Guardian of the jokes
A friend’s first impression of me was my guffaw. That was because I had trust in him.
Dear friends,
The older I am, the easier it gets to make me laugh.
Life has come to a point where things are either too absurd to let go or too meh to bother.
I’m by no means a descendant of Camus to write profoundly on absurdism. In fact, I only learned about the term 8 years ago sitting on a red plastic stool near then-Hanoi Cinematheque.
Four of us were waiting for our noodle soup – three servings with pig intestines and one with beef heel muscle (bắp bò hoa in Vietnamese if you want to know how bougie it sounds) – when I told them a random story of me at the tender age of seven.
One afternoon, I experienced an extreme toothache. Mom was so occupied with cooking she told me to put up with the pain and dad would bring me to the dentist once he finished his work.
I seek for oblivion by tuning into a kid TV show – Những bông hoa nhỏ or Little flowers – guess we were all flowers back then. On that very day, the VJ cheerfully introduced the audience to Mekong Delta’s iconic marketplace.
“In today’s program, we will bring you to Cái Răng Float Market in Cần Thơ City,” she announced, following with a lengthy description of the commercial hub in which “Cái Răng” was repeated countless times.
“Cái Răng” “Cái Răng” “Cái Răng” or literally “A Tooth” “A Tooth” “A Tooth” – as the introduction persisted, tear started filling my eyes. The pain intensified; it became momentum boosting my jump onto dad’s motorbike as soon as he appeared in the front yard.
Ten minutes later, I found myself laying under the dental lamp.
While two friends of mine bursted into laughter because of my silly story, the one who ordered beef heel muscle noodles was deep in his thoughts.
“It’s absurdism,” he concluded when we were tapping our mouths with paper tissues after satisfying our stomachs with hot soup. “You should read The Stranger by Camus,” he continued, flickering leftover rice strings with a pair of chopsticks.
I did read and did forget all the plots in The Stranger. The novella’s spirit stays, however. I find myself resorting to its thesis of absurdism again and again recently as if it’s easier to spot mismatches in this tiny, miserable and laughable life when we grow older (but not wiser).
“[…] As personal identities erode, people start donning the brand names of their colleges, workplaces or even condo complexes; some even add decorative patches of celebrity acquaintances by dropping ringing names, suggesting brief relationships […]”
I was listening to a friend ranting about some specific humans’ abuse of school prestige by a small breakfast and coffee stand in Saigon’s old residential complex of Phạm Viết Chánh.
The whole area was invested and developed by Dịch vụ Công ích Thanh niên Xung phong Co. Ltd as I googled it later. The company’s name is literally translated as “youth volunteer public service”.
I found a not-so-old article (or piece of propaganda?!) published on Việt Nam News which was titled: “Volunteer work – a badge of honour for young Vietnamese people”.
Remember the Youngs of Crazy Rich Asians? They are the biggest developer in Singapore. Think of how many constructions were built by youth volunteers in entire Vietnam and I couldn’t help laughing. Not a lot of Vietnamese people go to Harvard and work for BCG but thousands of them ride on Hà Nội’s Thanh Niên Street daily.
Till next time,
T.
P/S: I will write weekly from now on without childish disruption. Please write me something.
This week’s top picks
Hua Hsu on Umberto Eco.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-guide-to-thesis-writing-that-is-a-guide-to-life
I don’t know whether this song is viral on TikTok but it’s on my Spotify Discover Weekly.
Tết is approaching and I find myself watching this op-docs again. On leftover women (sheng nu).