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Music to listen to while you read:The General Specific by Band of Horses

I’ve never really liked taking public transit. In particular, the TTC. There isn’t much to like about grumpy bus drivers, pushy passengers and black tar-like substances smeared all over the velvet subway seats. In my past life, I would take public transit and people would think I was such an environmentalist. I’d smile and agree with them. Secretly, I just couldn’t afford the gas for my rice rocket.

I recently bought my dad a Metropass for Christmas. He instantly turned stone-faced and didn’t say a word. I thought it was the Tim Horton’s coffee acting up again. He shoved it into his vest pocket and that was that. Oh well, I thought. I guess he’d rather I got him a car. But later, he told my mom that I was his favourite son. He was so excited, he asked her to go with him to Islington station and buy one for herself so that they could go downtown together.

My dad’s generally a very outgoing guy. He’s always got a smile on his face. He spends 15 minutes each day combing back the silver strands of hair atop his head. He wears a neat charcoal vest outside his white dress shirt that he tucks into his slacks. This outfit has outlasted the Bee Gees, and it’ll continue to be his outfit until well past the rest of this decade.

Often, my mom has confided in me that she thinks he’s having an affair. Suspicions, but nothing concrete. On the days that I take my mom to the doctor’s she tells me everything. Not that she cares too much, but I think the drama is necessary for a pair of retired and restless old folks.

Nearly 90 and he’s galavanting downtown to meet up with those harlots, she calls them. Old Cantonese women who share an intimate bowl of Wonton noodles over a boiling pot of tea. Likely they convene at New Ho King, she reports. She suggests we hire a private investigator, but instead an idea comes to her. She’ll surreptitiously follow him on the GO bus. He won’t suspect a thing!

The problem with traveling with my father is that he panics a lot. It is a natural recourse to panic when you are in a foreign country and everyone thinks you are insane. Not speaking the language is also a setback.

When you travel with my father, either on horseback or otherwise, there are a few things to remember.

1) Never let him out of your sight. For an old man, he is readily sprinty.

2) Do not be the chump left outside the subway doors as the chimes go off. He won’t wait for you, so best that you hurry.

2) Wear running shoes (see #1)

This is not a stroll in the park, with my dad. There is a goal, and a mission. We are here, we need to get there. The subway waits for no man, and neither will he. If those subway doors close and we are not on the inside, you are a chump and will likely be disowned shortly.

I’ve thought about this strange unrest with him. It’s more common with immigrants and older people, but they always tend to push and shove their way onto streetcars, subways and restaurants. If you arrive at Spadina station, and line up for the streetcar, my dad will wave at you from the front of the line and say that you’re a moron for waiting that far away. After all, the doors are right here!

Amid the embarrassment of having to cut the line and apologize to other people patiently waiting in line, I join my father at the front. He whispers quietly to me that all these other people are suckers and they will likely die suckers. So get with the program, junior! Yessir!

Of course, we’re joined at the front with all the same sorts of characters. They chatter away in Chinese and I stand by my father, blocking the way to prevent anyone to get in front of me, as instructed.

I guess they’ve all grown up in a place where if you weren’t at the front of the line, you were either going to starve and die or be ridiculed for the rest of your life. Living in shame, is just not worth the wait.

For us Westerners, its perfectly sane to take things easy and if we miss that subway, yes it totally sucks, but there’ll be another one shortly. For my father, if you miss that subway, he’s going to take his slipper off and beat you over the head with it. Fair enough, I suppose.

So my mom tried to go with him on the various GO buses, streetcars and subways that it takes to get downtown from Mississauga. She told me that she couldn’t keep up with him, and last saw him at Union Station waving her to stay back 15 feet in case one of his friends saw him. In my youth, I can remember my older sister adopting this same policy.

They would tell me, “Stay back about 5 feet. If my friends come, I’ll say the code word and you scram.” That was about when I was 10 and my sister was 16. So her teenaged friends were not interested in a tag-along little brother. My only restitution was a bag of chips and a dog-eared Cosmopolitan magazine which I read cover to cover, relentlessly searching for the crossword puzzle. I never did find any, but I did learn a lot more about how to tie scarves.

My mother eventually gave up on her investigation and considered the case closed. He is definitely having an affair, she concluded. I continued to smile and let her rant. They’ve been married for close to 50 years. I have no doubt nothing remains in that relationship but a quirky companionship and a common reverence for what they’ve accomplished. Maybe someday, I will dust off my own runners and go with my father on his two and a half hour journey from the mundane suburban to the bustling Chinatown. At any rate, I suppose I could be his wing man.

Generally, colonoscopies do not sneak up on you. You could probably see one coming from a mile away. They do have a reputation with a certain amount of silent horror as the long snake-like tube with the headlight-tipped end approaches closer and closer, aiming to penetrate your most sacred orifice. If you don’t know what a colonoscopy is, let me just say that there’s a giant machine, a 20 foot tube and a large glass jar involved.

I took my father to the doctor’s today to provide manly comfort, while he had this procedural examination. Sitting in the same room as this went on, had me wince, recoil in horror, and feel more empathy for a man that I’ve only been able to communicate through a series of grunts and hand gestures.

In all sincerity, I told the doctors this was required as a routine check up. His blood pressure was a bit high, so they opted not to administer the sedatives and gave me a heads up that there would be slight discomfort, to say the least. I will spare you wonderful readers the gory details, but you should be confident in knowing that, should you ever be presented an option, take the freakin’ sedative!

To date, I’ve heard my dad swear a lot. Usually to me, or any other unfortunate child that didn’t find his missing left slipper in 10 seconds or less. But I think in one hour, he managed to break all those records and called the doctor who was busy jamming that long tube up his… colon, various wretched things; things not even I could translate.

Seeing this I felt sorry for him immediately. Poor guy. Eighty-eight years old and having to have this done to you. So close to living a full life, free from anal penetration. I know that is my goal (as it should be yours). And then I got home and talked to my mom. It turns out that my father, in fact, volunteered for this.

So here we go. Try to follow along, yes?

My dad loves Tim Horton’s. He loves the coffee so much he will suffer for it. He is of course, lactose intolerant as are most Asians. But he will be damn to admit it! Defying all symptoms, signs and advice from those around him, he refuses to admit that he is lactose intolerant. He is adamant, that there is something in his colon that is preventing him from enjoying his warm, tasty, creamy coffee. “One more sip, and then to the washroom,” such is the mantra of those who suffer from lactose intolerance.

We told him about this wonderful invention called Lactaid™ pills that he could take with his coffee, but no! That is a waste of money! What about coffee with no cream? No! That is complete bullshit! I will have cream in my coffee, thank you very much.

He instead heeds his backstreet Mahjongg crew’s advice. What did they recommend? Why, a good ol’ colonoscopy of course! Upon hearing their testimonials of how amazing it was, he was set on it. Typically, you would not hear the words “amazing” with “colonoscopy” but in this circle of friends (though I would use that term loosely), this was the case.

I kept thinking, perhaps they had actually confused “enema” with “colonoscopy”. The only difference of course is that with an enema, stuff comes out and the law of nature is preserved: that particular road is a one-way street!

To top it off, they told him it was free. Free! Imagine that. And so now, I understood why he was so amazed that there was no line up for this at the doctor’s office.

“We have to get there early, in case there’s a line,” he said. Why on earth would there be a line-up for one of these? I wondered. Well, of course — because its free! Why wouldn’t there be a line-up?

My sister had tried to convince him not to do it the day before, and warned him how painful it would be, but true to his nature, his only response was, “Even if its that bad, at least it was free.”

Ironically, his colon was cleaner than a test-tube. I am sure that he will head downtown tomorrow to knock out that guy’s teeth who told him how amazing this procedure would be, right before promptly heading over to the local Timmy’s and ordering a medium double-double.

After spending 30 years living in the land of opulence and enjoying the spoils of Government assistance, my parents, sister, recently inducted brother-in-law and I decided to return to the motherland. In Vietnam, many things have changed since it saw the end of the Vietnam war. I could never imagine what I would see returning home or what wonders fate would present to me there. Of these, I would like to recount with particular fondness, my experiences of finding a working toilet that didn’t require an 18 gallon bucket of water to be carried up 3 flights of stairs.

My family had left one week prior to Vietnam, while I was to meet up in Saigon on my own. I flew out on an early Friday morning before the sun had risen, ready and eager for the 24 hour journey.

While I was stuffed in the plane, I spent the precious hours learning key phrases. It is always a benefit to learn the language of the locals before destroying their habitat, and then taking photos of the destruction in the process.

Going on vacation with your parents leaves for two unfortunate consequences: 1) No binge drinking and 2) no random hooking up with live-in house servants. Though aside from my perfunctory duties as a morally righteous and law-abiding son, I have had opportunity to enjoy a secret beer or two, while winking at the occasional toothless sweetheart.

My parents will insist and swear that the intention of bringing me to Vietnam was not to find me a bride (or even a not-so-distant-cousin that couldn’t find a suitable husband), but in fact, for me to witness the site of my birth. I have yet to find evidence to the contrary. No sooner had I landed in the jungles of ‘Nam that my aunts and uncles were arranging a meet-n-greet with the neighbour’s daughter which they would be more than willing to part for no less than one ox, two dozen chickens and a papaya.

I was not amused by this arrangement, and sought refuge in the kitchen, where I found the kitchen staff preparing dinner. One in particular, a cute Cambodian girl, was busy washing fruit and scrubbing her feet at the same time. I offered to help, to which she looked up at me with an expression I can only describe as chagrin and disdain all at once. I suppose being ridiculed by the help does not inspire heroes’ songs, but for some reason, it fueled my chase.

I barely slept that night, wondering what could possibly go wrong, if I were to sneak off into the maid’s chamber and steal a midnight kiss. Would I be disowned? Or worse, force-fed Hepatitis-carrying ice cubes! I resisted the urge, but stayed awake nonetheless, in case she had the same thoughts and came through those doors either snuggle-ready or ready to serve me tea and crumpets. I surely wasn’t one to turn away crumpets.

My pursuit ended shortly after a few days as we were to continue our journey to my birth site. I left, bade farewell to the help, and made off like gallant Odysseus, on just another ordinary day, on my way to Ithaca. The prospective brides trailed behind hoping to catch me on an off day, when I would be weakest and accept their offer to marry them and bring them to the promise land. Luckily, we were in a mini-van so they gave up chase after a few short miles.

Of things to note, the value of vacationing in an impoverished or third-world country does have its due merits. For one, the price of a beer (like Heineken) is 20,000 VND which translates to about $1.25 CAD. Oh the irony, that I would be in a country where beer was pennies a glass, and yet I could not have a single drop. A bowl of Pho is about 7,000 to 10,000 VND which is about 0.50¢ to 0.75¢. The cost of contracting Typhoid or Hepatitis, however, cannot be measured in any currency — but 0.50 cents a bowl! Obviously, I was willing to take my chances.

Pho is generally eaten in the morning for breakfast. Yes, pho for breakfast! In my early college days, I had always considered myself brilliant for discovering that pho tastes better in the morning after a night of drinking and debauchery, however, it is now clear to me that I must attribute that to my genes; somehow, I always knew when the right time was to eat pho.

The village where I was born is called Gia Ria — a sparsely populated town without the facilities or amenities of which we take for granted. These people have never seen a computer before, so imagine how difficult it was to explain what I do for a living. No, I don’t go fishing at 3 in the morning; no, I don’t sell housewares or dried cuttle fish on the side of the road; yes, I really do brush my teeth every day. What amazes me is the level of sanitation that they can go without.

The streets were narrow and cobble-stoned. There was definitely a lack of any improvements in the town’s infrastructure. I’d always imagined my hometown to be more like Harlem or the Bronx, which would then explain my hard-knock life, but it wasn’t much more than a modest fishing town. The shops and houses lined up against an eroding riverbank where fishing boats would coast up and down to the yawning sea out of the Mekong delta. I was glad to have seen it, but I found I was more emotionally moved when I had gone back to Barrie recently to see the house I grew up in, then to see the house that I was born in.

We left without much fanfare, much the same way that we left 30 years ago, only this time in a mini-van.

With the few remaining days in Vietnam, we spent them touring the South-East coast of Vietnam, ending up at the resort town called Mui Ne in the province of Binh Thuan province. This province is known for its mountain range of sand dunes — white and red sand — throughout the land. Its a beautiful province, and the coastal scenery is breathtaking. Virgin beaches stretch for miles, while an unimaginable oasis called White Lake appears a few miles inland. This area is not known very well at all, and so there is very little tourism here. It is most likely, Vietnam’s best kept secret.

I found out many things about the history of Vietnam and the people that live there. I know the sacrafice my parents made to get us here to Canada, and for that I will forever be indebted to them.