With sea air still in your hair and skin forever blushing you find yourself lost on streets with no lights and inexplicable sounds. After ignoring a man who drives up saying “1 2 3 marijuana?” you find what you are looking for; the one white guy at a local restaurant.
Ex-pats.
Burping from the crate of beer just consumed you can taste dinner as you squeeze onto a scooter happy that this night you aren’t on the back of the drunk Swiss’ scooter. Ridding a scooter through Hue you feel all the benefits of a bike without any of the effort, you could close your eyes and be flying in a way.
The bar dashes in front of you as nameless pop music replaces the cries of cicadas and cheerful laughter of the drunk middle aged men you find at the local places. French, German and so many degrees of accented English that you swear it’s a new language prance about the bar. Excited you talk, one is a teacher, another a long term traveler and the others become too specific to remember. It becomes odd to hear Vietnamese and besides the staff there are only two locals around you. Time begins to blur as you look around imagining the people in military uniforms or floor length skirts too warm for the weather. The world feels catered to you and them, none of the ex-pats know Vietnamese, they don’t need to, they know a local or two. Pillars of privilege support your world and theirs. It seems so obvious that you wonder how they don’t see it. An eerily chill covers your mind and you feel sober for an instant. “Oh, what’s your name? Where are you from?”
You drink a beer and laugh at a joke, forgetting your passing thoughts.
texansomewhere 