‘It is all well and easy for me to characterise the Lao as fun-loving layabouts, but I’d like to delve a little further into why this might appear to be the case.’

As promised, a new article over at the Newcastle Day Co-op. While you’re at it check out the other stellar pieces part of the latest publication.

2010 was quite a year, one which for me was divided straight down the middle as pre- and post- my move to Southeast Asia. I still haven’t got my head fully around some of my experiences.

So, while the Internet encourages speed-of-thought (often beaten to the punch by speed-of-typing on, say, Twitter) and on-the-spot judgements, meaning most end-of-year lists arrive in early December, I’ve chosen to take time out and reflect.

I’m planning a few re-cap posts – including one on my ill-fated trip to the Philippines last year and, yep, some best of 2010 lists (ahem, a blogger’s gotta blog!) – in the coming weeks.

Also, I’ll have a piece up on the new-look and reinvigorated Newcastle Day Co-op within the next few days.

Stay tuned, loyal readers.

Last weekend I had my first brush with Lao authority. Due to Laos’ hosting of the First Meeting of States Party to the Convention of Cluster Munitions, which was just winding up, and the quickly following celebration of Vientiane’s 450th anniversary as national capital, I’d heard rumours that the local police and village troupes would actually be enforcing the government’s midnight curfew for foreigners. These whispers proved more reliable than Vientiane Times’ reporting.

Of course it didn’t make sense, but things often don’t in this part of the world. Take, for instance, the propensity for the authorities, when confronted with big national events, to do away with traffic lights and instead station traffic police to whistle and point, whistle and point, whistle and whistle and whistle. This generally results in confusion and ridiculous gridlocks, and whenever I’m reminded about the Lao government’s desire for ‘progress’ and ‘development’ (more than a few times every day), I’m equally drawn to this anachronistic form of social control.

Back on point: the day had started typically, a Friday in the office without any particular stress. Though, with the eyes of the world on Vientiane, the Times resembled less a newspaper than a hacked-together brochure detailing Laos’ struggles with cluster bombs since the Indochina War. Cut-and-paste facts and figures lined every article: the number killed each year, the area of contaminated land, and the number of undetonated bombs dropped by US forces. The objective? Funding. It’s an injustice, no doubt, that Laos, ‘the most heavily bombed country in the world’, hasn’t received more support, particularly from their chief terrorisers, the US – but the way to redress the situation need not be an exercise in how to make friends and take them for all their worth.

As if to support these tactics, as the cluster munitions conference rolled on, a 10 year old girl from Borikhamxay province was killed by UXO. On the final day of the conference, like one massive punch to the guts, the paper published several gruesome pictures of the deceased lying naked on an operating table, one on the cover.

Even with that backdrop, it was just a regular day at the office. Come knock-off time, having just devoured with glee my first remotely anti-Party line article of the day (week, month…), I was preparing myself for a quiet Friday night (note: you cannot escape the hammer and saw, and subsequent lost sleep, of construction in Laos). Then I got a call from the lay-out room, where an impromptu birthday party was going on for one of the women. I was seated and promptly told by one to “stop talking, don’t think – just drink” (was it something I said?). Needless to say, it wasn’t a hard demand to follow. Next I was told it was time to split the scene and make for an urban beer-hall. I obliged.

What came next was a bit of a whirlwind involving beer, several changes of location, motorbike rides through dimly lit streets, ogling girls, and trying to comment on everything in poorly spoken Lao. We wound up in Phontong village, at my workmate’s home, a modest two-room apartment in a local estate, elevated in grandeur by the warmth and joyousness of those seated on the floor. We’d stopped off for a crate of Beerlao, which I skilfully balanced like a local on the back of a bike. Evidently the night was still young.

But the regime don’t like it. Come 1am, a knock on the door. Six larger-than-average Lao men, uniformed, some clutching AK47s, entered the front room with a look of distaste (a frankly punchable look, if I may add). The village militia. With barely a glance in my direction, they bustled us, and our remaining beer, into the back of a ute. To clarify things, mine could not have been a more innocent engagement. By then it was three young local journalists, a neighbour, and a sub-editor – me, with blond, curly hair, tall physique, obviously a disruptive figure – sitting on the ground quietly drinking into the early hours. A nice, private gathering.

As the cool, night air licked our troubled heads, we quickly discussed our tactics. My friend, a distinguished journalist, had just been granted a foreign trip as reward for some recent work. We were celebrating – that was our cover. Not that I need have listened in. At the village headquarters, we were greeted by a scene not too dissimilar to ours just broken up. Men sat around a table drinking beer while we were directed into a room , more like a thoroughfare. As I sat, words unlike words whizzed back and forth. Uncomprehending, I sat, stared and stared. An hour passed. A stalemate. I did retreat to the bathroom at one stage, superfluous to proceedings, but my friends assured me no money was exchanged. Journalist cards were bandied about. I just don’t understand what there was to talk about for so long. Then we left for home, crate of beer intact.

In the end, my friend, ever the joker, said he’d invoked the spirit of Chao Anouvong, a former king of Laos during the Lane Xang era, by telling the village head he was his son. A new bronze statue by the Mekong River attests to Chao Anouvong’s legacy. For this night, what lived on: sheer confusion and a morning-after headache.

Sometimes listening to music sets you off on a tangent. So now and then I’ll type away in a stupefied reverie about nothing and everything…

I can’t pinpoint the first time I listened to DJ Shadow, or when I first came across the name, but it must’ve been sometime around the turn of the millennium. To be honest, I’ve only recently properly delved into Endtroducing. That hasn’t prevented the album – through its iconic cover art and intriguing track titles (‘Why Hip Hop Sucks in ‘96’, ‘What Does Your Soul Look Like’) much more than its music – from leaving an indelible mark on my development.

Now, I can’t listen to tracks like ‘Midnight in a Perfect World’ without revisiting in my mind the context of our meeting. In 1996, when DJ Shadow was blowing up, I was at the height of my Britpop idolatry – Oasis, Blur and, to a lesser extent, Ash… Sure, other artists would soon follow and usurp these acts in my fresh mind, but for now the larger than life characters and the pure drama of it all complimented the rousing choruses and nah-nah-nahs.

Back then I’d genuinely look forward to experiencing a new album; no CD player in the car meant the drive home would involve me fondling the jewel case and eagerly thumbing through the insert. If the booklet contained song lyrics I would’ve already concocted my own hummable versions by the time I could finally pop the album into the family CD player in the living room.

It was around this time that I started consuming the music press. I was a dedicated Anglophobe and I’d read Q magazine front-to-back. I accepted without question the months of delays at my local newsagency, which meant I’d usually be half-a-year behind in the music cycle. This no doubt contributed to the extent to which I cocooned myself in music – I certainly didn’t have a social networking concept of music at this stage.

Fastforward slightly to the year 2000, and while I was a regular listener to JJJ, it was mainly through reading that I built a canonical knowledge of music. I’d see names like Aphex Twin, the Beta Band, Boards of Canada, and, of course, DJ Shadow well in advance of actually hearing them. Through an implied system of influence and recommendation these artists would gain a mysterious, epochal status. For instance, I distinctly remember a piece just after the release of Radiohead’s Kid A that explored that albums influences and ‘borrowings’; many of the names mentioned were new and strange to me but over time, in an admittedly indirect fashion, I came to hear them and appreciate them.

It was also in Year 10 that I began, to this day, my one and only genuine musical endeavour. With my best friend I formed Stylus. We both had only rudimentary musical talent, but luckily were early adopters of software like HipHop eJay and Acid2.0. We embraced a cut/paste aesthetic, citing the Avalanches and their recently JJJ-endorsed ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ as an influence. And we took it seriously. With (retrospectively) unbelievable patience, we spent hours trawling those lonely free sample web sites on dial-up Internet, excitedly sharing our finds via ICQ. We set up an Angelfire web site full of animated gifs and a ridiculous list of thank-you’s. Oh yeah, and released two albums.

Many of the samples we used were audio-bites from obscure TV shows and films, which existed for us only in decontextualised forms. Every so often I encounter them in their original context, and it sends me back once more to my musical upbringing.

Anyway, I’ve diverged. And made very little point, bar some vaguely solipsistic statement. Enjoy.

But it’s an interesting call given its intended wider context. It contradicts some traveller’s perception of Laos as a slow-paced merry-go-round: a circular ruin of food, massages and Western-reinforced ‘culture’. Or endless afternoons spent drinking Beerlao along the Mekong. To glorify this side of things is easy, natural even, as a foreigner.

The Lao national psyche, best summed up by the phrase ‘bor pen yang’, or ‘no worries’, goes some way to masking the many great inequities of the country, the huge disparity of wealth and education between rural and urban areas being one.

Along Route 13, you glimpse some of this. Roadside communities open up onto the highway then fall by the hillside, the many buildings seemingly unfinished as construction materials litter the ground. Lao young and old crowd your slowed vehicle selling you the pungent allure of dried fish, or a relatively comforting can of Pepsi. You’re tempted to part with your small-note-big-number kip (inflation’s a killer) simply from benevolence. Buying warm feelings ain’t hard in this bizarro game of Monopoly.

About 150km from Vientiane – that’s 4 hours of slow, slow travel – the land flattens for a bit, which means you’ve found Vang Vieng. By all accounts, until Lonely Planet, it was a peaceful riverside village, remarkable mostly for its Middle Earth-like views of sheer mountain drops. But the misty peaks have long been joined by hazy foreigners, clouded from beer, buckets (tubs of dubiously concocted cocktails) and weed. The restaurants and bars contribute to the eerie feel, blasting questionable ‘90s pop music or re-re-re-running episodes of Friends or Family Guy over and over and over again. ‘Hey, this reminds me of that time…’

The big attraction here is tubing down the Nam Song river, which combined with the somewhat lax attitude to chemicals…makes it, well, a hellish experience. I’ve been told there’s plenty of wholesome caving, trekking and climbing fun to be had here, and that the organic farm is worth investigating, though I took the shortcut and just ate a plate of the mulberry pancakes that are its trademark.

Tubing, in itself, should be quite fun. It’s certainly refreshing to take a dip. And cheap alcohol and sneaky marijuana deals: well, what can one say. Let me preface this by saying I’m the world’s most likeable drunk, it’s just a shame others don’t follow my lead. Young backpackers with too much money – in a foreign country! – puffed chests, headbands, spray-painted bodies screaming ‘cock-gobbler’ and/or ‘pussy bandit’.

Witness the British backpackers, mustachio’d chumps, who’ve been waylaid along their travels and now work the throbbing flophouses along the river for free booze, accommodation and I don’t want to know what else. I was given a wristband and told to hit up Q Bar later that night for something called Number Fuck. The premise is simple, #1 chump said: if you like her number and a chick likes yours, “you don’t even have to talk to ’em, hey”.

Well, I like talking, even if it’s my rudimentary, desperate Lao cries of ‘jao pen khon ngam’ or ‘jep jai’. Another thing, you’re likely to arrive back at the tubing headquarters after dark, which falls suddenly, and forced to give up your deposit. This can be a terrifying experience, floating in complete darkness to nowhere. Then there are the tuk-tuk drivers willing and ready to stir any Orientalist prejudices that may lie underneath your inebriated stupor, slyly offering “something?” at an exorbitant price.

Vang Vieng is an abomination. The best thing I can say about it is that I’m glad the community at large benefits from the tubing, if what I was told about it being some sort of collective set-up is true. Back to Laos as a rollercoaster; well, yes, it can be emotional. Frustrating. Highly rewarding. At times it’s kind of like the Giant Drop. Places like Vang Vieng jumps around like crazy, like Family Guy. To borrow from my friend’s lament, why couldn’t there be a bar showing re-runs of Seinfeld? From this perspective, Vang Vieng is an experience that lacks Nothing bar a genuinely edifying experience.

I like to think something so quaint as a football game can put ‘real’ things in perspective. Around the office beforehand I was in a typical pre-game mood. Nudging a few of my colleagues, I asked – in the blunt way I adopt only when I’m doubtful of shared nuance – whether we’d smash ’em. Either due to limited conversational English or genuine cultural differences, I’m not sure, I was met by blank faces and a long silence, before being quietly informed the game was organised to ‘build solidarity’.

Read more

I was drinkin’ Beerlao in a Western-themed bar, the typo-enhanced Wind West in Vientiane, just listening as the band tore into a set of rather memorable covers, including a Lady Gaga ‘Alejandro’ / ‘Bad Romance’ medley, when I set my eyes upon this sage observation on the side of a table… Yeah, well I don’t think it’s quite taken off in the Erratic East just yet.

I was living in guesthouses for about two weeks as I adjusted to working in Laos. Each morning I’d eat my complimentary breakfast with new people. Different faces, at least, even if there were the same questions asked of staff. Conversation was effortless – if you sought it. And if you found comfort in knowing where other people were from, where they had just been, how long they would be in Vientiane, and where they were off to next. Names, nationalities, pasts and futures collapsed into nothingness, though I tried to remember specific anecdotes as collectables to be traded profitably at later introductions.

One particular night, having just switched guesthouses, I befriended a young Lao sister and brother who ran a small bar down by the Mekong. Their English was only basic but I latched onto the company, downing several longnecks, breathing their realness and staying for hours. As we spoke and I showed pictures on my mobile ‘of Australia’, we were hit with a downpour that shook the little shack seemingly made of mud and branch. With conversation exhausted, or reduced to a trickle, I helped them close shop and waited nearly an hour for a break in the rain. Drops of water fell on our heads and pools gathered around our feet, and such was the density of water that you could no longer see the usually glowing lights on the other side of the river. A pleasant five-minute walk became a futile dash. No amount of speed or agility could prevent my soaking.

I arrived at the guesthouse to find doors locked and all lights out. There was an 11.30pm curfew and it was 11.25. After several minutes of knocking, a sleepy-eyed attendant jumped suddenly from what was the moment before a pile of washing on a chair by the entrance. Wordlessly he let me in. I pulled my bedraggled self up the spiral staircase to my fifth floor box. Grated against the crisp sheets, sore-throatily I swallowed and then I knew I was in for a rough night.

It was a disrupted sleep, night sweats punctuated by absurd, poignant dreams. Feverish and restless, I thought of the transience of being; my loneliness struck me as something I’d chosen and must accept. I felt anxious about what I was doing in this foreign land, about whether I’d ever feel more than a tourist. At this vulnerable hour, with an impressionable head swirling with Thomas Wolfe travel reading, I all but flung Gantian curses at the earth, its people and my plight. O lost!

By mid-morning my fever had broken, but my thoughts had only scattered. I was left in the odd position of having to choose whether to fulfil my Western-womb’d duty to explore the immediate surrounds or stay in and consolidate my health. It was the morning after, in effect. My desire was to remain reflective but not inactive: more than a spectator, get involved! Still sickness finds a way to linger and, quite inexplicably, its power to quell optimism and fragment thought is inimitable. And how does one celebrate more of the same, anyway? What is there to look forward to?

—

Those, for me, are better answered by Disco Inferno’s amazing ‘Next Year’ than anything I could muster. And I’ve run out of storyline. Stark, impressionistic and intentionally alienating, the song’s latent melody is too easy to bypass. But there is reward and, remember, small victories are, nevertheless, still victories. Set to the percussive-by-proxy backdrop of the saddest fireworks display imaginable, the track’s narrative questions belief, including the oft-held one that things will simply get better. The turning of a page, a chapter, the unwrapping of a fresh calendar, a new start: ‘The future is hung from the hooks of the past. I’ve seen next year and it’s just like the last,’ Ian Crause offers. Somehow optimistic, like shards of glass, shimmering though broken. A sample-heavy tableau so dense it captures the numbed aftermath of a new year’s eve gone wrong or merely tolerably, the harshbuzz comedown, the questioning of those things in which we seek solace. ‘Art doesn’t solve, it just makes excuses’. The uneasy acceptance, the dogged final stance to protect the right to criticism as only you can criticise yourself. ‘Oh, I’m burning am I? Then where’s the fucking flames?’ OK, it doesn’t answer anything. Just listen to it.

I haven’t got much to say right now. Well, I do – I just haven’t the time to say it. But there is a place – a magical place – where my words dribble across the screen. And that place is the Newcastle Day Co-Op.

A new fortnightly publication, the Co-Op features the writings of some of Newcastle’s finest minds – and me. I currently have two pieces up: one a lengthy excerpt from my thesis, which I mentioned briefly here, and the other a brand new, slightly haughty blog article on my initial few days in Vientiane. There are some other really great articles also posted.

Stay tuned for a new Guttural entry in the next week or so. And, yeah, I’ll try and get around to uploading that mix.

Get Experienced [Download]

And now, because I can’t quite leave my Hanoi experience behind, and fear I’ll be unable to update this blog as regularly as I’d originally planned (though I have done a lot or writing already), I present this travel mix. Sure, the actual Vietnamese-ess-ness-ness is tenuous, but it’s an eclectic set of Western-influenced S.E. Asian tunes (courtesy of Sublime Frequencies compilations), S.E. Asian-influenced Western tunes, vaguely Summer-inflected pop hits and drones, and simply good music. This goes some inadequate way to documenting my experiences so far in Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos. Here it is, Hanoi Annoys:

1. Animal Collective – Kids on Holiday
2. Onra – Take a Ride
3. Sinn Sisamouth – Don’t Let My Girlfriend Tickle Me
4. Arthur Russell – The Platform on the Ocean
5. Samsimar – Indang Pariaman
6. Arp – Potentialities II
7. The Magnetic Fields – When The Open Road Is Closing In
8. Warfield Spillers – Daddy’s Little Girl
9. Johnny Guitar – Bangkok by Night
10. Sun Araw – Bump Up (High Step)
11. Thee Oh Sees – I Was Denied
12. J.T. IV – Death Trip
13. P.M.7/Jupiter – Susie Wong
14. Studio – Out There
15. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – May The Music Never Die