Ersatzes

On the outskirts of Saigon there's a park where rural scenes are replicated for the relaxation of stress-ridden city folks. Oxcarts and lotus ponds, thatched cottages and bamboo benches are carefully arranged to delight visitors.

Unfortunately the banana trees are too young and skinny to bear fruits, so a banana bunch is hung from a dried bamboo pole. The dragonfruit trees look sumptuously green, but the deep-pink fruits are plastic and attached to the trees by pieces of metal wire.

How many things surrounding us and inside us are ersatz? Artificial flowers and trees are quite common in America, and have you heard Edith Piaf sing about "fabriquer des souvenirs"?

I refuse to have ersatzes. It's either the genuine thing or nothing at all for me.

I Didn't Catch It

My dorm room window looked down an alley between my building and the next one. There was a desk by the window, and one day I was sitting on that desk playing a Viet song on my guitar.

Suddenly I sensed the weight of a gaze and turned my head to look out of the window. A girl was watching me from the alley below. She's a Viet, I was sure. In her eyes, in her posture I could read loneliness and homesickness. I knew she saw in me a piece of the homeland she had left behind, and I knew she wanted to be my friend.

But I hesitated. I hesitated a tad too long, so she turned and left. She was throwing something precious into my lap and I didn't catch it.

Wild Flowers

I'm very fond of wild flowers. There's something particularly endearing about those who are left to fend for themselves and still manage to attain such beauty. I took this picture a few months ago at Black Hill Regional Park.

Wendy and Her Geese

The view from my office window included a green patch of trees and grass, and a pond where white geese were either frolicking or napping their time away, quite oblivious to the hectic human world surrounding them. Among the blessings they could count was Wendy.

Wendy was a security guard who had been working there for more than fifteen years. Twice a week she would walk over and feed the geese, which got so used to her that when she was still at a distance they would shriek, clap their wings and rush forward to meet her.

Then Wendy was laid off. The pond became quiet, too quiet.

One day I was distracted from work by a noisy ruckus. It was the geese welcoming their Wendy back. Wendy had decided to drive fifty miles every Thursday afternoon to visit her geese.

Joe Redman

Redman is what he calls himself, not his real name. He has red hair and likes to wear red jackets and T-shirts. He also has a red baseball cap. It's a relief to me that his predilection for the red color doesn't go lower than his waist.

Joe befriended me when I was new, alone and penniless in the City of Brotherly Love. I was struggling to find a foothold for my new life in a strange land. His marriage was in tatters and he had left home to make a new start.

Joe liked to take me with him in his dilapidated, fusty van to the New Jersey shore on his fishing trips. He took me to racing courses and horse farms. He brought me to the neighborhood bar to throw darts. I learned my first American bad words from him.

Life had never been easy for Joe. At ten, he had run away from an abusive father, mingling with picnic crowds to get food. He had drifted from place to place, taken all sorts of odd jobs to survive. Luckily enough, his hard life had made him tough but wise, kind and funny as hell.

Years went by, my life has changed for the better and so has Joe's. We remain friends and stay in touch, and I certainly hope that we'll still be friends for many more years to come.