What's Sexy about Little Saigon?

My ambition initially was to identify Bolsa sexuality – a profile on the energy, karma, and strange mating habits of Little Saigonese. In the same way that Carrie’s column on Sex and The City reveals the love nest of New York, I would aspire to do for Little Saigon.

Sex and the Bolsa would give an account of a single woman looking for companionship across the miles of manicured lawn. For deep conversations over a Starbuck’s and long walks on the syringe-scattered beaches. Main obstacles to overcome include baggage, inability to hold down liquor (a disorder known as weaksauce), high expectations; and in a plot twist signature to the O.C. – all the while, still living with her parents and at the mercy of a feisty Chihuahua who hogs the blanket.

But there is more to life than a cable program about one-night stands and designer threads. For lack of a better word, I felt tongue-tied (insert clumsy innuendo here) at the idea of prototyping a community that I am, and perhaps everyone is just coming to terms with. Little Saigon is more than yellow suburbia, a Pho empire, and a no-communist, no argument zone. Immigrant communities are hardly monolithic, but rather the tour de force of two worlds, making it bi-cultural, bi-lingual, among other bi’s. In fact, real life – with its myriad of complications and antibiotics – is as juicy, if not better than the stuff on TV.

The concept of the sexy (trans. xet-xi), the sensual, the sassy is all relative to the eye of the beholder.
My fetishes are my own. With the list below, I present the following items for consideration as hot spots to hit on in Bolsa. Here are my findings:

Most Carnal Window Display – Any one of the to-go delis in Little Saigon. Hanging roasted pork or duck is our beauty queen emerging from the tanning salon, bronzed in barbeque marinade and ready for the gawking. This image – paired with walking cleavage – seen block after block, scandalizes Bolsa as a meat market.

Most Phallic Advertisement – Lee’s Sandwiches on Westminster. The 50-foot inflated bread sticks (of all shapes, sizes, and sensibilities) propped atop the popular franchise beckons you to visit, try out, and bring home to the family.

Most Shamefully Shameless Flirt – Giang Son Duy Ngo, age 44, local waiter. I first met Anh Son while he was working graveyard shift at a now defunct late night quan. Despite being subjected to the obnoxious demands of club kids and other such vampires, Anh Son is a gem in an otherwise notoriously rotten industry – yes, restaurant service in Bolsa. His off-colored interpretation of the menu turns thit bo luc lac into thit bo nhuc nhic., The haphazard hospitality is seamless at 2am. Anh Son wears an easy grin, and will tell a mixture of tall tales and white lies; such as, how he has appeared in a dozen B movie projects, among them Sap Chet Tren Cao Nguyen (Near Death at Cao Nguyen). When that quan closed, I thought Bolsa had lost an institution in low-budget hangouts, as well as access to someone who lends his charming company for the cost of the meal, often surpassing its value. I am glad to report that I did find Anh Son at another restaurant. One night while dining at the fabulous Nguyen Thuy, I reunited with a much happier, gainfully employed Anh Son. No doubt winning over a new batch of customers. If you want to make him smile, Anh Son will also answer to Tom Cruise.

Most Unconventional Aphrodisiac – Nothing like sweet juice from a home-grown, hard rod. Yes, you guessed it: sugarcane. For a buck fifty at stands like Nuoc Mia Vien Tay, this tonic will help any peasant “row the gurney downstream”. Replace the ritual post-coitus cigarette with a toothpick; otherwise, everyone will know what you have been up to, sticky fingers and all.

The Girl Next Door (You Didn’t Know About) – For me, she will eternally represent the plight of the single girl: the stone statue of Quan Am at the Quan The Am Temple on Magnolia/ Lampson. Before all was divine, Quan Am was one lost being on Earth, scorned by her husband and community alike. Perhaps the most memorable of Vietnamese transgenders, she dragged it out monk-style at the local temple, only to have more drama follow. However, her grace was what earned her the title The Goddess of Compassion, The Saint of Perfect Wisdom, and even a ten nha from some guy in Berkeley – Sister Lotus, Sister Flame.

Resident scholar, Thay Chau My, says that any artist who is commissioned to sculpt Quan Am faces a challenge: how to make her alluring without being sexual. Can the two be separated? This earthy Quan Am appears to have just woken from mid-day siesta, bedroom eyes and knowing grin to boot. Her voluptuous body is decidedly settled on top of a suffering dragon, a snake is but a boa around her neck. In this image of the Vietnamese woman, she holds power over man and creature.

Don’t we all wish for that kind of command? Waking with coins between your toes, fruit at your fingertips, and incense curling into your nostrils – all in the shape of prayer, desire, and the hope that you will look in the direction of some poor mortal – even if just for a moment as if to say, Keep dreaming, buddy.

In the Mood for Hong Kong

August 2004

For most people, renting a video is an option for when you want to stay in and be entertained; a last resort for those rare evenings when there is nothing better to do. Yet for me and countless other Little Saigonese who know Video F on Brookhurst and McFadden, we are rental addicts. We are prey to Video F and the very system they have branded: a selection of hundreds of films all for a dollar. The hook is: it’s a one day rental. You have to come back the next day…and the day after that and…the vicious cycle just continues.

Once past the entrance, I make a b-line for the last section. Like an unmarked grave, it carries the movies Hollywood would never know. To us, they are our yellow-skinned equals, telling stories similar to our lives, eating with chopsticks – all this, only with flawless skin and the best gadgets available to a cosmopolitan East. This shelf is home to the Asian Cinema section.

My drug of choice? Hong Kong Romantic Comedies.

Starting at the top shelf and moving to the bottom, I proceed to pick up every video, examine it cover to cover, then place the video back in its (proximate) order. Unfortunately for me, Hong Kong Romantic Comedies are mixed in with her lesser, more scandalous cousins: super cops, triads, horror films, and skin flicks with undeniably exxxcellent ratings. What kind of people rent films like The Demented Sex Goddess of the Ming Dynasty or Gangsters of the Barbeque Deli?

In all truth, my rental taste is not exactly high art either. I pick titles like And I Hate You So; Good Times, Bed Times; and Help! My Pretend Boyfriend is Gay.

Why, if the gangster film is cathartic enough to prevent you from committing heinous crimes, doesn’t the romantic comedy prevent you from making the same mistake? I hoped so, and would watch the love stories unfold with an utter vulnerability, a status reserved only for the length of the film. By the time the credits rolled, I would vow to save myself some grief by becoming a Buddhist nun.

The Hong Kong Romantic Comedy is really variations of the same theme paired with top celebrities and mishaps. Devotees will easily identify the two big barriers of the character driven plot - miscommunication and bad timing. In 12 Nights, the romance between Cecilia Cheung and Eason Chan starts off based on a lie. Through cell phone calls, subway rides, and company cocktail parties – they never find themselves in a comfortable enough situation to reveal their true feelings. Even in the cinematic version of our relationships, there is so much left unsaid. The fate of the couple is dependent on their timing – often cruelly inconvenient. A classic example of doomed feng shui will be Wong Kar Wai’s, In the Mood for Love. The two protagonists meet while married to other people but then have the chance to reunite years later. Back in the very apartment building where they had first laid eyes on each other, Tony Leung knocks on the wrong door (the one not labeled opportunity) while Maggie Cheung sits in the very next room! Inevitably, we all miss each other by a strand.

I consider myself a tough critic of films. Simply put: I have no time for the bad ones, all the time in the world for the good ones. However, something about a Hong Kong Romantic Comedy just speaks to me. TK said I was hard to watch films with – I would make a thousand comments aloud while he would often doze off. Later, as if scripted, he would slip a bag of mini muffins into my carry-on bag; the least he could do for dumping me then sending me home on a six-hour flight.

After nearly being swallowed up by the Armageddon-sized construction in Little Saigon, I survived this summer on baguettes, runs in the park, and endless movie rentals - all of which helped me see beyond my tiny world of loss. But is it the hopeless you-know-what in me who wants to believe he and I are that couple with unfortunate timing - narrowly missing each other at the dim sum stand?

The owner of Video F has come to recognize me and braces himself when I enter five minutes before closing. Dressed in a thinning wife beater and belted trousers, he sits behind that counter like only a veteran in the video rental industry can – slouched and yet ready to call the cops. On this night, the owner finally hassles me for stopping by too frequently. He asks why I never rent from other sections. He questions how I always “forget” my membership card and send him searching through a database full of Nguyens who live in Westminster. He demands to know why I am among the shady individuals who seem to systematically ransack the Asian movie section every time, day in and day out.

I know that he is just teasing and since I don’t carry that pout around anymore, I guess I can take it. I also know that he and his staff never alphabetize, much less have any kind of organization. Video F must be the only video store that is sorted by its own customers, and we have come to sort it by need. And I know that he knows, and anybody who knows Asian cinema, that in Hong Kong – you don’t get your heart broken the same way twice.

Bienvenidos a Saigonito - premiere column

July 2004

“I have two Chinatown moods. Times when Chinatown is a terrible place to live in. Times when Chinatown is the only place to live in…”
—Frances Chung, poet

If you haven’t noticed lately, it’s been difficult to get around Little Saigon. The foundation of mega-boulevards like Bolsa, Brookhurst and Westminster, have been gutted up and blocked off. For what new urban landscape? The reason eludes us drivers. The only thing we know is that it has gotten even slower.

This is a town where you can be a transient Viet, but when it comes to navigating the streets, two kinds of folks emerge: those who live here and those who visit. Those who live here know to take Hazard and Bushard to cut through traffic. Those who live here know which intersection creates instant karma with red-light cameras. Those who live here know where to park at Phuoc Loc Tho. Hint: it’s not at Phuoc Loc Tho. Those who live here know how to move amidst immobility. Those who don’t live here – are at a loss.

I belong somewhere in between. My family always lived on the outskirts of Little
Saigon and the weekends were when we visited Viet Town. I remember seeing Bolsa girls whose beautiful yet hardened faces made me admire them and made my father say, “Don’t you ever become one.”

I remember attending Tet Festivals, marathons at Miles Square Park and being part of the first Little Saigon Clean-up crew. We were high school students marching down the boulevards, adamant about a cleaner community. While at it, we stopped by Pho 54 to demand more noodles, less soup.

With friends, I loitered the food courts, arcades, Sanrio stores and strip malls – rarely buying anything. The worst customers can often be the most reliable. There were those places whose services were unclear at first – herbal medicine counters, immigration offices and coffee shops. Although coffee shops turned out to be exclusively male, I like to think their reach goes farther. At night, the glaring neon signs are a reminder, to an otherwise somber Bolsa, that we are still awake. Something about those years, both exciting and far way, made me build Little Saigon into a place of infinite possibility.

Now that I've actually moved to Westminster, I indulge in the antics of Viet Town all the time. After six months, I can say this: once you have finished your business, filled your tummy, and visited your relations – there is nothing left in Little Saigon.

I would not have come to this conclusion if it had not been for massive construction that has left The Bolsa fragile – all four blocks seem to be collapsing in on itself. As one of those who returned to make a life – I am starting over and at a
much slower pace.

Nights ago, I was so hungry I headed for the nearest fast food chain, Lee’s Sandwiches, which never closes. After ordering a baguette and avocado milkshake, I waited in the tiny parking lot. Of all the places that could be happening in Little Saigon, Lee’s at night is jammed with people – young, old, drunk, sober — all of them up and out of their cars.

Much like a block party, Lee's lot area had become a little trashed. Straw wrappers, cigarette butts and half-eaten food piled and spilled out of the bins onto the walkway. I leaned against the glass walls and watched people brush pass me again and again. The most reassuring thing about this random gathering? Like myself, everyone stood around – under the open sky and stars – like we had no place to go.