Coiled red veins nestle together like worms on his cheeks and nose, a testament to thirty years of rice wine nights. His remaining few teeth are sloping, frightful things. His proposition is rehearsed but hopeful: a ride around town for in his cyclo, (a bicycle chariot, pedal powered offspring of the rickshaw). Two, maybe three dollars.

Each morning the cyclo riders wake with the sun (and nap sporadically throughout the day) and politely pursue any means of a customer, each and every time one passes. Their slow and somehow dignified little contraptions glide by as the world hurries on past and around them. They are a reminder of not so long ago when legs and lungs moved the Vietnamese, not Hondas and petrol. They sleep and drink and eat their scarce meals in dim alleys and along bustling streets. When it rains they are wet. When it is hot they sweat.

While I eat my morning sandwich of eggs and veggies, he takes up the stool beside me with the ease of an expectant friend.

“How can you sleep with the sun pouring down on you, beside this intersection?” I ask, as a diminutive woman in an orange jumpsuit rounds the corner with her grimy cart. Her call for trash is unexpectedly melodic.

"When you're tired, you sleep." Bumping and jostling along she sings for the morning garbage, the lettuce vendor trailing strategically close behind.

His answers to my questions are polite and simple and sincere. After the initial formalities, instead of turning away his face changes subtly; it seems to soften at the edges. Having made some decision he stands and walks over to his rusty, dusty cyclo. Under the seat cushion is a wooden hatch. All his personal items are here contained. Papers mostly, folded and sealed with clear office tape and little personal things, pen, a razor, an extra baseball cap, and a photo of his mother. He unrolls a wad of documents, photos, and hand-written scribblings, taking out a single piece of paper. Its creased edges suggest decades; the fraying clear tape meant to seal and protect is now yellowing. He doesn't hand it to me but holds it delicately and considers it for a moment. He looks up and tells me:

“April 30th, 1975 tanks came through these streets (he throws a thumb behind us to a busy, unassuming intersection) and when the tanks came the war was finally over. I had fought against the communists alongside the Americans, my friends, for the ARVN, and when Saigon fell and the war ended that day, my life also ended. My life was over."

It doesn't sound rehearsed but it has the sound of words frequently on his mind.

He is all watery eyes and thin veiny limbs. He tells me in an even tone of being on the losing end of a civil war, of 9 years in the camps and what can be stolen from a man: everything. Read More...