Dear Saigon,
Tomorrow will mark my first month in London. I’ve been away from you for one month. It has felt like an eternity with barely a milestone. My head is too busy, thoughts quite blurry. Everything is nebulous in my mind, I can hardly grasp a sense of the passing of time.
I still have clear memories of you, the look, the sound, the bustle, the smell (mostly of grilled cơm tấm ribs), and the bright sun that’s around all year.
London is – well, as of today, cold and damp. It has been generous to me in the previous days before this. The air was chilly, but there was almost always the sun hovering. But winter is definitely coming. It’s here. I can see it as mist on the window glass, and as dampness on the leaves and the now emptier streets from the kitchen of Hugh’s apartment.
Tomorrow, I am also moving out. So today is the last I watch this part of London from this kitchen window.
Life has been busy. You probably can imagine that. Unfortunately, not with schoolwork – as said, I still have very light grasp on the happenings here. I am lagging behind. But it seems busy. A day is shorter when now I do all the house chores myself (oh Vietnam and your diligent maids), and traveling around town takes up much time. There’s always a sense of lacking time, which still feels strange. Remember back in Nam? When we had all the mornings to ourselves to lounge about, all the afternoons to read the endless sum of articles on the Internet, all the evenings to dine and wine and talk with friends, and all the nights to wonder if we should say goodbye to friends and head home or linger for a night cab.
I don’t get to do all those here. My typical day begins like this: wake up, lying in bed in fetal position thinking all sorts of thing, one of which is “Oh *bleep*! Forgot to wear socks to go to bed again!”, finally crawl out from under the blanket, (skip the bathroom routine) make coffee & breakfast & lunch, pack stuff for the day (one bag I call “survival kit” with a bottle of coffee, a bottle of water, a jar of lunch, a scarf, an extra pullover in case it gets colder; and one ‘smart bag’ with computer, book, phone, etc). Next is school. After school, the rest would be: meander in tube passages, sit on tube for nearly an hour, home, make dinner, eat & drink (every other day a wine or beer bought from Sainburry’s), do dishes, browse the Internet, bed – reading or watching half a film, and day’s over
(Yes I feel like I’ve spent lots of waking time in the tubes. At night I dream of various vantage points leading to infinity)
Okay, I’ve been boring. You must be expecting London with more glory as a cultural metropolitan with its sophisticated cats. Oh yes, I have met some. Not the richies, but the cultured, artistic, well read and worldly – a bit. I have made friends okay. I have turned around and thrown all hesitations in the wind, and just be open. You must be proud of me. There’s no close one to sort of cling to for cozy comfort. I just chat people up, crack silly jokes, make fun of myself, power through the famous British reservations and jazz through social interactions with goofs. However inappropriate I am, I’ve got a terribly good excuse: I am Asian, yo! “You’re strange. It’s nice,” a friend of Kate said the other night. Another one said before saying goodbye “You’re rather interesting, and tiny.”
Through the Skinners, I have met a few persons who work in theatre, films, and writing. That was fun. In my next home I am going to live with a theatre director and a set designer. That should be fun. The other day at Kate’s welcome home party, I initiated contacts with a novelist. And you know, there’s a bunch of young and driven people at school who also want to make it in this line of work. So there are plenty of people of similar interests. Yeah.
But London is big, the days are fast. The possibility for any sprout of a friendship to blossom is much smaller than it used to be back home. My closest one, considering the scenario, is a classmate named Darragh, or genital-man as we call him at school. Irish, gay, vulgar but actually very very sweet. A good looking gay man with fabulous leather shoes that scream ‘make love to me’.
And the Skinners. But since tomorrow, I will be at the other end of town. So I don’t know if we can get to meet much.
All is good.
I do miss having my close friends, the hugs, the laughs, the bisous that mean to be.
But all is good.
I have a lot of little stories to tell you, but it seems this letter has been long. Would you wait for the next? Would you write me?
I send you, and through you to my beloved friends, plenty of hugs and kisses. Take care of them.
Yours, as always,
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