It was an accident. I swear. But pictures don't lie, and neither do I.
I gave my wife Phuong an ugly black eye when I "tossed" a wooden puzzle toward her in a toy store on Sunday. It was the craziest thing. We were shopping for Joanna when I wandered off and found a couple of puzzles that I wanted my daughter to have. Phuong was about 15 feet away at the register, so I motioned to her that I would toss one of the puzzles. Phuong said throw it because she thought it was styrofoam, not wood. I tossed it gently, but it floated like a Frisbee, picked up speed and hit her above her left eye. I heard a "thok" sound that I knew was trouble. Thank God I didn't hit Joanna. Phuong was clearly dazed. I ran to her, removed her hand from her eye and saw a golf ball-sized lump. The store owner looked at me in horror, like I was some kind of animal. A White Monkey, perhaps. I ran across the street to a coffee shop and was able to explain in Vietnamese to the young man working there that I needed a cup of ice. I ran back to Phuong, and helped her apply the ice to her eye. We did buy the puzzles and a bunch of other toys for Joanna. Phuong is such a trooper. She helped me assemble some of the toys when we got home and we rolled around on the bed playing with Joanna. Man, I love my wife and daughter. And I feel so stupid for what I did.
Unfortunately, the theme of violence in my life started a couple of days before Christmas. I got to work a little early, like always, and decided to walk to a nearby supermarket for some bread. I was walking on the sidewalk when some ass-clown with a young girl on the back of his motorbike decided to take a shortcut, and ran into my hip. I've been hit by motorbikes about a dozen times while walking on the sidewalks here, and of course it's always my fault. As a man of chi, I don't usually take serious offense. But this guy started screaming at me. His shouting didn't sound like any words or language I was familiar with. Actually, it sounded like the "ululation" of Lebanese women at a funeral. For whatever reason, I reacted without even thinking. My right arm shot out and the heel of my hand hit the clown in the chest. Maybe it's a chi thing. The loser on the bike almost fell over, but I caught him with my rapid right, and was able to keep the girl and motorbike upright as well. There was lots of staring, and gesturing, and babbling, and threatening from the ass-clown and his highly intelligent girlfriend. But things didn't go any further.
There's a perfunctory quality to Christmas and New Year's in Vietnam. It's acknowledged, but not really celebrated. Vietnam is all about Tet, which doesn't spin my beanie, but I'll respect the holiday because Joanna and I are guests in this country.
Christmas and New Year's expand the holiday season here, meaning there's more drunks on motorbikes and more aggressive people everywhere. The holidays seem to bring out chuckleheads all over the world. Go shopping on Black Friday in the United States if you really want to taste the nasty fat nasty. Anyway, drunken motorbike driving doesn't carry the same stigma as drunken driving in the U.S. It's not admired here, by any means, but there's almost a roll-your-eyes tolerance of the drunken motorbike driver. I hope that attitude changes. I also hope people stop littering, too. There's work to do.
My weight has become something of an obsession with some of my students and folks I encounter on my walk. At school on Friday, I taught a kids class for the first time time and when I walked into the classroom a little girl says to me: "You're FAT!" Ah, but I wasn't late.
Coming home from my daily walk I stopped to buy soup for me and Phuong to have for lunch. Two women who had just finished their soup came up to me to show off their English. After one or two awkward minutes of lame English, one of the women points to my stomach and says: "You're FAT!" Then she tells me she knows a man who will sell me some pills that will get rid of my gigantic, bloated, Biafran belly. I politely declined, but told the woman that the wrinkles on her face look like a road map. I suggested she use Nivea cream, which can be purchased at COOP Mart. She and her friend walked away.
Not all was lost for me the past couple of weeks. I played a guessing game in class. How old is Teacher John? One girl guessed 45 and another guessed 50. Those are some smart girls, and I must say they have bright futures.
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