Sai Gon, May 1, 2001
I’m back from a spontaneous five day trip to Phan Thiet so let me rewind a few days…

First message I want to deliver – Ki, DO NOT SEND THE GATORADE.

My dear thoughtful friend Mike sent me a package three weeks ago and was told it would arrive in VN in six days. It probably did. But I wasn’t notified until nearly 20 days later by a slip left at our house. All packages, large or small, must be picked up at the package office in the city. Thanh told me to be sure I bring my passport and proof of identity and the slip with me to pick up the package.

I arrived at the office where the officer at the door told me to go to desk #2. I get to desk #2 where I show my slip and am told to give it to the woman behind the other counter. She takes my slip, looks at my passport, asks me if I’m picking up the package for someone else. I tell her that I’m Hani and the name on my passport is my given name, so I pull out my Visa card which has my full Vietnamese name prefaced by “Hani”. She tells me to go to the the counter down that way, and buy a form. I buy a form for 3000 VND, which is in Vietnamese, go over to the tables where there is a sample filled out, copy the sample with my own information (who am I, where am I staying, what is my passport number, who and where is the package from, etc.). I fill it out, go back to the third person I had talked to. She takes my form, tells me to sit down and wait till my name is called. My name gets called, my package comes out, I sign a log book. I go back to desk #2 where there is a man sitting there with an exacto knife in hand. After asking me if I’m picking up the package for someone else (and I explain I’m really Hani), he rips open my package, empties it and finds: a two-page typed letter, a roll of double stick squares for photos, and a book. A BOOK! So he scribbles something on my form, signs it, gives it back to me, and tells me to take the book over to yet another counter. This is the CENSORING counter. All CDs, books, and other such items are censored here. The girl behind the counter picks up my new book, flips through the pages, browses the back, scribbles something new on my form, signs it, and tells me to go wait at the end of the room (this one actually speaks to me in English), and wait (while my passport and form are passed on to another desk). My passport and form are then signed by the man sitting behind that desk, he gives it to the desk next to him, the woman behind that desk stamps the form, and then lets it sit on her desk for 10 minutes. While I wait.

A stack of forms make it to the end of the room where a woman who stands in a plexiglass room announces the names on the forms on a microphone. Mine’s on top of the stack. She looks at the passport, moves it to the bottom, calls everybody else, and then I come up to get my passport and forms. As I leave the building, I am required to give the form to one more person sitting at the door who signs it, stamps it, and hands it back to me.

I walk out with my photo stickers and copy of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet translated by Stephen Mitchell (whose Tao te Ching translation was gifted to me by Lisa). The book is moving, and I was first introduced to Rilke while reading Jack Kerouac’s letters. For Mike’s sake and mine, I’m glad the book is a great one because I don’t know if I want to go through all that again!

More about Phan Thiet later.
I’ve got some writing to do.