Fili’s world

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“Why so unfriendly? What has my country done to you to make you so upset?”. I ignored the guy on the bike but what he said while riding next to me has made its impact. It was around 22:30 and I was coming back from a Vietnamese singing show in the Municipal Theater that I decided to dive into. I really don’t like motorbike taxis and being in a new city I do prefer to just walk, even though I’m scared shitless. Walking a single street for 5 minutes I was approached with – 10 motorbike taxi guys, 7 Cyclo riders, 5 prostitutes, 3 gay massage boys, 6 Marihuana dealers. When a western guy is walking the streets alone at late night quite far from an apparent hotel area it brings up many thoughts. First of which – is he mad? Maybe suicidal? But for the locals it’s – how much money can I make of his needs? He must need something! Suddenly even the kids are offering “Hot girls massage, boom boom”, and they won’t take “No” or “Khong” as an answer. They keep walking by your side, repeating the same limited phrases they have picked up on the street till you’re gone completely bezzerk. So why was I been so unfriendly? Was it only the circumstances or was it more? I knew there was a softer version of this in HoiAn that I once embraced with love, so there had to be more…

I was walking the whole day. Morning I had the local experience while walking the way to Cho-Lon, the city’s Chinatown and old market. Aside from the fact that, surprisingly, the walking tourist was a major attraction - it was just horrible. I’ve seen poor in my life, but somehow this kind of poorness has made me want to throw up. Not being able to appreciate Lonely Planet’s “best Saigon market” I was just wondering about the tough life these people had. I knew there was nothing what so ever that I could do to help them and refusing hungry children on the street wasn’t easy. Visiting the 120,000 dong (8$) show at the theater at night with all the rich people and their families was nice yet bore an unsettling disturbing feeling. The contrast between the morning and the evening was a bit too much to handle.

Lately, I’ve been having these weird dreams. One of them I recognize to be repeating at crossroads in my life. It’s always versions of the same story yet every time at different stages (high-school, BA, army, MBA). Yesterday, it was high-school again and I was fighting – unsuccessfully - to finish up the last Bagrut. Even though I’m always half aware that it’s absurd and that I’ve already finished my MBA the dream goes on to create an alternate existence where for some reason I only need to complete this one Lashon (language) test. If I don’t – then my whole life accomplishments will be fake or non-existent. The dream is never complete without some “evil” person to hold me back from completing the mission– this time being my all-time hated teacher from the 11th-12th grade. Every time the dream would end either with massive stress that it is impossible to succeed on the test or at sheer failure. Waking up I’m usually a bit confused as what reality is – do I still need to go through that test again and start everything all over? Did I really finish my Bagrut? Sometimes it brings up an ironic smile about how fragile my feelings of accomplishments are. The second dream is even more extreme where I try, sometime successfully – most of the times unsuccessfully – to keep everybody around me alive. While this could be great material for deep psychoanalysis, and believe me when I say I do make an effort to understand, it’s amazing as to how those dreams affect the next day. Go figure – they allow me to relax.

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