Category: Midnight Munchies

_{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 ?