thirstythong

“But the most significant derivation from the meaning of as ‘water’ is the concept of people who have gathered near a body of water to grow rice for one another, and founding a stable community, sharing rain and drought, plenty and famine, peace and war: from ‘water,’ its basic meaning, has come to designate ‘the homeland, the country, the nation.’ It is in this ultimate exception that the monosyllable nuoc reverberates throught the deepest and farthest recesses of the Vietnamese collective unconscious and stirs there the most potent feelings. The nation’s fateful course, marked by ups and downs, is figuratively rendered as a ‘tide of water’ (van nuoc) with its ebb and flow. The highest virtue demanded of a Vietnamese is that he or she ‘love the nuoc‘ (yeu nuoc).” –Huynh Sanh Thong (no relation)

Killing with Kindness (Keeping It Real with a Plate of French Fries)

Butternut-squash-french-fries

I was at an old favorite bar of mine in Hanoi last week. 

Friends and I were on the dance floor, I had ordered a plate of french fries. The plate was brought over and in transit, right before it’s laid on our table, a western man of my age grabs a fry without asking. There are, of course, two ways of dealing with this: 1. Ignore it 2. “Keep it Real” - curse, kick over stools, and do my best imitation of Spartacus fighting for glory before the Heavens. I opt for the third option: Kill with kindness. Step 1: Approach the man, make direct eye and tell him what he should have done (“Sir, if you want a french fry, please ask.”) Step 2: Retrieve the plate of french fries from the table and offer french fries to each and every person in his circle of friends (three at the time), who happened to be dancing with him. Approach each and every person, make direct eye contact, ask them in a civil, more importantly, giving manner. If they decline (they usually do), move on to the next person. To convey I sincerely want them to have a french fry, I lay my hand on their upper arm, to have them re-direct their waning eye contact back towards me. Step 3: Reiterate with the entire group that if they want french fries, they will be back at our table, just ask. Killing with kindness takes less energy, realigns the disrupted moral imbalance, gets me back in the mood to dance with my friends and has quietly changed the mindsets of the strangers who originally thought it would be funny to take the belongings of someone without asking politely (and I’ve personally observed foreigners doing this in Vietnam more often than not unfortunately). This exercise can be practiced in other similar situations, such as another individual wanting a dance with your significant other, which of course, tends to happen on the dancefloor. Truly consider: they never really wanted the french fries - and you never asked for trouble. It will only take 2 minutes tops to rectify the situation. And you won’t even break a sweat, that is, unless you’re pretty dancing like Ali. We always have the power to realign the balance in the way that keeps us in control, so exercise that power with the grace of a butterfly and the sting of a bee.