Chapter 7 Rose Island (7)

4. In Saigon To travel is to keep going.keep going. Walk without speaking. The Post Office in Saigon is like a train station.Huge colonial buildings, complicated and gorgeous white reliefs, when you walk in, you see huge vaults.Long rows of wooden chairs are placed in the empty lobby.Outside the door is the warm midday sun. She bought a set of postcards, black and white.Nostalgic for old Saigon.French-style buildings, the shadow of the plane trees by the road, the lady sitting on the tricycle with a resentful look, and the elephant in the circus with its front legs raised.Everything is so impossibly gorgeous, and barren.

Take out a garden pen and write on the back of the postcard: I am in Saigon, everything is fine, it is very hot.One sent to Beijing.One was sent to my hometown on the southern coast.Just a few words. Her whole person became more and more silent the further she walked. In the small restaurant on the first floor of the hotel in the morning, I saw a young European woman whose face was blushed by the sun, lying on a large wooden dining table, writing a letter behind a 7-inch postcard with a pencil.So long so long English.Smooth and simple.It's so warm. She sits across the table and eats breakfast.Hard French bread, long, with a slight salty taste, when it is torn, the pieces keep falling down.Although the cheese is sandwiched, it is still tasteless when chewed between the teeth.It is a blessing to be able to write a long letter, to know what to write and to whom to write.She sits on the opposite side of happiness.She hadn't known for a long time who she could write a letter to.And what can I say in the letter.

Slip two postcards into the mailbox.The stamp features fish and fairies riding elephants.One of them was carefully stored in a bag and locked in a drawer.In the end she brought it back to Beijing. She knew that the ending was the same.Give, and then, come back.Received, and then sent back. We just slowly accept it. That shop is called Anh.It specializes in selling some handmade silk clothes.Stacks of exquisite ready-made clothes are placed in the wooden lattice.Lots of Japanese women.Japanese women come to Saigon to shop, or stay here to open a shop.A declining city, with cheap prices and good taste that has never been abandoned, is very suitable for business.

The clerks in the high-end clothing stores in Saigon can speak fluent Japanese.Be careful and gentle, smile modestly.Very Japanese. In Hong Kong, because of her silence, there are also shops that specially recruit shop assistants who can speak Japanese to talk to her.They thought she was Japanese.The same is true for Japanese women, with straight black hair and a calm expression.She explained with a soft smile.Finally got tired of saying nothing. She's such a person who doesn't like conversations. I only like one word related to talking: pouring out.Without speaking, all languages ​​seem to be rejected and abandoned.like a lie.

She chose a Vietnamese silk blouse with a peony pattern, a white linen dress, a rose red embroidered blouse, and satin embroidered wooden slippers.The clothes were carefully wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a straw tote bag.Such soft and charming clothes, when she took off the coarse trousers and cotton T-shirt that were stained with dust and sweat, and put them on, she felt the strangeness of her skin.She had a hunch that after taking these clothes back, they would only be stuffed in the deepest drawer.But she bought it. She never thought that she would become a soft and charming woman.Later she has been direct, silent, and opposed.It's like a wilderness where the wind is howling.

At the age of 16, I still remember going to the movies with a boy in my class wearing a white sarong.The sarong was trimmed with thin lace.Simple round neck, no sleeves.After watching the movie, she took off her sandals and ran barefoot on the stone road.run wild.The wind blew the rose petals on the wall down in a heavy rain. Ten years later, her clothes are always the same, only cotton, sometimes linen and silk.Do not wear other.Still like bare feet. Love comes and goes.In the end, she thought that she just liked a rain of flower petals in the howling wind at night.That's all.nothing else.

Walk down the street and look at the houses.Not going anywhere except looking at the house. those houses.Decadent, leaving a long trace of time.And anger, patience, kindness, love of life.Including the beauty of death.The walls are a dull apricot yellow.Some are so bright, dazzling blindly.The long shuttered wooden lattice windows are a deep Turkish blue.Whitened by the rain.Thin bamboo curtains hang over the large terrace.There are large clusters of bright red flowers.The clothes were drying in the sun, and the wind blew and fluttered. She looks at houses.Walk street by street.She photographed those old houses.Some of them protruded high against the sky like brutal wounds.Some hide behind the dense shade of trees, breathing softly.I don't know how many fresh lives there have been in it, seeking a place in the world for storage and residence.All fears and desires were suppressed, unable to make a sound.However, we just have to live silently.

The wheels are rolling.Ultimately destroys everything.Don't say who is the winner in war. Ashes to ashes.Soil to soil. We want to wake up in the morning and kiss the face of the one we love on our pillow.Push open the window and see the sunlight flickering on the leaves.This is life.Nothing else. Every day she goes to eat at the small restaurant opposite the hotel.She jotted down its name: Gon Cafe. The clerk at the store, the young dark-skinned Vietnamese man, told her about his monthly salary.surprisingly low.But she showed no surprise.They chat in simple English.He said his home is in Hanoi.He loves Hanoi so much, but in Saigon, it is easier to find a job.

She also loves Hanoi.This is the city in her previous life.It is the city that loves to the point of tears for no reason. The kid at the door smiled and waved his hands when he saw her.She goes every day.morning, evening.Sometimes I also eat a plate of fresh papaya late at night.The boy was about 15 years old, so thin, so dark, with white teeth and shining eyes. He cleverly parked the bicycle for the ghost at the door.She asked him to take a picture.She smiled shyly at him.The usual sitting position is the far left of the second row after entering the door.She was wearing a light cherry red embroidered cotton top with a Chinese collar and buttons.I bought it at the next store called ViuViu.There is also a store called Bazaar.Sells patchwork hats and bags.She has dinner there.Spring rolls, Napcake and fried rice with fish, carrot and pineapple.Frozen coconut, with a straw, tastes extremely light.The papaya is a charming apricot red. After washing, it is cut into pieces and placed on a white porcelain plate.She loves the pronunciation of it, Papaya, how playful and vivid it is.And ice cream and yogurt.The weather has always been hot, and there are still a lot of backpackers walking around in the sun, just like in Hanoi.In Saigon, the place where she stayed the longest was this street where ghost travelers gather.They wear cloth clothes, carry books and thoughts, eat some clean food, pay attention to the sun and people.Live casually.Enjoy every minute and every second of existence.Here they read novels, drink beer, write notes, chat, go to bars and listen to music.Other than that, do nothing.

Every day she eats too much food. She often overeats, like this when she was a child, feels lonely, and eats non-stop.Eat a lot.I don't know how to express it.eat.very simple.Can be used for self comfort.Food is warm, shiny, and fragrant, touching the stomach and then reaching the soul. She never restrained, but she never gained weight.People who are easy to gain weight have goals.She has seen many successful businessmen get fat.she is not.She has no goals.Even with the foods she loves, she has no goals for them. The quiet moment is at dusk, sitting behind the white linen dining table of Gon Cafe, waiting for the food to be delivered, while watching the twilight gradually diffuse and thicken on the street.Night is coming.Travelers who have been away for a day gradually return to their places of residence.In the hotel room opposite, some people are undressing, some are dancing, some are smoking, some are kissing.

There is a shop selling CDs called 211.There are a large number of pirated discs flooding, poorly printed, but rich in variety, you can buy all the albums of music and singers you can think of, all the oldest and newest versions.They took the plastic baskets and put the CDs they had chosen into them like in a supermarket, then sat on the small stools in front of the CD player, put on headphones, and listened to each CD one by one.The young ghost girl chose DIDO. Here, music is as readily available as beer and roses. In the back sat a young Japanese boy.Like a high school student.Eat here every day and walk up and down the street.Wearing baggy blue jeans and a white T-shirt, he has a large mole on his face.In restaurants, he often sits alone at the table, staring at Coke in a daze.He is very handsome.She saw him walking with a man on the street once.That Japanese man might be his father.The two walked under the sun without saying a word. On the next table is a brown-haired European man.Wearing headphones, writing obliquely with a pen on a large notebook.Write fast.There is always an unfinished cup of Vietnamese coffee on the side.He should be a writer.There is a sensitive nervous look on the face. Two Japanese girls, wearing exactly the same Chinese-style tops they just bought.The most popular style in Saigon, sleeveless, with embroidery, cotton or silk fabrics.They talked warmly in low voices, and wrote addresses to each other.It's a friend I met on the trip. Live in this moment when everything is intact. In the evening she goes to nightclubs in Saigon.Some people dance disco. There are beautiful long-haired women socializing with a lot of men. They drink and talk loudly on the sofa.The music is funky.Young children dance in white clothes. She feels disappointed.The air conditioner was very cold.So he backed out halfway. Walking through the large square in the middle of the road, there are tall trees that cannot be named.It's just that the leaves are fluttering down.There are always thick fallen leaves on the ground. Cholon. Yes.This is the memory of Duras.belongs only to her. "The sound they made, all the sound, all the movement, was like a siren blasting, a hoarse, mournful din, but there was no response. The smell of caramel invaded the room, and the smell of roasted peanuts, and the smell of Chinese vegetable soup , the aroma of barbecue, the smell of various green grasses, the aroma of jasmine, the smell of flying dust, the smell of frankincense, the smell of burning charcoal. The smell of the forest is the smell of the wilderness, the smell of a remote village in the forest..." This is Duras' Cholon, not yours. The Cholon you see is dirty, chaotic, full of noisy vehicles and crowds, dilapidated houses, a black and stinking sewage river, simple wooden sheds by the river with clothes hanging and garbage piled up.Only saw a ghost.He took out his camera and took pictures of the sewage river.You won't see poverty more direct and brutal than this. In a noodle shop, I ate a bowl of rice noodles.The proprietress can speak Cantonese, but she is very serious and hardly smiles. Standing on the noisy street, I remembered that in the movie, the girl took a tricycle alone to the room where she was dating her lover on a rainy night. She was sitting by the bed in a wet raincoat, looking at the empty house.silence.and leave.A wet street darkened by the rain. All despair and desires were washed away.Including those who left, they only want to keep a memory, and don't want to relive it. "My hometown is a water town. It is a country of lakes and flowing springs. The springs flow down from the mountains, there are paddy fields, and the soil infiltrated by rivers on the plain. When it rains heavily, we take shelter in the small river. The rain falls again and again. It is thin and dense, and it does a lot of damage. In just ten minutes, the rain will flood the garden. Who has said that smell from the hot land after the rain. There are also some flowers. There is also a kind of jasmine in the garden somewhere. I am a People who will never go back to their hometown... Once a person grows up, everything becomes a thing outside the body. There is no need to let all kinds of memories stay with you forever, let it stay in the place where it was formed. I was born In the land of nowhere." Hometown is a place you can't go back to. Saigon. Clear pronunciation. I don't know why this city always makes people feel sad.So is Hong Kong.Walking among the hustle and bustle of people and shops in Causeway Bay, I feel sore in my heart.Too prosperous is not good.Prosperity is extremely reminiscent of desolation.The world is like an illusion.People don't want a dream that is too lively, because it tends to appear short. The Saigon River she saw was a very ordinary river.There are duckweed and broken boats on the turbid green river, and the poor simple wooden sheds are opposite.On the shore, there is a gorgeous and exquisite hotel.Very luxurious colonial architecture.The name is Riverside Hotel. The hotel is on the fourth floor.facing the street.Even in the middle of the night, you can hear the clogs of the late Japanese children walking on the stone road.The big dog walked slowly through the shadow of the big tree.The moon is very yellow and very round.There is some mist. The ceiling fan whirled and rattled all night.Sometimes she was too hot to sleep, so she smoked on the terrace and opened the window to wait for the occasional cool breeze.There is hot humidity in the air.She shed tears for no reason. In this way, the sky gradually turned white. A new day begins again.