Journal Entry: 2

It’s been exactly 2 years since I’ve come to Russia from Vietnam in order to study university. Exactly two years since I’ve left the warm soils of my ancestors for the cold and forbidding land of the Russians. I don’t really know what to think anymore, I guess I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve gotten used to eating Chinh’s stale noodles and chewy meat every night, I’ve gotten used to running an undercover business. It’s strange that when mother was alive, she made me promise to never become like those that stripped our family and whipped them on the streets in front of everyone, she begged me to keep an honest job. The last time I saw her, the day she was sending me off the Russia, I remember the tears in her eyes, the emotions she was trying to hold still in her porcelain wrinkled face, the pain and words she was holding back so that I wouldn’t worry for her. If only she had told us about her troubles, about the pains she must have been having in her stomach, before it was too late. I remember when my brother sent me a telegram, two weeks into starting school, telling me that mother had a cancer in her stomach, that there wasn’t much time.  By the time I came, it was too late. Now, every time I see anyone who has the same silk black hair and white emerald skin, anyone who carries those same eyes that knew so much, or smiles the way she did, I cannot help feeling a pang in my gut. I can’t help remembering her lying there on the bed, cold as ice, and her eyes, emptied from the life that once inhabited them so passionately when I left.

Today we just sold a new load, and are impatiently expecting Chinh’s new investment to bring fruit, the boat hasn’t come yet he says, he has a plan he says. We’ve been cornering him over and over again asking how he’s going to manage; he says we’ll see in a matter of days. He says he’s sure it will work, there’s someone who owes him a favor that will help. I can never know when to trust him, when his tiny calculating eyes are telling the truth. It’s especially hard to believe him because he is sick, how can a sick man make so many plans? Only the devil knows.

An hour ago I watched a group of officers beat a man to death because he was a bourgeois sympathizer. I watched them kick him until he puked blood, until he could no longer cry for help, and I sat there until he no longer twitched from each blow. I don’t know what has gotten into me; I can’t understand what I’ve become. I did nothing to save that man, all I did was watch. I felt no pleasure from it, but neither did I feel any pain, it was as though I were in a trance. I can feel, here in this foreign place so far from home,  I am slowly becoming the type of man that I hate. I feel it in my blood, I can sense it whenever I walk past a beggar and no longer feel anything. I am becoming cold in the heart, I feel as though I can no longer love. I wish I could die, I wish someone would kill me. I’m too much of a coward to take my own life, I’m to much of a coward to even save someone else’s. Maybe if I had stepped in they would have killed me to, if only. Where is this life I’m leading taking me? What is it turning me into to?

No news from Chinh.

No letters from home.

Journal Entry 1

What am I doing here? Why am I wasting my time with these people? I feel as though it’s only a matter of time before our little group collapses, before one of us realizes that there is no point in what we are doing, we’re getting nowhere. Today we have money in our pockets, but everyone keeps on burning them on cheap liquor and women, it’s getting more and more difficult to keep our budget. Adding to the fact that everyone in our group is a complete nincompoop, I don’t know what to do. Chinh is incapable of doing anything, I don’t even understand why he’s still here, he can’t even do his job in the university, the one he keeps on priding himself with. All he does is sleep and talk. They disgust me, people like him, those who are no different than their capitalist enemies. Everyday Chinh preaches and preaches against everything we do , from the music we listen to in our free time, to the dances we go to at night, yet I am sure that if one of his superiors was to say that those were now Russia’s ideals, that he would rise in the Party if he adopted those habits, he would sell himself off just as he has sold himself to us. I know that the only reason why he continues business with us is because we provide him with the most money for the least amount of work.

Today I watched the Moscow streets while waiting for a taxi. I watched the women clutching their handbags walk swiftly to and fro, going in and out of buildings, their frowns become ever-the-more deeper as the day wore on. I watched a group of young children play football in the alleys, I listened to their innocent arguments about who was going to be goalie and wondered what was going to become of them. How many of them would be forced to sell their ideologies, dance with their shadows just as everyone in the Party has been forced to do during these difficult times. I saw a beautiful women pass close by, I could smell her perfume from where I was sitting, I could feel her soft white skin from the look the she gave the pavement. I feel as thought the hardest thing to do is to love, I wonder if she has not yet become cold to it. I wonder who she is thinking of, whose arms are going to hold her tonight, or whether she will be forced to waste away her beauty in order to take care of her family, like my mother. 

Tonight I will be forced to go back and face Chinh in our room. He says he says that he has prepared a new trunk of merchandise full of imported goods that are going to be going on the next boat. He claims that he has everything under control , that this is going to be the jackpot that will give him the kick start he needs. We say, how are you going to do it old man, you neither know Russian, and you’re as poor as the dust on your tables. He says no, he says he knows exactly what he doing. We’ll see about that.

Pre-Reflection of "Paradise of the Blind"

             The interesting thing that one notices at first glance on the cover of the book, “Paradise of the Blind” by Duong Thu Huong is that it says that it’s a novel. The books subject, which is the story of a young girl’s struggle to cope with a family damaged by the separation of Vietnam, makes it sound as though it were meant to be a memoire. I find it hard to imagine how the author would be able to take on such an emotional topic if she had not lived under similar circumstances. Before beginning the book, I took the time to read the ‘About the Author’ piece on the last two pages and learned that Duong Thu Huong was both the leader of the youth Communist brigade when she was younger, and the first women to volunteer as a soldier when China launched an attack against Vietnam. Because of the book “Paradise of the Blind”, which was banned soon after being published due to its criticism of the Communist regime and its immense popularity, Huong was sent to prison for seven months. Even at a first look at the author, it is easy to assume that even though she did not live under the exact same circumstances as her characters, she did live under her own fair share of hardships.

                Vietnam had just come out of the French rule, and was newly establishing a communist state in the north when the novel takes place. There was not a complete understanding of what communism really was throughout the country, which led to big mistakes being done especially in the villages. Many young people were brain washed from a young age, as shown by the character Chinh in the book: from the age of 19 on he was a part of the communist party, and soon completely changed his character. The author herself used to be a part of the communist party, which means she had fist hand experience with what was going on, and must have tried to portray that in the characters she has created. It will be interesting to see how well they connect and whether there is any symbolism of her own difficult life between the pages.

                All-in-all I am quite excited to read this book because I believe it will shed light on a country and lifestyle which is very foreign to the one in which I live in now. I am curious to see how the characters will interact and how the story will eventually develop. Because I have already read a few pages I have a general idea of the characters, such as Chinh’s early membership to the party, and Aunt Tam’s decisiveness to  never to give up, and I wonder how this will effect their relationships with the main character , Hang, and her mother. Because of the time and place of the book and the history of the author, this will be a very thought- provoking read.

Getting Lost

"It's impossible to get lost anymore. "
The words kept echoing in his mind.
"It's impossible to get lost anymore."
Sitting among hundreds of trees in a park, Arlow let the words sink in. He felt lost, felt. He felt as if he was in a different world, one where everything was controlled by the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds, but he knew that if he walked straight along the rubble path he would find himself on the same street he walked everyday while going to work. Arlow had felt lost all his life, but never in his life had he ever gotten lost in the full sense of the word. Never had he found himself in a truly unknown state of being and mind, in a  location from which he did not know the way back. A few days earlier a homeless man had sat next to him on the bus, and he wouldn't stop repeating the same 6 words,
"It's impossible to get lost anymore."
Arlow had once read an article about a man who had been left to die in a forest as an infant, but had then been raised by wolves. When he was finally brought into society, forced to conform to the status quo and thrown into the bustling concrete forests, was he able to find himself among the trees? No, probably not. What about now? Is there any group of people who haven't been shoved face first into the corrupt de-humanizing western society?
 Arlow had read a novel about a man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman. The author wrote that the man was blinded with passion, so much so that he forgot who he was. After reading this Arlow tried desperately to fall in love in order to understand how the main character felt. He realized that wanting to fall in love is not enough to fall in love, just as he realized that day that wanting to get lost is not enough to get lost.
His hands were sweaty on the steering wheel as he slowly drove out of his garage onto the all to familiar street he had been living on since he graduated from college. Trying not to look back at the vomit green condo where his girlfriend was still sound asleep, Arlow passed by Mrs. White's house, Mr, Green's house, one by one all of the houses inhabited by people he had never liked and never met. He has left a note for Suzanne on the coffee room table, its content being a half-hearted apology for leaving and the next months rent as a "consolation gift." He knew from the all to frequent questions she never got bored of asking like, "Where is this relationship going?" and "Why don't you buy me flowers anymore?" that she wouldn't really mind his absence. There was no traffic on that Monday, the weather itself wasn't all that bad either. Fog, with a faint drizzle, so poetic. Arlow accidentally ran over a squirrel on the way and questioned his decision to leave while staring at its mutilated tiny corpse. What if he never came back ? What if he died on the way? And most importantly, what if nobody noticed? He was not raised by wolves, nor did he ever do anything important in his life. If Arlow was to fall of the face of the earth, would anyone care? It had been years since he had sent his parents anything other than Christmas cards, they would just think that he was busy. Did he have any friends? No, not really. There were people that he spent time with, people who knew that he existed, but non that really bothered to check if he was alive or dead. Maybe it was better this way, at least no one would get  sad or try to stop him.
Maybe all he wanted was to get stopped, someone to tell him everything would be ok.
Arlow shook off the idea and began taking random turns in the road, yet always going back onto the same highway, as though he had some inner GPS.
"It's impossible to get lost anymore"
He tried not to notice the giant signs pointing to the routes of different cities, but he couldn't help it. By now he was sweating all over and felt like puking.
Arlow is walking through an abandoned street. Next to him is a fountain made up of little cubes from with electric blue water is spurting out. On his other side is a small park filled with huge chestnut trees. Suddenly, a woman appears in front of him, holding five small pugs on a leash: she is scolding them. From a little door on the side of the fence encircling the park two stray dogs walk out. They glance at Arlow with eyes that knew much more than he thought they did, and then totter off. This must be a dog park. Arlow glances through the small opening and sees that it has stairs that lead down. He starts going down, and begins to notice that the handle rail is littered with crows, each pitch black and staring at him intently. The crows fly up and begin encircling his head as the wind picks up. The park is run-down, and practically empty save a young girl with a pink headscarf sitting on the swing. A murder flies above him and settles down around the woman on the swing. He hears children laughing and turns around to see two young boys twirling around a pair of mating dogs, The rythme of the crows screaches becomes faster as the dogs become more in-synch and the wind picks up.
Arlow wakes up. His car is parked on the side of the road. Everywhere is pitch black. He must have stopped the car and fallen asleep. Still shook up by his dream, he gets out of the car and begins walking twords the forest bordering the road; he needs to take a piss. A car speeds up behing, illuminating everything for half a second, it's an oak forest.
Crunch, Snap, Crack.
Arlow blindly walks through the trees, occasionally tripping over rocks and roots. He's still thinking about his dream as he pulls down his fly and begins to relieve himself. What did it all mean? He hasn't remembered a dream since .... since... he can't even remember when. He turns around to walk back, but finds himself in the same place he was before. It's pitch black, he tries again, same thing. A crow screeches behind him.
"It's impossible to get lost anymore."

Dreams

      Dreaming, in the scientific sense of the word, is an unconscious brain activity most of the human and animal population take part in while sleeping. Dreams are the images we see while we are in the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep. Over time, humans have attempted to interpret these dreams in different ways, the most famous being those of Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung. In the book "The Thief and the Dogs" by Naguib Mahfouz, there is a very important dream sequence that includes different images such as the main characters daughter (Sana) whipping his old best friend (Rauf), a Sheikh, Qur'an recitations, a car chase, Rauf coming out of the dashboard,  money, a gun, and an ID car, which when looked at through the eyes of Freud and Jung, begin to make more sense. Also, through the analysis of the dream sequence it is easy to understand how Said, the main character, was created by Mahfouz in order to represent the majority of the Egyptian population.
         According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are the reflections of our unconscious desires; these are separated into two parts: manifest and latent. Manifest content being the part of dreams that is very superficial, while latent content being our subconscious wishes. Manifest often veils the latent content. According to Freud, most of our desires, whether conscious or unconscious are driven by sexual desire, which puts a spin on Saids dream that is quite interesting. The opening scene, which describes Said being whipped in prison and showing no restraint, can be described as Saids repressed want for sexual intercourse while in prison because pointed things are considered penises, and rythmic movements intercourse. Said then drinks milk, which can be said to be the symbol of his need for motherly love, either from Nabawiyya or Nur or even his own mother. The next image is that of Sana, his daughter, whipping Rauf, his old best friend who he now considers a traitor; this represents Sana and Rauf having sex, which shows us Saids deepest fear being that his daughter will become one with Rauf, that she to will turn her back on him. The Qu'ranic recitations he then hears before finding himself in a car chase also represent copulation because it is a rhythmic activity, again representing the his suppressed sexual desires while in prison. He then finds himself in a car chase without any breaks so he ends up shooting all around him, meaning he does not know where he is going in life because of the lack of breaks, and that he is again sexually frustrated because of the gun which means penises because their bullets penetrate the body. Then Rauf comes out of the dashboard, signifying birth, meaning Said has noticed that Rauf has become a new person. When Said says that it was not Sana who whipped Rauf, but instead Nabawiyya, he wishes to imply that his daughter is not the traitor, but that Nabawiyya is, but he is lying, showing that he does not want to accept the truth. Said then tries to join a group of Sufi chanters, which symbolize an orgy because they are all participating in the rhythmic action of singing, but he is turned away by the Sheikh, illuminating the fact that Said does not feel accepted, which is reinforced when the Sheikh demands an ID card. He wants to become one with society just as he was before but the government and Rauf do not allow it because in the dream Rauf is the head of all Shiekhs, showing how much he feels like he is being controlled. By offering his help, Said proves that all he really wants it to be excepted.
              Carl Jung, who was a student of Freud, had a different point of view on the topic of dream analysis. He also believed that dreams reflected one's unconscious, but that these were more spiritual than sexual. Jung did not believe that dreams shielded true desires from the brain using symbols, but that instead the images that are seen while dreaming are messages that the sleeper must pay attention to in order to understand their problems. Freud interprets dreams on the object level, meaning he looks at the relationships between the dreamer and the persons in his dream in real life, while Jung introduced the subject level, which sees the images in dreams as different features of the dreamers psychological life. According to Jung, Saids dream represents how much he misses his daughter, does not know how to control his life and wishes to be accepted back into Egypt in order to continue living like he used to. It also shows how he sees Rauf as traitor and disliked the government because he feels that they are controling his whole life, what he can do and can't etc... By paying attention to these signs, Said could understand that killing Illish and Nabawiyya will not calm his soul, but that being understood and accepted will.
              Mahfouz illustrates a sexually frustrated, lost and confused man, showing the reader what it was like to be a citizen of Egypt during those turbulent times. When Said got out of prison, he came out into a world that was unlike the one that he had been accustomed to living in before. He and many of his friends, including Rauf, believed that the revolution would bring new found freedom and equality, but when Said was set free he was met with a world where " one feared the walls (1)". According to Saids dream, he has no idea where his life is going, or what to do about it, just like most of the Egyptians of that time must have felt. Most thought that the revolution would bring good, but when it didn't many were not very sure of what they fought for.
            Dreams and the subconscious, cannot be controlled, which renders them a very honest aspect. Both Freud and Jung believe that dreams do reflect ones true desires, whether those be sexual or spiritual. The interpretations of Saids dream by Freud and Jung surprisingly come to the same conclusions by following different roots. They both concluded that Said is confused, and lost.Through his dream Said not only illuminate not only his own subconscious, but that of a whole generation.

(1) The Paris Review - Naguib Mahfouz, The Art of Fiction No. 129
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2062/the-art-of-fiction-no-129-naguib-mahfouz

Script

SCRIPT BETWEEN RAUF AND THE SHEIKH
Genco and Nebila

Rauf: “It was idiotic for you to try tricks on me. I know you. I can read you like an open book.”
Sheikh: “Do not tell lies.”
R: “What do you mean?”
S: “You seek the walls, not the heart.”
R: “Never for that I live by the sweat of my brow.”
S: “Go and wash your face.”
R: “You treat me as an enemy. You’ve forgotten my kindness, my charity.”
S: “Wash yourself now and read.”
R: “You feel nothing but malice and envy. I know your thoughts, as clearly as I know your actions.”
S: “Wash and read.”
R: “You know you’re lying.”
S: “I there anything I could do for you? Do not tell lies, take a copy of the Koran and read.”
R: “What then?”
S: “Wash and read the verses: ‘Say to them: if you love God, then follow me and God will love you’ and ‘I have chosen thee for myself.’ Also repeat the words: ‘Love is acceptance, which means obeying his commands and refraining from what he has prohibited and contentment with what the decrees and ordains.’”
R: “Don’t try to be evasive, out with it.”
S: “Wash and read.”

Blogger doesn't allow me to add voice recordings, so the recording of our script is on Genco's blog. 

A Short (finished) Story

There are some days when you feel like everything is totally out of your control. You feel as though you were in a theater watching a play, or in a book waiting for the author to write your next move. It is on these days that you begin to question what goes on around you. You begin to wonder whether the lunatic on the bus really is crazy, if it is not just you who doesn't understand him.
On Saturday June 5th George Allistar woke up not feeling like himself. He felt as though he was watching his life go by through the keyhole of a door: seeing only colors, no details. He saw himself put on his grey wrinkled suit, gaze at his grizzly beard and pocketed eyes in the mirror. It was depressing really, the life he was leading. Every morning he went out to look for a job but would always end up in the same place, sitting on a bench in the park, watching everyone lead their lives. He loved to watch the beautiful newly wed young women walk their dogs and listen to the gossip about their trivial housewiferey. He loved to watch the old men feed the pigeons, and listen to the great stories of their lost youth. Different faces came and went, but they were all the same people.
Life for George seemed like a faint etching on a dirty concrete wall. Jobs passed by, one day he was painting houses, another day he was the reporter for the back page news. Women drifted by, first there was Flaura, then Susan, Laura, Marguerite, Daisy, and last but certainly not the least, Julia. What had caught his attention about her was her resemblance to Joan of Arc (or at least how he imagined her). Julia, like all the rest of them, had found him romantic at first, the mysterious poet they had always fantasized about; but soon, when the gleam of his intellect began to fade, they started to notice that he was really just a vagabond in a suit who could barely keep a job for more than a few days.
He had always felt that only Julia understood him, even if it was only slightly. One day, when she had asked him what he did outside everyday if he wasn't working, he brought her to the park. When she asked him what the point was, what was the differences between sitting in an office and sitting on this bench, he began to tell her their stories. George told her about Mrs. Wilson's problems with her husband, about how they could never decide what to watch on the television or which movie they were going to go to at the cinema, how it was tearing their marriage apart. He told her about Mr. Cambell and how he won the war. How he left everything behind, including his sweetheart Lucille (who was the best girl he'd ever had) to kill Germans. Julia nodded as he told her about the lives he has been living through for so long. When he finished, he looked back at her, searching for understanding in her eyes, but all he got was,
"You're crazy."
That was the last time he saw her, the lone Jean of Arc of his heart. He sent a few halfhearted letter, telling her he would try to find a job, that he'd change. She knew he wouldn't, he knew he wouldn't, because under everything:
he really did not care.

 MONDAY.
There is a woman in her mid-twenties, I've never seen her here before. She has black hair that barely grazes the top of her breasts. She is wearing a gray/green sweater through which I can see the faint outline of her white strapless bra. She has been sitting across from me for the past 10 minutes, during which time she has smoked at least two cigarettes. Her skin is a toasted white and her face is long, but just the right length that it's attractive. Her eyes are slightly pulled and she has carefully applied makeup that really makes them stand out. On her lap is a light forest green parka with a brown fur edging.I watch her and wonder what it is that she is so stressed about, what has made her cremate those sticks of tobacco so impatiently and urgently. From the way she is glancing at me I can tell she knows I'm watching her and taking notes about her behavior, but I can't help it. My eyes cannot get enough of her, nor can my hands quit documenting this moment. She is iron and I am a magnet, it is not my fault. Suddenly she stands up, tosses her last torch onto the ground, allowing me to soak in her body in the process: not as good as I had expected, but still a ravishing woman. She confidently strides down the path, out of the park, and goes down into the subway station. I am forced to give my attention to someone else.
From the other direction a woman in white hesitantly sits on the bench in front of me. She has a faint mustache on the top of her lips and her hair is disheveled and black. Her white jacket looks quite expensive but out of place under her dirty face and over her gray dusty sweatpants. On her lap she has a checkered purse that looks as though it hold everything she owns. She's looking around, anxiously puffing on a cigarette like the last woman, as if she were waiting for someone who she must see urgently but is late. This is not the first time I've seen her, she comes here everyday, moving from bench to bench, restlessly waiting for someone who has never come. Most people here shift in their seats whenever her stare even grazes them, and move to another bench whenever she sits next to them, they think her crazy. Sometimes I see her talk to herself, answer phone calls from the palm of her hand and I wonder who she is. She comes to the park everyday in search of something, anything. She hesitantly stands up and shuffles to a young couple that is chatting near by, asking them if they have any cigs. The man,seeing her approach, pulls his girl in closer, as he feels the need to protect her from a nearing predator. They give her what she wants and quickly walk away, whispering to each other words that only lovers understand. I look at the time, 4:55, It's time to go back. Sometimes I wonder if this woman and I are not looking for the same thing, what exactly that is, I do not know. A shiver runs down my spine as I accidentally imagine her naked. I quicken my pace. It's been a long day.

 MONDAY

The office is completely silent, save the sound of papers rustling and pens scratching paper. In front of her sits Carl, with his chunky glasses, balding black greasy hair, and soaking armpits. Every few seconds he lets out a faint sigh as he draws and redraws the outlines for a soon to be TV Dinner commercial. Julia finds it strange how stressed he has become, and notes down his behavior; she's never seen him show so much attention to anything. The faint taping of his index finger on the side of the table blends in perfectly with the rhythmic noises of the writing room.The smoke from his cigarette melts in with the great foggy cloud mass of pollution that looms and drifts above every ones head. Julia sits their everyday, watching Carl do his thing; she is not attracted to him in anyway, just interested. She wonders what governs his mind when he erases and redraws the same thing over and over again, continuing the same pattern every single day.
"Julia!"
She turns her head with everyone else and finds Charles is calling her over. He is wearing a bright purple polka-dotted tie over a wrinkled white button up shirt and black pants. He has jelled back curly hair and a look in his eyes that always makes Julia  feel uncomfortable, but she reluctantly shuffles over, pulling her skirt lower so that it covers as much of her legs as possible and flinching at the thought of his warm fish breath hitting her face. He starts blabbing about things that she honestly does not care about, the next project and the weather. Julia's eyes trace the room and she sees Gloria is fast asleep, her thin white arms occasionally twitching under he head of blonde curls. Next to her is a bald man who shes never seen before, but who can't stop sneezing. All these things Julia documents in her notebook, nothing escapes her eyes in this 300 foot office.

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.” 

-Shel Silverstein.