Tag: Saigon

body building in Saigon

I have paid my first-month membership and come back for seven days straight.

The place is tiny.  I must have timed it badly: my body peak performance coincides with peak-time traffic which weaves through the front door (bikes found their short cut artery in an alley).

So I lift while listening to Michael Jackson’s CD. I feel proud, to be among muscle men, although if you get at the truth, I am more like Charlie Chaplin at the swimming pool (who pretends to get water out of his ears, while actually stays out of the pool altogether).

So here I am, in a city of roughly 10 million. People try to get home by bikes or buses. A bike front ended a Hyundai at an intersection this morning. People exchanged some unpleasantries, and went on their way. No wasted time. Lean city. Lean people.

Back to my muscle men. The owner put up whatever pictures and posters he can get his hands on: his own when winning medals, body muscle tissues poster straight from medical book and half-naked lady (but tasteful art).

He said if I wished, he could open the door at 3AM for me.  I said it would be more likely 3PM.

When your body produces endorphin, you feel less of a need for caffeine or nicotine.  I feel refreshed now, after two weeks of reverse culture shock.

The dust, the noise and the heat. There is tension in next door Thailand and earthquakes in Japan and Indonesia. China is building a huge project in the Mekong River, which might threaten the natural down-hill flow of SEA including VN.

The bodies and muscles here will need a lot of strength and endurance to withstand all that is throwing at them. And mine in particular, will need even more since I have used to working out in an A/C gym. Now,  I learn how to sweat it out among others in this steam-bath gym. I need to pick up on that: no wasted body fat, or any fat anywhere in the city of millions. Lean bodies in motion.  No wonder westerners found Saigon a great place to shred a few pounds, with or without joining a gym.

 

Free but not cheap

People have paid lips service to freedom, the defense of freedom, and the exercise of free speech.

But few put any thought on the price of freedom. Freedom somehow is perceived as being free

(i.e. you don’t have to pay anything, in economic terms). Actually, freedom costs a lot.

Many lives have been laid down in service of freedom, many limps cut off to defend it.

The opposite of freedom is not tyranny: it’s the illusion that one is free when actually not.

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to have a drink, or a puff of cigarette

(or worse). Those were occasions when you were not being free. Then, at the political level, you defend your personal position, and your philosophy/faith.

But at what price? And do you truly know yourself and your belief? Have you been tested or truly challenged?

Many psychological studies (Standford was one of them) proved that people were often “anchored” to some previous position (a low price for instance), just to later make impulse decision based on the anchor which had been previously planted prior to the actual experiment.

So, make sure at the core, you have  a value system (cleanliness, decency, trustworthiness etc…) and be flexible about them, to adapt to the situation (survival).

I have read Victor Frankl, and his famous line ” you can take away the body, but not the me which resides in this body”.

He made a distinction between personhood and our physical embodiment . If you had a chance to visit Dr Death’s exhibition (of the bodies)

you will realize as I did, that at the physiological level, we are no different from one another, especially after we are all dead. But while alive, we do exhibit

personalities and preferences (case in point, there are a set of  twin sisters who recently married a set of twin brothers in England). One of the brides said she had been waiting for this moment her whole life. And that they can tell each other apart (being twins and all, they have more exposure to IDing twins).

Or, take a look at America’s Got Talent. You see people are quite unique, although every one held dear to their dream of becoming a celebrity.

I skimmed the Forbes 100 celebrities. And I don’t remember seeing a Teacher in there.

I noticed that they were all movie stars, singers, and sport figures. No wonder it’s hard to tell ourselves, much less our kids that education

is noble and rewarding. We need role models. And society tells us one thing while the school tells us another.

Which way to go? We spend an average 4-6 hours a day in front of a screen of some kind . The internet feeds of the media,

and now the media feeds itself of the internet. Media appeals to our lowest common denominator to homogenize us.

Marketers used to have it easy (3 TV networks, and the 30-second spot).  Now each medium seeks to cater to a different demographic segments not unlike magazine print venue.

And the language of different generations, different point of views and different interests don’t seem to converge. No wonder the concept of freedom itself is in danger. I am not advocating “cultural literacy” type of definition of freedom.

I just want to reflect on how costly freedom has been and will always be : man facing oncoming tanks in Beijing, election opposition demonstrating  in Tehran, Buddhist monk pouring gasoline on himself in Saigon.

Those people are on my Forbes list of Freedom celebrities. I emulate and want to be them. After all, for whom the bell toll. Taking away one man’s freedom is taking away freedom itself. It might not happen to me, but someday, my kids and grand kids might not have a chance to see the movie I now enjoy (they might not chose to watch it, but at least, if they wanted to research it for a class project, they can) or the lyrics I hum along. Not to mention the comedian I watch. Man, have you seen CR’s Kill The messenger? I thought it was a spy comedy. Turned out it’s his stand-up tour. And Chris Rock ran his mouth. I was watching it at home, alone. But I was paranoid as if I were watching a porno.

I know someone can always find out that I watched the tape, because of my credit card charge. But who cares? If they had issues with some of the things CR said, they should go after the comedian himself, not his accidental audience. After all, I paid my dear price for freedom in the first place when I left Saigon years ago, not knowing where and if I would arrive safely. Freedom, yes, I know a thing or two about this abstract notion that others often mistook it as being free. Even if it’s free, it still is not cheap (I heard that admission tickets to Michael Jackson memorial is free, but event organizers still have to pay for the lights at Staple center on Tuesday).

Or the fireworks on New Year’s Eve.