tien yen torture

last night i found myself eating dinner in an empty restaurant. baby-blue tile lined the floor; caribbean green paint dressed the high walls. the father managed a "where you from?". i answered "america". he repeated it back to me ("america") and continued hurrying to serve his only patron. he and his wife sat back down to resume watching tv. in between chopsticking fatty pork and fried egg rolls i watched too.

i dipped a piece of pork in a spicy sauce and started chomping away. i looked up across the room at the tv and i saw pictures from abu ghraib prison flash before my eyes. panicked, i swallowed the pork too quickly. i looked back up at the others. the father took a slow drag from his
cigarette and turned to look at me. then he looked back at the pictures. then back at me.

a wave of guilt crashed over me. i could only imagine how these images--how this crazy, senseless war in iraq--bring back memories for the vietnamese people of when the united states started an equally demonic war in vietnam. and here i was: coughing on a piece of pork while american hypocrisy flashed across the tv screen.

i was somewhat relieved we couldn't communicate. i wouldn't have to explain why there were people beat up and bruised; i wouldn't have to explain why people were piled up on top of one anther naked in dirty jail cells; i wouldn't have to explain why there was a man standing with a
black hood over his head and electric cables dangling from his fingertips.

with soldiers in uniform smiling.

it's one thing to be in the u.s. and get glimpses of all ... this. it's easy to ignore it. to justify it. to go about your day without worrying. but it's a lot different when you're sitting in the home of a family who has experienced this devastation first hand. so i sat there and wondered: if confronted by someone from iraq, and i told them the story i tell myself, how would it hold up?

back on the road, i managed my way along 64 km of serpentine highway to cam pha. a heavy rain set in but i managed to keep pace. a man stopped his van on the side of the road to offer me a lift. i declined. about three quarters of the way there i came across a coal mine. i soon found myself sharing the road with four yard dump trucks filled to the brim with coal. black sand bars lined the sides of the road. i tied a handkerchief around my face to filter the sooty air. the pollution keeps people off the streets of downtown. cam pha is a city of closed doors.