Since I'm posting again, you should assume that my Quest for a New--By Which I Mean Four Year Old--Laptop Charger was successful. Dragons were slain, maidens rescued, Vietnamese words exchanged with actual Vietnamese people, and all the rest.
Honesty compels me to point out that Dave spoke most of the Vietnamese words. I did contribute 'hello,' 'thank you,' 'excuse me,' and '300,000 dong? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!?'
I do intend to go back to this market--three square blocks of every obsolete electronic device devised by humanity. This is where e-waste goes, people...once we in the USA have tossed it, it migrates back to its spawning ground to give birth to a new generation of frustrated consumers. The picture possibilities there are truly phenomenal--oh, and per that post about living Cryptonomicon? This is the scene where Avi describes Nerdvana to Randy.
Showing posts with label Cryptonomicon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cryptonomicon. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
After three weeks...
...of living in Asia, I find myself appreciating anew the parts in Cryptonomicon after the main character, Randy, has moved suddenly to the Philippines. More: I find myself living sections of that book. Can it be deja vu if it's something already read, and not already seen? What would that would be, deja lus?*
For instance! There's a scene in that shows Randy walking to work. Every day, he leaves his big, expensive hotel, and walks the raging insanity of Philippine streets. Every day, he's an object of wonder and shock, as the hotel personnel and various purveyors of conveyance cannot believe that a white Westerner--rich enough to stay in a 5-star hotel--would choose to walk. One sentence describes how one of these, 'the most tenacious capitalist Randy has ever seen,' follows him for blocks every day, saying 'Sir? Sir? Taxi?'
While I was living with Awesome Vodka Sean, I walked to work. And God help me if I didn't have xe om drivers (basically, dudes who own motorbikes and drive around those too dainty to walk, too sensible to ride their own bike, and too cheap or poor to take a cab; I find them the worst possible compromise between these three modes of transportation, unless you're drunk) following me, yelling at me. One of them even yelled "Sir? Sir? Motorbike?" after me for like half a block. Okay, maybe more like a third, but only because Saigon is an ear-crackingly loud city.
Or Neal Stephenson's descriptions of the streets of Manila--he could have been looking at, say, the streets around Nattranhduat, where I teach. Or his description of the weather...or the people...I mean, granted Saigon is not in the Philippines (for my American audience: true fact! Saigon is in Vietnam, which is next to Cambodia, and the Forgotten Jungles of Leng! And, of course, N. Stephenson only made up the Philippines for his book!)
For those of you who haven't read Cryptonomicon, you really should. It's a fantastic book, and on my sort list of Favoritestest Novels Ever, of All Time, Anywhere.
And that's saying something, though not, to be sure, in English.
*Actually, yes, but purely from a grammatical point-of-view.**
**But having made a big deal of it, I am now willing to bet that I mis-conjugated the French verb lire, which means to read. And though the simple past first-person singular is, in fact, lus--but then, you probably don't care. Thanks for reading this far. You may now return to items of consequence.
For instance! There's a scene in that shows Randy walking to work. Every day, he leaves his big, expensive hotel, and walks the raging insanity of Philippine streets. Every day, he's an object of wonder and shock, as the hotel personnel and various purveyors of conveyance cannot believe that a white Westerner--rich enough to stay in a 5-star hotel--would choose to walk. One sentence describes how one of these, 'the most tenacious capitalist Randy has ever seen,' follows him for blocks every day, saying 'Sir? Sir? Taxi?'
While I was living with Awesome Vodka Sean, I walked to work. And God help me if I didn't have xe om drivers (basically, dudes who own motorbikes and drive around those too dainty to walk, too sensible to ride their own bike, and too cheap or poor to take a cab; I find them the worst possible compromise between these three modes of transportation, unless you're drunk) following me, yelling at me. One of them even yelled "Sir? Sir? Motorbike?" after me for like half a block. Okay, maybe more like a third, but only because Saigon is an ear-crackingly loud city.
Or Neal Stephenson's descriptions of the streets of Manila--he could have been looking at, say, the streets around Nattranhduat, where I teach. Or his description of the weather...or the people...I mean, granted Saigon is not in the Philippines (for my American audience: true fact! Saigon is in Vietnam, which is next to Cambodia, and the Forgotten Jungles of Leng! And, of course, N. Stephenson only made up the Philippines for his book!)
For those of you who haven't read Cryptonomicon, you really should. It's a fantastic book, and on my sort list of Favoritestest Novels Ever, of All Time, Anywhere.
And that's saying something, though not, to be sure, in English.
*Actually, yes, but purely from a grammatical point-of-view.**
**But having made a big deal of it, I am now willing to bet that I mis-conjugated the French verb lire, which means to read. And though the simple past first-person singular is, in fact, lus--but then, you probably don't care. Thanks for reading this far. You may now return to items of consequence.
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