R.I.P.
Yesterday was Vietnam's 50th anniversary as a Communist state and also one of the worst days of my life.
I had gone down town with my tutor Ha yesterday looking forward to a grand celebration. By 7pm Hoan Kiem lake was overflowing with overly careful people who showed up early to reserve a seat for the firework display set to start at 10pm. Around 8:30, Ha and I left our coffee and "sinh to" to wade through the dense crowd in order to find a good location along the lake. We walked about 500 ft. before finding a relatively empty location. By 9:30, the late comers had arrived, inching up ever closer to the front, gingerly pushing and shoving like teenagers at a rock concert. My mom was supposed to call me at 10:30, so Ha and I started our slow trek back through the masses around 10:10. Before we were able to react, the crowd started pulsing forward and we were surrounded on all sides by a dense and sticky human barricade. We were caught in the middle of a 350 person vertical dog pile. To make matters worse, no one could move forward or backward, the reason being some sort of traffic jam, which I'm not really sure of because I could see nothing over the sea of black hair. We were caught up in the middle of a human traffic jam, and like any traffic jam, people started to get angry and impatient and annoyed. Nasty words were thrown like stones at anyone who tried to advance in any direction. It was hot and we were glued together with our sweat like a giant ameoba. And like a single entity, any ripple or disruption of motion made the entire crowd shift. The motion of one's own body was not controlled by oneself, but by the doctrine of the mass. All of the sudden, Ha's head fell back and her eyes turned dull and motionless like a dead fish. Then her body starting dropping slowly towards the ground, supported only at first by the thickness of the crowd. As it started drooping further I tried to pick her up, but there was nothing I could say and nothing I could do. My language skills are as weak as my arms. Thankfully, a young Vietnamese man was conscious enough to hold her up, gripping her like a rag doll,while at the same time screaming for help. Soon she was lifted above my head and body-surfed by the crowd over to the sidewalk. For 15 minutes I stood there completely helpless, unable to move, with no way of knowing if she was okay. Finally the crowd cleared enough for me to squeeze through and thankfully Ha was conscious and okay, although still a bit weak. I hugged her gently and pushed away her attempts to apologize for making me miss my mom's call.
It wasn't until I got home and was done exposing my story to my roommate through my first tears of frustation that I noticed that my 2-year old loyal companions, my Converse shoes had been doused in gasoline during the mass confusion. And after my futile attempts to terminate the smell of gas, I put them to rest permanently in a trash can in Vietnam.
I had gone down town with my tutor Ha yesterday looking forward to a grand celebration. By 7pm Hoan Kiem lake was overflowing with overly careful people who showed up early to reserve a seat for the firework display set to start at 10pm. Around 8:30, Ha and I left our coffee and "sinh to" to wade through the dense crowd in order to find a good location along the lake. We walked about 500 ft. before finding a relatively empty location. By 9:30, the late comers had arrived, inching up ever closer to the front, gingerly pushing and shoving like teenagers at a rock concert. My mom was supposed to call me at 10:30, so Ha and I started our slow trek back through the masses around 10:10. Before we were able to react, the crowd started pulsing forward and we were surrounded on all sides by a dense and sticky human barricade. We were caught in the middle of a 350 person vertical dog pile. To make matters worse, no one could move forward or backward, the reason being some sort of traffic jam, which I'm not really sure of because I could see nothing over the sea of black hair. We were caught up in the middle of a human traffic jam, and like any traffic jam, people started to get angry and impatient and annoyed. Nasty words were thrown like stones at anyone who tried to advance in any direction. It was hot and we were glued together with our sweat like a giant ameoba. And like a single entity, any ripple or disruption of motion made the entire crowd shift. The motion of one's own body was not controlled by oneself, but by the doctrine of the mass. All of the sudden, Ha's head fell back and her eyes turned dull and motionless like a dead fish. Then her body starting dropping slowly towards the ground, supported only at first by the thickness of the crowd. As it started drooping further I tried to pick her up, but there was nothing I could say and nothing I could do. My language skills are as weak as my arms. Thankfully, a young Vietnamese man was conscious enough to hold her up, gripping her like a rag doll,while at the same time screaming for help. Soon she was lifted above my head and body-surfed by the crowd over to the sidewalk. For 15 minutes I stood there completely helpless, unable to move, with no way of knowing if she was okay. Finally the crowd cleared enough for me to squeeze through and thankfully Ha was conscious and okay, although still a bit weak. I hugged her gently and pushed away her attempts to apologize for making me miss my mom's call.
It wasn't until I got home and was done exposing my story to my roommate through my first tears of frustation that I noticed that my 2-year old loyal companions, my Converse shoes had been doused in gasoline during the mass confusion. And after my futile attempts to terminate the smell of gas, I put them to rest permanently in a trash can in Vietnam.