I was about 4. Growing up in a refugees enclave of Saigon. In the days leading up to Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Children’s Festival) one could witness torches, chants and marches…convoluting through all alleys and byways. The mob grew in size, as if it were trash day, except it’s kids, and not cans. “Tung tung tung, dzo dzo…Tung tung tung dzo dzo” (in a trance, all sweated and hyped up).
We winded and made sharp turns, passing through neighborhoods of bad and good smells (Da Ly Huong, known for its scent which comes out only at night – the opposite of Sunflowers).
Time was standing still, while our feet moved in rhythm. Many in the crowd were without a shirt. Most without shoes. Every other kid seemed to hold something: lanterns, torches, and even lit matches.
Lucky we did not cause any fire – unlike Old Chicago with Mrs. O Leary’s cow.
Old Saigon. Mob by day and mob by night.
By day, we were either in school or out looking for trouble. Most times, in war time, troubles found us: monk burning, palace bombing, city terrorized, gun shots, hand combat and loud quarrels (stress, poverty, congestion and heat).
There was one fountain for everyone’s daily ration. Across the way was an ever-growing trash dump site. The smell in mid-day heat would keep any visitor away. For survival, we ignored all environmental transgression: just kept one’s head down, no eyes contact and go about hurriedly on one’s business and tried not to get in anyone’s way. It’s human instincts to recognize those who did not “belong” in the neighborhood.
Visiting friends who looked and acted “tough”, our Fonz would be glad to teach them a lesson pretty quick e.g. sand in their scooter’s tank, or airless tires.
I was beaten bloody once …perhaps due to my singing too loud which was “enviable” or offensive to the bully.
Either way, the neighborhood (my second and last in Vietnam), afforded me childhood games, in the rain and under the sun. Within the confine of the alley, I grew up, being pruned and got chided. I developed “common sense”, conscience and courtesy. People need to take their mid-day siesta, so turn down the radio etc… a neighbor was holding three-day funeral, so let them park out front.
Given limited space, we made it work for everyone. District 3, district 1 etc…the protocol was first for the Southerners who had lived there for generations, then us, refugees from the North, finally were those migrants who drifted from the countryside to look for housework.
We had household help, since my parents and siblings were all busy at work. Four paychecks, one family of five. No wonder they could afford sending me to private school, a French Elementary. There, I came across names like Fontaine, Rousseau and Balzac.
It was a complete change in etiquette, every time I passed through that door: “Parle Francais, s’il vous plait” etc…It’s as\if one needed a backpack and a passport for school. My buddy was a half-breed named Pierre: whiter and bigger. We talked about everything, including the assassination of J.F.K. (even when we were only 7). Then the mob summoned us to join its larger species, whose current drifted from elsewhere far away etc.. Kent State and Jackson State, Woodstock and Washington.
My oldest sister was very level-headed. She often had to play surrogate mom (both women in my family were working women, with school and bank pay checks). She was the one who found me and yanked me out of the crowd, which began to get out of control due to its increase in size and distance.
She was always the first to sense that things did not appear as they seemed (working at Agri Bank would raise her antenna sensitivity a bit). So the last crowd we joined was on that last trip – a convoy to Pier 5 (read My Sliding Door).
Leaving behind everything, including our Father (who got left behind in old age, by himself, for a good decade), we joined the mob exodus. Drifted at the mercy of International Rescue in International waters. Lucky we weren’t the Boat People who showed up much later riding the same waves and roving in the same waters, like current migrants near the coast of Greek islands.
But mob anywhere is the same: a stripping process begins with an assigned number (A-number, then Social Security number), then an IRS account number (if joined account)….and finally a card carrying number, be it this or that. Join the fight, for ideological and economic equality. Upward mobility for some and justice for all.
In my experience with the mob – Children’s Festival march and onward – is that no one’s ever wins, except those who incite it or observe it from the outside, be it the press, the politicians or the police (injured or paid).
For some reason, still hidden, we still could not function as mere individuals, to think for ourselves outside of the system ( the box of pooled wisdom, common denominator, and a sense of belonging – translating to fear of missing out). It’s a call to a false sense of comfort, of collective identity, of the familiar, albeit very provincial and turf-territorialism as long ago displayed in my neighborhood.
Tung tung tung dzo dzo, tung tung tung dzo dzo.
Let’s challenge Social Media and all that it entails. It’s evil to see those profiting from it, from our memories and personal wisdom, all the while laughing at us from the outside. We’re thought of as those of “low” IQ’s, easy to manipulate and maneuver, like cows in Texas, herded through a funnel gate to be branded.
Wake up and think folks. Be all you can be, live a short life well-lived and worthy to be remembered. In thinking back to my days with the mob of children, I want to stop here and thank my sister for collecting me. Tossing me behind a shut door and put me in her “program” of mob anonymous. To sit in front of an open book or a guitar. Lonely existence. Spartan and secure.
But then I developed my common sense, courtesy and conscience. Qualities which hardly exist in any mob, which often champions a lowest common denominator (three-words chants) in their race to the inevitable cliff: that zero at the bottom. It’s lonely down there too, when you stop breathing.
Thang Nguyen 555 