it's all about money.

Birds chirped in accompaniment to the delicate intonation of an alleyway song, marking our mornings as much as the light seeping through our curtains. I was ecstatic to see a different world at my doorstep, shuttered doors now covering the dens of ine[quity/briated], storefronts and restaurants now open in their place. Our first meal in Vietnam was to be breakfast as locals do, a hot bowl of Pho to match temps nearing 100, both of us eagerly tossing in extra heat and full cloves of garlic. It somehow makes sense to eat spicy food in hot climates, in all climates really. There is a Zen-esque balance achieved when your insides match your outsides, beads of sweat ensuring you don't overheat entirely. We watched the sea of scooters as if it was cinema, old women carrying kitchens on their backs, mesmerized by the frenetic nonchalance of it all.

Our muscle memory wasn't eager to pound lengthy streets in such heat, and I recalled that icon on that iPhone - surely there's no Uber in Saigon. Spoiler alert: there's totally Uber in Saigon, there's even UberMoto in Saigon where you hail a scooter from your phone. If your first thought when reading that was "well we have Uber here too big whoop" then I'd wager a good bit of Dong you've never been to SE Asia. It's a complete game changer for anyone with a data plan, also readily available and incredibly cheap. My previous month based out of Bangkok gave me taxi PTSD - not only did you have to avoid ripoffs and insist the driver run the meter (many didn't want to) but trying to negotiate the destination translation is a grueling endeavor that can leave you stranded on the wrong side of the city. Not to mention those drivers that can't (read: won't) give you any change for any amount of bill. I now wait 3-5 minutes for an often air-conditioned car and automatically get billed the $1.50 (!!!) fare to visit my next bowl of noodles, the address I enter on my phone before the car even arrives. Worried about getting ripped off buying a SIM card? You should be! Hit up the historic Saigon Central Post Office and find an official Mobifone store around the corner - $9 gets you a SIM and 1 GB of data for 30 days. AMAZING!!!!!

We were intrigued by a craft brewing place nearby, and headed up the narrow stairway to the small bar pulling pints. The coconut porter was good, the passion fruit wheat outstanding. A young man on his phone next to me eventually made small talk, a sociology PhD student who started sharing his work and a bit about the religious history of Saigon. I had no idea Catholicism has been here for 400 years - communism doesn't lend itself well to gods outside of the state itself, and we got deep into a wonderfully enlightening conversation about the realities of Saigon today. My heart sank deep when he described the many poor Vietnamese families scrounging and saving to send their children to those uncouth British idiots of the night prior, who get paid a whopping $25/hr to teach English in one of the cheapest big cities in the world. Every time he mentioned the D word (-emocracy) he did so ten decibels lower, bad at masking his obvious joy of talking taboo subjects with foreigners. I left the bar beaming, grateful to have a taste of perspective.

Something he said has stuck with me: "how does it feel to be a millionaire?". We laughed about it then but he isn't far off - it's hard to spend large quantities of money here, my value-centric pleasure centers tingling wildly but often blindly. When you can drop fifty cents on a fresh Bahn Mi and eat among the locals it makes you feel powerful, which is an odd thing to feel when you're simply eating. It's easy to act frivolous but important to remember that exorbitant wealth leads down dark paths - of expectation, of taking for granted, of not being aware of the true cost of things. This was most clear during cocktails on our hotel roof bar, overhearing conversations between couples, of American and European men trying to show off to their Vietnamese "girlfriends". In my mind there's no room for romance when the scales sit so disparate - it's an act on both sides, the submission and manipulation of economic desperation pitted against the pitfalls of testosterone-driven vanity and having to convince yourself that it's any actual part of you she's after (shallow or otherwise), and not just the eventual contents of your wallet. My $3 glass full of Jameson was ten times the size of the thimble I paid $15 for back in HK. I basked beneath strands of mood lighting, eight floors above the chaos below, sipping on my watermelon juice chaser, happy to be sitting across from an old friend, perfectly content with the baggage I carry.

at last, anarchy.

We arrived to Ho Chi Minh City after midnight, hoping both of us would leap through the border hoops. The rules of entry felt arbitrary, strict, but I'm a big fan of checklists and I made damn sure all of the boxes were ticked. The humidity engulfed us as the exit doors parted, steadying ourselves to an audience of amused locals waiting for loved ones. We arranged for an airport pickup but my name-as-sign was nowhere to be found. The time crept towards 2am and the mental fog was upon us - failed attempts at roam-phoning the hotel netted us a helpful liar who called the hotel for us and translated that our ride wasn't coming so we should pay him instead. I snatched his phone from his hands to be told the driver had indeed been sent out over an hour ago and we must just be bad at exiting airports. After being reassured more wheels were on the way I noticed the familiar logo of Uber on the tout's phone and we sat in defeated silence, waiting. Seconds after giving up a young man with sleep in his eyes ran toward the crowd, my name waving in his hand. We jumped in his car featuring a cheetah fur dashboard adorned with patron saints - the fact the driver seat was completely prone confirmed our driver was fast asleep while we sat stewing.

Sleepy Cheetah Enterprises darted through empty streets, giving us glimpses of what would await us in the morning. As we pulled closer to our hotel the scene went full-on Jersey Shore - drunks of all shapes and sizes and shades of white blocking our way, stumbling and wooing and filling incredibly cheesy bars, ripe chum for the bar girl bar sharks. Our driver pulled over and pointed to a dark hotel in the midst of this madness. The cheery front-desk attendant was in far better shape than we, informing us that our parents called and said they were worried. I cringed at the distance between his joke and my reality, wondering if I'd ever sleep again. The Duc Vuong hotel was much-adored by the internet and central to everything, confirmed by our well-above-suitable room and super-helpful staff. We HAD to know what our nights would bring, so we walked down our street through the muck of Backpackers Gone Wild. Immediately the shouting started, of "happy hour here" and "come drink with us", hundreds of eyes eyeing us up, my own gaze fixated on the most beautiful shapes in sight - those voluptuous food stands on wheels. I was in love with them all: bowls of raw meat in wait, soft mangoes stacked high, noodles just begging to be boiled.

COCAINE!

A little old man shadowed Mr. M for blocks, resorting to repetition once COCAINE! didn't get the results he was after.

MARIJUANA? COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAAAAAAAINE!

As tempting as five years in prison for possessing drain cleaner is, we managed to resist his suave sales pitch, break our large bills against some well-earned cold beers to take back to the hotel, and fell into our beds as if they were our saviors.

Hong Kong was the predictable, boring, buckled-up businessman. This, my friends, is bat country.

whiplash.

It's only been two days since escaping Wan Chai, it feels more like three weeks. It takes a monumental amount of effort to move through this city, magnified tenfold by the zombie-esque plague of the iDevices. One step forward two steps back isn't very far off - dodging old people and children is the hardest part of it all, every major street simply packed with people of various speeds and attentiveness. If I would have brought my FitBit I would have earned 20% in sideways bonus steps, no doubt. The exhaustion of movement is a big reason I can't picture myself staying for more than a few months in Manhattan, or even San Francisco. It makes our outings four hours at most before our brains demand reprieve, ending our evenings early back in our 6' x 10' room.

The cost of any big city is an easy price to pay for what we've done in those two days. Rode the roller coaster of a cable car up to The Peak, the tallest vantage point a tourist can get to. We saw a whole different side of commerce with PMQ, an old six-floor apartment building turned into dozens and dozens of high-design, hand-made storefronts. And the food, my god the food here has surpassed all of the hours and hours of YouTube anticipation. Tiny velvety egg tarts with their crumbly crusts, sugar-crusted baked BBQ buns at the best dim sum I've ever eaten, cold milk tea served atop bowls of ice, experiencing childlike novelty popping off individual orbs from various flavors of egg waffles, mouth-watering Peking duck three ways (AND MY FAVORITE SOUVENIR BOWL EVER EVER EVER PLEASE DON'T BREAK), introducing Mr. M to Din Tai Fung, beef brisket soup noodles at Mak An Kee, steamed custard buns, whole chickens fried before my eyes within an open-air food market amidst raucous tables of smokers and gamblers, on and on and on and on. My advice: skip the plethora of worthless junk markets and just, eat.

Worth the effort or not, the question remains: should vacations be relaxing? Is it even possible to "get away" while mimicking the rat race back home? I contemplated these questions when planning this trip. The expense and red tape to leave Hong Kong for mainland China just didn't seem worth it - why would I spend $140 for the Visa when I'd be there a few days at most? That left the only other loose border city an easy ferry ride away: Macau.

After being wished farewell by our new friends-actually-employees at our regular nearby coffee shop we packed our bags, solved the daily destination maze, and caught our hour-long ferry across the water. As the bus pulled up the Galaxy Macau we were engulfed in the ridiculousness of this five-star hotel - walking through gilded gates as a giant diamond descended from above the lobby fountain. The vast difference between our crushed city days and this casino WITH A WAVE POOL ON THE ROOF is mind-boggling. Our HK shower was a sink-attached head sitting feet above the toilet as a single stall - great care was taken to prevent our toilet paper from getting wet. Now not only do we have a separate shower and bathtub, we have a mini-fridge stocked with grocery store sundries and two fully-charged Kindles just begging for some quiet time. The next 48 hours of relaxing are upon us, we the harbingers of indolence!

continued avoidance of mirrored hallways.

After a long day of disappointing markets Mr. M and I decided to hit up another night of music, this time at the seemingly most popular of rock bars here called The Wanch. At first The Wanch sounds like The Ranch, only spoken by someone trying to make fun of Chinese people. Google Autocomplete just made me realize The Wanch is a play on Wan Chai, a terrible terrible district full of Western bars, bright neon signs, and the obligatory massage parlors.

Mr. M and I have had some great success this far eating fabulous food and drinking regularly on the cheap - 20 oz beers served cold for at most 22 HKD ($2.84). This is mostly because we've been staying in North Point, a no-nonsense area that feels very Chinese but still gives easy access to the Western (i.e. good coffee a few blocks away) and the subway / ferry (i.e. absolutely critical). Back at The Wanch we walked into the sparse room and the staff setting up equipment for the open mic night. We were taken aback at the 350 HKD ($45.13) bill presented to us for two beers and two thimbles of Jameson during their advertised happy hour. I had read how expensive the vices are in this city, and this was our first real taste of drinking Gweilo style.

After soundcheck four friends took the stage - a shy middle-aged singer opening up after being bestowed a spattering of applause by just the two of us. EVERYONE'S TOO COOL TO CLAP HUH I said a little too loud as we ordered another $50 round of drinks, but encouragement might not have been the best idea as the white drummer in his 50s took the mic and started rapping like how you'd imagine your own father would rap. Mr. M and I rolled eyes and clinked glasses while the precise enunciator laid down some of what the kids are doing these days. More people started arriving, a clearly unhip Japanese guy started stretching, and a cool guy with a bad haircut blurted out to the performers WHILE THEY WERE PLAYING "How many more songs?". It was completely disrespectful and I noticed myself growing protective of Dad Rap Shy Lady. They soon exited the stage as the now-limber dude in the Lennon glasses picked up his guitar and started into his chords. He was singing entirely in Japanese, his voice expressive enough to transcend the language barrier, and as his own confidence grew his range expanded and he started rocking. the. fuck. out. His stiff hips bent and swayed into a swagger, a clear transformation happening before our eyes, and as he belted and bellowed we all grew quiet. Three songs into it and a young slick rick started up with the "Are you done yet?"s. I realized that there were only a few actual audience members here - the young British girls talking over the bands and misusing "literally" literally every five minutes, the Indian dude standing two feet in front of the singer blocking our view capturing footage on his iPhone he'll never ever watch again, a few single middle-aged men lost in their phones and/or hitting on the bar staff, and us. The rest of the crowd were impatient musicians just being shitty to each other. Which made me not at all want to listen to the rude boys, much less clap for them.

We exited the Wanch and went in search of another bar, dodging young women in velvet curtain doorways, passing businessman after businessman fixated on various forms of conquest, finding none of our people, ending up at a vacant 2nd-floor hotel bar with a view, sipping on our $12 beers. I so wanted to be back at that first night, back when there was no one like us around.

TLDR: Wan Chai sucks.

rules for reason / reason for rules.

I did something pretty stupid, I wore previously unworn shoes (new-to-me near-mints) on this trip because the delusional bits of my brain convinced the rest of me YOU ARE NOW INDIANA JONES AND THOSE COMFORTABLE EVERYDAYS THAT ARE FALLING APART WON'T SURVIVE THE HARD STREETS SO YOU SHOULD TAKE THE ONES THAT DON'T REALLY FIT.

The mere act of getting to my hotel last night left me with toes rubbed raw, and after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and croissant and bowl of seaweed vermicelli soup with a sausage patty floating in it Mr. M and I went on a quest to find a pair of something Converse and/or Vans-shaped. An amused, apologetic sales clerk and the subsequent frantic scouring of expat forums led me to the realization that there is most likely not a single store in Hong Kong that carries a 13 US in any style. Which in my mind is a bit bananas considering I regularly pass locals that get up to me in height. How do they buy shoes? The internet, of course. I'm in the city that is the single largest hub of exported goods in the world and tall men here use motherfucking Zappos. WAT

Wrapped in bandages and not-buttered corn relievers we slowly made our way to Causeway Bay, through a large park filled with hundreds of young women in hijab - in doorways and down stairwells and on blankets spending their Sunday morning sharing some fabulous looking Indonesian foodstuffs. It was a bit of a parallel universe Shibuya - half of it social, the other its own kind of fashion show. And the fashion - so many people here dress only for the heat and the humidity, which makes the well-dressed stand out and stand tall. It's clearly a city of affluence - police swarming around the street sleeper beneath the Gucci sign, strict fine notices everywhere for littering, the sum of these rules drape a dense darkness covering any hint of squalor.

We arrive to the lobby of a modern building, puzzled at how a large concert venue would be inside a modest-sized office tower. "Are you here for Ladybeard?" asked a hurried voice behind us, and the confused collective queued for the elevator to take us to the top floor. We fell into a small hallway packed tightly with ten or so others who had also arrived early (three in cat ears and maid outfits), and once door opened we realized this sold-out show was being held in a room smaller than most studio apartments. It all made perfect sense - my prior research into the counter-culture of HK led me to shallow waters, "rock" being a loose term that tended to mean Western style over personal substance, and bands trying to fit the mold of C-Rock seem to mostly end up a loose variation of J-Pop.

Ladybeard's collaboration video netted 14 MILLION views on YouTube. When the lights went down there were thirty people crowded around that small stage. THIRTY. It reminded me of subcultural scenes past, of the difficulty in convincing enough people to show up at all. I felt the same sense of privilege in that moment, of being somewhere special that few people bothered to know about. The show was everything I hoped it would be - that endlessly amusing transition from sugary sweet index-finger-twists-against-cheek-with-streamers-in-hand to full-on screaming metal vocals in Cantonese, Japanese, and the lone English song a cover of Justin Bieber's "Baby". We ate it up, this late-night dessert served up at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.

It's pretty incredible that a single person has spent over a decade trying to create a real underground scene in HK, swimming upstream against such strong political and social currents, a real need for which appeared after the SARS epidemic basically destroyed the live music scene back in 2004. There is so much we spoiled music fans take for granted.

same as it ever was.

My fascination with both Vietnam and Hong Kong come with some heavy cultural baggage. There would be no Banh Mi if it wasn’t for French assholes with guns. China’s brilliant capitalist experiment also benefited greatly from the expansion of people whose skin is uncannily similar to mine. Contemplating the influences both religion and imperialism have on culture leaves me with the hollow guilt of the questionable conquests of most of our ancestors.

We didn’t violently introduce ourselves and then quietly tiptoe backwards as Jerry did Tom, we herded and isolated and annihilated an entire nation - leaving nothing left to revere or admire but lost white men flocking to sweat lodges and the poorly-named food truck “Off the Rez”. What typically happens is that the borders themselves creep and expand, the constant conflicts of Israel and Palestine, of India and Pakistan, of Russia and anyone on the border of Russia. A slow swallowing, an ebb and flow, the incoming tide of empty bullet casings. We the many nations overtook North America, absolutely.

People move on from the hand they were dealt in the best way they know how, and over time this horror turns and twists into culinary novelty. I’m preparing myself for French bread in Southeast Asia, for Portuguese tapas amidst the Las Vegas of China, the ritual of tea cultures halfway across the world colliding in new and unusual ways. My tantalization masks genuine ignorance, ignorance I need in order to enjoy the worlds I am entering. The older I get the more sensitive I get to the true costs of things, and I lament the softening of suffering until it remains frozen, creamy, served on a stick. But boy do I love ice cream.

This trip is an escape from my escapes, a reprieve from the numb nights that tend to follow frustrating days. If I can’t make a living manifesting my own fiction I can always step aboard a plane and force the kind of living that I would truly die without. I’ve been at the same dayjob nearly 1.5 years now, working under management I don’t respect, trying my damnedest to claw and tear at the fabric this company has wrapped itself in and feeling like a fool for even caring. I’ve taken charge when no one did and have worked hard to inspire the people that need it the most. Sadly the earned influence I’ve gained seems only seems to depress me further - giving me a phantom taste of how great things could be, if only they just fired everyone in charge.

I expected this escape to be another solo trip, full of enlightenment and loneliness. I’m thrilled that a dear friend of mine decided to meet me, which hopefully won’t derail my hopes that I can get back to regular writing. Because drinking.

I’m halfway through this 13.5 hour flight and am already anticipating the late-night Szechuan place Mr. M and I will rendezvous at. Tomorrow we will awake in our closet of a hotel room and head out to a 3pm concert featuring Ladybeard, everyone’s favorite Australian ex-wrestler that dresses like a schoolgirl and sings cookie monster metal. Hong Kong here I come.

re-entry, withdraw, repeat.

As a culture we romanticize the DIY, the living of live on your own terms, the standing tall with nothing to lose.  I can confidently say there’s not a thing romantic in worrying about rent - even moreso when you’ve told your now-burdened girlfriend that you’ll land something anyday now… half a year later.

Those six months of job hunting were brutal, demoralizing, and every “sure thing” inevitably turned to ash in my hands.  I took the first job I was offered, the best choice out of the pool numbering one.  I didn’t feel proud about my “decision”, but at least I didn’t end up at a known misery (i.e. Amazon).  My offer wasn’t even full-time, it was intended to try me on as you would pants.  I let the resentment of that 90-day on-trial  period seep into my everyday, the lone contractor in a sea of established employees, and I couldn’t see the future beyond my own upturned nose and imaginary hurt.  What I should have been was grateful.  Instead I let myself be disappointed in myself.  (Which is never a good way to treat anyone.)

Last week I accepted a full-time job offer at the company I resigned myself to showing up at, and as I contemplated my fit in the world and at this company I realized it was the perfect island of misfit toys.  The levels of dysfunction, historic failure, and fear of the alpha men in charge created an atmosphere just begging for someone to call the Emperor out on his naked bullshit.  I just happen to stand six foot four and have nothing to lose.

The cast of characters at this startup are a sitcom in the making, and in my old age I’m finding that my love of entertainment value might exceed my need to align with company values.  There is a penchant among the Directors of Nothing for wearing dress shirts buttoned just above Fabio level, sans undershirt.  They unknowingly bring a wealth of Euro-gigolo, raising and/or sinking the “dress for success” game to a whole new level.  This is in stark contrast to the Mötley Crüe of us expected to implement their questionable vision: pants riding high above our socks, bearded and opinionated, young and eager, antisocial and angry, intentionally oblivious and brilliant….. most importantly both welcoming and helpful.  This company built around a specific kind of female empowerment is marked most starkly by the abundance of dirty dishes left in the sink, mostly by the men in charge, inevitably to be cleaned up by a woman that never realized “maid” was part of her job description.

My peers at this place are reason enough to stay, my amusement of the Lead By Title Not Example keeps the everyday most interesting.  It’s the kind of company you have to explain to people, awkward and below-the-radar and kind of perfect for me.  I feel like I’ve shown an old man with bad habits a new way to live, and much of my fun has always been to stir up righteous revolt in every established system.  And I too feel like an out-of-touch old man – being told I’ve done a good job is something I haven’t heard in nearly five years.  It’s amazing how much being on a collaborative team has improved my outlook on life.  Nature might abhor a vacuum but it’s nothing compared to what a vacuum can do to a man.  This irregular puzzle piece has found his fit, and the sense of relief brings an inexplicable salty fluid to my optic transducers.

I will always adore the startup, the underdog, the complete unknown, the ecstatic anticipation in watching that slow-rolling die, and the probably nevers in our lives.

Who wants to be the largest gear of the most proven machine, anyway?

(answer: sane people)