While scanning the Chinese papers for noteworthy stories to translate, I also read some of the English Hong Kong papers. In one of them, in an otherwise forgettable column about the difficulty of translating science to print, the writer summed up the problem by quoting the phrase "scientists can't write and journalists can't do science".
I laughed. Such a thing only a newspaper writer would say. As if a scientist and your average reporter are in any way comparable. Replacing the entire editorial team of a typical newsroom with a group of scientists might well improve the quality of the product. I suspect putting a bunch of reporters in a laboratory wouldn't work out so great.
Everything inside is nuts.
It's been a week or two since I returned from Vietnam. Memories are hazy, like Hanoi, where I ended the trip in a hospital with needles poking out of my arms at the airport, just before I was supposed to go home. I wasn't attacked by drug addicts. What happened was, I was suffering from potassium deficiency, which leads to very nasty things. I don't really want to talk about it too much, there isn't really much to say from my viewpoint anyway, I just felt weak, couldn't breathe and I honestly thought I was going to die.
I'm going to give away the ending here and tell you I didn't die. The mystery is what caused the potassium shortage. Doctors don't know.
I was feeling sick in Vietnam for quite a while. On the last day I was so sick I had to sit down every few minutes. Yet I still foolishly had ice-cream and two cups of coffee. Well, I was feeling miserable and wanted something sweet and sinful. Temptation damned near killed me.
Okay, enough of that. The gist of the trip.
We landed in Ho Chi Minh city. Ho Chi Minh, if you didn't know, was an old guy with a beard whose picture is in every Vietnamese person's home. We share a surname. The city was sooty but the architecture was brilliant, the traffic less so. In fact, the traffic sucked. Quiet is an unknown concept in the big two cities of Vietnam. Every vehicle communicates through honking and it never ends. Motorcycles accelerate past corners and honk you because you didn't see the bastard.
It didn't help that traffic crossings stretched interminably. The secret is to just walk, and pray. "I want to die" was a commonly heard phrase from my travelmates.
Charming town, Ho Chi Minh. Hanoi's Old Quarter was worse.
We saw a bunch of things. I don't really remember. Who cares? The hotel we stayed as was cheap and exceptionally clean.
I promise more detail in the next update. If there is one. Cheerios.
My dear Yasmine wanted me to update my blog more often.
So here I am.
And today's lessons are as follows:
1. If there is a story waiting to be written, it will have to be written when you have absolutely no time to write it. So write it before you expect yourself to have a written, or write off your day.
2. Do not eat at an Italian restaurant, even if it promises cheap pasta, 30 minutes before your film is due to start. Because the food will only arrive 25 mins later.
3. There is a limit to the amount of caffeine a human can consume.
Goodnight.
