gave rise to north of the solar system.
What is most perplexing is how and why this deprecating reimagination of an otherwise holy image even came to be, let alone catch on like wildfire, especially when it is Vietnam we are talking about, a culture built primarily matriarchal with women at the helm of it. Vietnam as a people boasted “humble” beginnings as fairy-born, and ever since, has witnessed rises and falls of history along the footsteps of powerful women, from elephant-riding warriors to gun-wielding war heroes, we’ve got all bases covered. There is even an entire religion dedicated to the mother figure, held in high regards to this day. What, then, allowed the STDs of the pederastic ideologies from male-dominant cultures to take roots and self-crown ? What, then, persuaded open-ended ranks of internalized victims to pledge allegiance to such pseudohierarchy ? Where did it all go wrong?
That is not to say, however, that we ought to yield, that I will to surrender. It is time like these that drive us to fight, and win. Obsolete is the talking and whining, Vietnam has to act its way out against the armada of male supremacists. That is How We’ll Win.
Throughout the course of their physical and psychological development, at one point or another animals are likely to be subjected to some sort of learning. Be it conditioned, imprinted or hereditary, animals, humans being one of them, often undergo alternating triations of taking on as well as growing out of habits. Does this truly mean, however, that we (and by “we” I mean “I”) can volitionally unlearn just about anything ?Unfortunately for me, when it comes to fears, this might not at all be the case.
My earliest recollection of being scared shitless was over 10 years ago. Three of my cousins, my sister and I, young, hungry and, most importantly, stupid, thought it would be a good idea to familiarize ourselves with the work of Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn, an intergenerational sweetheart best known by Vietnamese people as the co-host of “Paris by Night”. Only thing is, between the five of us and a VCD stuck on Lionel Richie’s “Hello” , Mr. Ngạn’s otherwise world famous variety show personality was as alienable as it gets. For the better part of our collective childhood, he was instead Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn the ghost story narrator. I’m telling you, if there’s one way to haze a 7-year-old into trauma, this is how you do it. One hour rendered immobile from fear soon devolved into years of phantasmic shut-eyes and midnight cold sweats, waking up only to find yourself alone, clinging to every palpable inch of the blanket you have overhead wishing it would just go away. It was only when I entered high school that the episodes stopped. It was when I finally realized how irrational my fear of the paranormal was, which helped me unlearn a fear I had been harboring all throughout adolescence.
But alas, life is not just about tangible fears, just like how not all fears revolve around falling off stair railings or encountering a cockroach invasion (admittedly to this day I remain terrified of any given number of cockroach(es)). I wish it was. Nowadays, I tend to associate true terror with losing, uncertainy, and love.
“Love”? How in the world could someone be scared of love? You’ll get why in just a second, but first thing first, let’s talk about loss shall we. I got my first taste of it when I was 15. I’m not talking about a losing your pencil kind of thing which still happens to me on a far more than ideal regular basis. No, I’m refering to the fact that sometimes death takes loved ones away from you. I never knew my grandpa very well. This would ineluctably make me sound like a horrible person (which I am) but I don’t remember being particularly garrulous around him during the 10 years that we shared a roof. Worse still, we only grew ever further apart after he went to live with one of my uncles, at which point I only got to see him every other weekend. In a way, I took him being around for granted. When preparations were underway for my grandpa’s 90th birthday, part of me just assumed he was going to stick around forever. I ended up bawling my eyes out that day. But what for really? Even when I’m trying to recall our most cherished memories together I can’t for the life of me remember his birthday. He, on the other hand, had always been there for ours. Mine and my sister’s. And he had all the photos in the world to back it up. And what do I have? Other than an ever-growing apathy that only proves to be more prevalent as time moves on. Regardless, whatever humanity I have left is trying every single day to drummel into my eardrums that the same thing might well happen with me and my parents any moment now, and while I do dread the prospect of it becoming true, the scariest part is it likely has happened already and I have no known way of stopping it.
I do believe, however, there are things that simply cannot be taken away from us. Like that one annoying mosquito you thought you smashed to smithereens a couple of days ago coming back hundreds of times louder and more blood-thirsty; or embarrassing middle school photos that seem to defy your veritable will to keep it off the internet. No, I’m not talking about Rock Lee’s spring time of youth or whatever that is. I’m talking about uncertainty. No matter how well figured out your life is, nothing ever 100% adheres to schedule. After all, who can safely predict how likely they are to get t-boned by a taxi on any given day ? (Sounds oddly specific I know more details on that later). That’s why we turn to the spiritually endowed, the self-proclaimed psychics and the fortune telling witch doctors, for that extra bit of safeguard, or in some cases full-fledged itineraries. No matter what we do though, the foggy outlook on our future simply refuses to be welcoming, if not growing ever more amorphous. I’ve been navigating its twists and turns for 20 years, as had more than a hundred billion before me for much, much longer. And every time I only managed to barely scrape it out alive. Even then, the roads don’t seem any more hospitable or easier to make out. All our ever-changing world ever does, is introduce extra layers of variables and complications, and even I can tell you that’s no bueno. Then how am I coping in the face of uncertainty you ask? The short answer is I ain’t. To this day I remain that snivelling bitchass that quivers before the idea of change itself. To this day, I remain afraid.
Oh and did I mention I am as fickle as fickle can get ? Because despite not wanting to lose anyone as I brace myself for the frightening elevator into the unknown, I fear most the prospect of having to complicate another party into my experience. I’m always shrivelling up at the sheer thought of intimacy, of having a special other to ride out the storm with. I know most people would disagree. Going stag means having to look out for yourself as well as undergoing your own utmost miserables alone. By comparison, the presence of company allows you to be vulnerable without all the subsequent hassle of having to scoop yourself back up. Even then I choose to alienate and push away people who graces me with the smallest sliver of affection, followed shortly afterwards with me telling myself that the act was purely out of consideration for them, what with my irrepressible tendency of making other people feel like absolute shit. We all know that’s just an excuse. Underneath the facade, the single identifiable ruling emotion is none other than fear itself. I don’t know what to do, and it is the ignorance that terrifies me. I don’t inherently know how to react to love either, so naturally I treat it like I would a hot potato: hurl it away as far out of sight as possible not putting as little as a thought into how that would make the potato feel. But am I doing anything about the situation besides locking it up ? Oof, seems like we’ve registered another “no” on this one.
If you made it through to the end of this, uh, I don’t even know what this is or what it’s going to become, you must be asking yourself one question, and one question only. What in the actual fuck ? Why and what in the hell am I even rambling on about ? Is it for catharsis ? Or the free therapy I think I’m getting from all this one-way communication ? Truth is, I don’t know. There you have it, it sucks that I can’t never afford to be certain, but I don’t know. For sitting through so much arbitrary self-indulgence, however, allow me to entrust to you a piece of knowledge forged over my 20 years of pointless existence. You see how easy it is to give in ? To let fear get the better of you and default your life altogether on some b.s grounds of apprehension ? I’m telling you right now it’s not worth it. So pick yourself up and run, and don’t even think about looking back. I have yet to escape this open-ended limbo, but I can see the light even from here. I can’t wait until the day I finally get out and start living my life unshackled from a decades-long reign of terror, and when I finally do, together we’ll conquer loss and uncertainty, and maybe help you find love along the way (emphasis on you because frankly I’m still not ready for that shit). Until then, go. What are you waiting for ?
it startled me how silent it had become. that was when i realized something was up. it was not your run of the mill black out, not in piltover, not with syphoning power from hextech. it was, quite simply put, more of a nothingness than anything. it was almost as if i had been blinked to an engulfing, disorienting void where but a photon existed. teleportation was not what set the whole thing up to be bizarre, less so the destination of the warp. little did i know, and before i even knew it, i was already in way over my head. thoughts the better part of scrambled, i almost didnt notice the second shift in scenery. suddenly i found myself standing atop a, uh, what the fuck was it ? for the most part it resembled one of those abandoned plots i used to follow cait around playing cops and robbers. Only thing is the premise was cut off preemptively within a square’s perimeter, a cloudless crimson sky afoot. i tried looking around some more, and as soon as i caught a glimpse of that nauseating smirk i had grown so tired of seeing, we both spat almost simultaneously at each other the fuck you doing here fuckface. well the “fuckface” was her word, not mine. i opted for something slightly more elegant out of courtesy for that cunty bee word. seriously though, do u know what the fuck happened ? i forced out the words, disgruntled by the obvious lack of any retrievable answers. do i LOOK like i know what the fuck’s up ? figured as much, ye boobless. there was a lunge, or rather an attempt at it, in my direction as jinx decided, apparently, that she would bite my head off in retaliation. that was when the most prostrating yet of our realizations sank in, we could not move. what the he… just as i was about to finish we were warped. again. this time we felt it. the vortex spat us out onto a similar set up, scale-wise. on this imperial dragon etched island, however, we werent alone. i recognized those guys from the wanted posters decades ago. graves and some serial con artist that goes by the name of twisted fate. they looked, if possible, even more confused than us. more noticeable still was two towering figures casting immense shadows over us from two opposing corners of the field. even with my back turned the burning sensation of its intent gaze was very much perceptible. then there was the countdown. it wasnt very explicit. but i didnt need anyone to spell it out for me. it sounded urgent. my body tensed up in wait as the secondly intervals tapered to an end. next thing i know, my body began moving of its own, not mine, volition. my gauntlets were looking for targets, and soon enough started hammering into the graves guy with the crazy looking gun. we didnt exchange much except for blows but from the look he gave me i knew he hated this every bit as i did. the sound of bullets zipped past the air around me as jinx unloaded her barrage of artillery, involuntarily i assumed, onto the poor dudes’ temples. come to think about it, i had ever only been going up against pow pow and fishbone before. funny how it should work out this way i thought to myself. though i could not quite help thinking how furious cait wouldve been at the knowledge of this cute little collaboration.
the fight ended before we even knew it. there was no blood, mind you, they just sort of, uh, disappeared, like when your character runs out of hp in a video game. i did catch an instant when the giant fox-butterfly ( yes and yes ) in front of us winced, perhaps in pain, before we were teleported back to where we had been a minute prior, unscathed, and more debilitatingly confused than ever before. if i gave it a long hard look, i would start to notice similar assets way in the distance, appearing to be floating islands held up by magic most arcane, each adorned with its own sprite, the same ones that watched on our skirmishes like side betters. this was either a terrible practical joke, or we had been dragged into a sick game.
So the most amazing thing happened to me earlier. I was just idly walking across campus, minding my own business and feeling shitty as per usual. Suddenly this guy I’ve never met entered my line of sight and, with the single purest childlike excitement I’ve only ever associated with golden retriever puppies, exclaimed “Star wars!”, eyes lit up as they met with my upper garment. Of course he was gesturing at one of my most prized possessions, a bootleg Empire Strikes Back tee which I got for no more than 4 dollars off of the flea market. At this point I was so taken off guard that in response I just started to stammer while waiting for the right words to come out of my facehole. Lucky for me and my awkward deadass he extended me his hand and the little exchange progressed into us just randomly talking about movies and The Rise of Skywalker (which I have yet to see). But he must have been in a hurry, taking off right in the middle of our conversation without as much as letting me return the courtesy as I watched his 6 ft stature tapered into the ongoing procession.
You must be wondering, why the heck am I even telling you this ? This pedestrian story with normal written all over it despite how impressive I claimed it to be. Well you see, to me it is anything but regular. With my track record of being the most reticent human being alive I’d have just passed myself by if I were him. And what ? Missed out on making someone’s day and giving them a smile comparable to that of Joker’s that they’d still wear on their face though more than an hour has since passed ? He, however, chose not to. What apprehension there was must have been completely overtaken by the most precious urge to share experiences with strangers, with fellow human beings, and soon to be friends after that. With this I’m just letting you know you have the power to make people’s lives just a bit better, as the Star Wars kid did mine. I urge you, and myself, to go out there and simply say hi or smile at others (not in a creepy stalkery way though lest you want to end up in the back of a police car and ultimately the rapist archive) or maybe just, you know, strike up a talk. Because not unlike butter you let sit out for half a day, or an especially ripe fart, kindness is spreadable, at least as it’s been reinforced for me.
How Korea is “a graveyard for Star Wars fans” (his words, not mine) must have been part of the reason why he was so excited to see a fellow Wookie in the flesh.
My attire turned yet again a more robust shade of red. Much like the twisted psychopath mind still stained rouge from the viscera of his last victim, I was mired in sweat as crisscrosses of adrenaline plagued my every single pulse. Also much like the fang-baring maniac dripping with intravenous bloodstreams, I just committed a murder. The listless husk of my former self sprawled outwards in a prefabricated manner, the psionic blades of my own mental dispossession still warm within its midriff gash. This was but the first and last time I killed.
[Untitled#2] 10/08/2018
I had yet to pop another bubble when she snapped me out of my own’s. I heard Tim’s coming over this weekend. She said. Though it sounded more to me like oodles of blabberish, a mangled series of inarticulate utterances my befuddled little mind cannot quite make out. Somehow the distance of 5 mere feet between us seemed so distant, so much so that, before I even came to realize, i was idly grasping at what appeared to me at the time the ethereal duplicate of her already ghostly cadaver. She purportedly picked up on how weirdly I was acting because the immediacy with which the water exited the glass on her hand and onto my face would have brought even the deepest of intoxications to a humbling defeat. Her left arm still inclined towards me, she drilled yet another nail into my moth-eaten coffin of bubbly expectations. Have you been drinking again. Momentarily I found myself caught within a forcefield of hesitation. I should’ve just acquiesced to go spruce myself up and handed in the two empty bottles I hastily tucked away underneath my seat when I heard her walk in earlier. That wouldve at least appeased her fury. But instead I just had to succumb to the disquieting inebriation dispossessing me of all my sensibility, smiled docilely at her and said. No honey Ive been here all night blowing bubbles, dont you see ?, brandishing a hellokitty container I got from the corner store in a spontaneous fit of crapulence. God forbid the idiocy. At least I wasnt entirely lying. Just as the words left me, I caught on to how much of a mistake I made. That’s it Kelsey. You’ve had way too much. I’VE had way too much. Have you any idea how longingly i wait everyday to see you, and you expect me to look forward to coming home to THIS. Have some respect for yourself, THEN you can think about me… As she laid into me with sequences of neverending blows, for a second I was ecstatic. I chortled like the 7-year-old Kelsey discovering dogs for the first time. But then also came the bitter actualization that I was gonna lose her yet again, this time forever. Her, the sole reason keeping me going. In a dying urge of a woman fighting for her life, I lunged forward into her ghostly phantasm, into a tug-of-war with death. You lost. A voice drummeled into the walls of my ears. Hers. Next thing I know, I was standing alone in the kitchen, the flourescent light on the counter poorly lit. There was the sound of glassbreaking. That was 10 minutes ago, from when i shoved the bottles under my seat when she came in. My face felt dryer than ever. I rushed to the bedroom where I stashed my revolver for a casual game of russian roulette, mumbling to myself and myself only. Only this time, I’ll win.
[Untitled#3] unfinished circa August 2018
An eerie premonition glued my eyes shut when the shuttle door busted off its hinges. The tangible vacuum of space enveloped me like a primordial blanket made of dark matter, interwoven with the gleaming aura of the stars. Fleeting though it was, my body shuddered as I felt the caress of Mother Celestials, her succulent breasts nursing me back to life upon streams of scintillating cosmos. For a second I was not lost, for I, was home. But then came the rotund actualization that the soothing feeling was extinguished. Terminated. Gone. In its place stood a rhapsody of fear and I exasperation, whose resonance could be felt even through the sono-intransmissible extra-terrestrial expanse. The harness binding me within the simulated gravity of the ship loosened up, releasing my tensed-up body into a weightless sensation I never brought myself to get used to. it had been 9 years since our first mission. 9 long years since any human contact. 9 years since, well, everything. You could be forgiven for thinking that after doing this for so long, i would eventually grow out of my nightmares and isolation. But somehow, i felt called upon not to let up, even for a second, for fear of being consumed by an abstract horror, fear of the unknown, haunting me in my sleep. Sleep was, hence, an enigmatic parameter i could not solve. More than ever I thirst for the sweet embrace of death putting me out of misery by scything the soul out of my blood-pumped vessel.
[Untitled#4] 14/09/2018
I gasped for another breath in a fight for my own life. It did not help in the slightest when depression kept on garroting, and my stomach took another dive into the abyss. Is this penance ? i heard the sound of self-interrogation drumming incessantly against my eardrums. I don’t know. I replied. What with everything that was going on, I WISH that was self-expiation. It would mean that all of this was not real, and was merely a phantasmic child of all my lows at once. I felt alone. I WAS alone.
I turned to my phone as per usual to temporarily deviate from the morbidness. maybe I was amidst a stroke of reverie, or my memory was severely hampered from the fit, but I swore that button had never been there before. Located on the bottom left of the screen where my thumb usually rested, the barely visible scarlet button read “escape”. What’s the worst that can happen ? A strand of thought raced past me as I pressed down on the flickering pixels on the lcd. unlike anything my momentary inebriation could associate the word “escape” with, there was no teleportation voodoo or apparitional monkey business going on. I was still there, in the safety-not-at-all of the rented space barely qualifying as an apartment, but this time jampacked with every person I had ever loved before. this is not real. I thought. How can it BE real ? some of them were miles beyond borders, others downtrodden with death. Part of me knew that they were merely the astral projection of their true selves, but somehow I felt implored to believe in that they were really there, more alive and real than ever. They began to talk to me, one by one, and one after another they injected into me a consistently deeper shot of happiness. I was exhilirated. I was free.
Then came the tears. It did not stop. I did not want it to stop. Sizzling droplets of salt-strewn dew burnt deep, fleshy grooves into my used to be grooveless cheeks. Just then, one by one, they vanished, as fleeting as their arrival, leaving me forlorn in the drafty four-cornered den, but this time feeling a smidgen better than the last. Yeah, it’s gonna be better from now on. I KNEW it was gonna be better, even without the cheery voices in my head telling me so, for true affection had been made available to me at finger’s reach. At the literal press of a button. To the people I’ve loved before
[Untitled #5] 10/10/2018
A burning, muted ache woke me up at 6 am sharp, as per usual. It certainly did not help to be presbyopic as my hands trembled to take the glasses out of their leatherpadded casing. With the greatest feat of strength a 80-yo man could’ve mustered, I clambered from the tumbledown elevation barely qualified as a bed, almost tumbling down myself, and so begun the never-ending journey into the kitchen. The frigid floor left much to be desired and a freezing sensation on my good feet, only then did it occur to me to put slippers on. The countertop was ridden with pills, capsules and tablets. Two red, one white and green and half of the yellow with a P inlaid into one side. Yes I remembered distinctly my prescriptions, though what they did were most arcane, just that whenever I took them, my heart thanked me a little. I fumbled, and mumbled, and burnt the last 2 eggs I was gonna have for breakfast, to the rumble of construction in the periphery. The whole place reeked of gas, and well, cremated unhatched chickens having so much to live for. Eve used to make splendid eggs, and all kinds of them too, but what was the point anyway. Just then, “these eggs arent gonna eat themselves”, my prostration thought. So chagrined though I was, and in yet another one of my daily struggles, I trudged the span of my living room out into the front porch, barely holding onto a behemoth cast iron pan, and plopped down panting. The eggs were tasteless, as were most things at the time, especially those kids who kept swooshing to and fro the bandwagon of rock music on their shiny unscratched Davidsons. Once finished, I left the pan as was on the veranda, just a little something for the forensics to puzzle out, and went to check on the mailbox. The sad dusty metal bin suspended to one of the two moss-strewn pivots was left there to gather dust, as well as the occasional graffiti imbued from contemporary artists in the offing. Otherwise it was doing a spectacular job of stashing out-of-subscription papers, bi-weekly pamphlets from retchedly resolute nursing homes, and much unwelcome memos of someone’s death. Save for the resident pain in my lower back and the numbness in four of my remaining toes, dotage had served me well enough. I wasn’t dead, that was the thing. But it also meant watching powerlessly as one after another everyone in my life took to the earth. Death comes to those quick to wither, oh how I so envied the daisies seared in the south central heat and the irresponsibility of a 12-yo boy. It was Charlie that came in the mail that day. Charlie Dickinson. Dilated kidney tumors, what nasty little nuisances they were. Must’ve been painful, I tutted. Not a note anybody would want to leave on. No sir. Not at all. Eve, out of all people, sure didn’t deserve that. I wished I could’ve cried a little. At least it would have meant i still had hatchets unburied in this life. But no tears came to trickle hellward, none, zero, not after such a winding procession of dead bodies had lined up before your own’s like that. I was dying to meet Eve, and Charlie, and Matt, and my dogs, and Foggy, and Karen, and Kengo and Anna, the cows that butcher lady took away from me, and so I would. I tucked myself in earlier than usual, preemptively accounting for the metaphorical tossing and turning as the unrelenting pain confined me to an ossified comtemplative state. Fuck the ache, and fuck the pills to. Rinse. But there’d be no repeat from there on out.
So you found me. Either it was a miracle that brought you here or it was me who nagged you to take a look. And we both know it’s the latter. Which, come to think about it, would make us at the very least acquaintances but my egocentric ass can’t get enough of talking about myself so here we go.
Who am I ?
I go by Mạnh. Mạnh Nguyễn that is. One big fat failure of a 20-year-old who can’t seem to get anything right ever. I’m doing just fine though thanks for asking.
At the moment I am all sorts of drifting about. No aspiration. No commitment. No purpose. It’s all hazy out there and my legally blind ass can’t make anything out to save my life.
So why am I telling you all this ? Why should you even pay attention to me venting about how miserable I am when my story is far more rose-tinted than way more people out there ? Why should anyone really bat an eyebrow to this clueless little kid who has known anything BUT miserable ? The truth is I’m not asking you to. You may come and leave. You may relate to my stories and stay to your heart’s desire. None of it is within my control. What I do have control over is what platform I choose as an outlet, which just happens to be this. Who knows when, being the inconsistent twat that I am, I’d eventually grow out of this blogging phase but I’d prefer to enjoy my time here while it lasts.
Got that out of the way. Onto what you can expect to see on this quasi-blog that I’d probably update twice a year when feeling especially jaded:
Old bites. Mostly cryptic shorts even myself cannot decipher.
Food, some of which also happens to be locked up in the ol’ archive.
Spur of the moment writings about life crises
Random uplifting everyday input if I feel up to it (but that’s what IG stories are for so…).
On a parting note, I don’t know if I’m ever going to go through with this. However, even in the face of uncertainty I still hope from this I, or preferably we, can learn and grow and learn to grow and come out of all this a better person than we once were. 🍻 乾杯！
Toaster Oven Potato 