nicholas in vietnam

Today on the way back from the student canteen I came upon a longhorn beetle on the pavement. It was a stunning creature, a bit over an inch long and midnight-blue with bright blue-white nebula flashes on its back. The antennae were striped like a blue tiger's tail and curved like the horns of a water-buffalo although they were proportionately much longer, each one at least twice the body's length.

The flashy appearance contrasted with its bumbling behaviour. Most longhorns look endearingly clumsy but this one was a real charmer; twice it fell over on its back while trying to climb a little wall. Eventually I let it climb onto my hands - its slowly cranking legs carefully laid big padded clown's feet down on my pink skin. It fell off but landed happily on top of the wall. As it walked away towards the drop (and the shade) on the other side its left hindmost leg began to make spasmodic kicks; it looked like an elderly gentleman suffering from a schrapnel wound. After a while it stopped uncertainly and began a weird dance with all six legs. It looked very funny but it was clear it wasn't well.

It was a very hot day and I considered that perhaps I should take it in and then let it go from the roof in the cooler evening. I could even keep it in the fridge during the day where it ought to go into torpor and feel nothing. I really wasn't sure if such a fantastic creature belonged in this dusty city. Perhaps it had hatched out of a chunk of wood brought in from the rainforest – perhaps even out of our bed where the monstrous woodworm which could be heard chomping away a few weeks ago has gone recently silent. I felt like, in this case, my interference would be justified but I was worried I would kill the creature. I'd failed to keep alive two water snails which we picked off some vegetables a week or two ago and I knew that Hannah would  be very upset if this 'pet' died too. In the end I left it and hoped it would find the shade. In general that is what I do when I see something upsetting, whether it's a beggar on the street or a report of burning forest far away. I've tended towards optimism.

In this case it was unjustified becaue I found the beetle dead on the road later in the day – at least I hope it was dead, it had ants all over it. For a moment I thought of blowing them off and taking it home in case I met a beetle collector (they go nuts for longhorns) but the ants had already made off with one whole antenna so it wouldn't have made a very good specimen.

Obviously nothing's really lost – big blue beetles become little red ants. And also become memories in my head and words on this blog  – which may not be much but it's a lot more fame than most beetles get. A couple of weeks ago all the cockroaches (there aren't that many) suddenly decided to rush madly out of houses and die horribly in the burning sun. I can't say I felt that sad about that, a bit puzzled but not really sad. Cockroaches are nervous and unpredictable, like horses, and therefore scary – the very opposite of this beetle. But mostly it isn't that, it's the rarity value.

OK it's a silly way of asking this question but at least it's a new way. I've met a linguist trying to record vanishing languages, an anthropologist saddened and concerned by the swamping of an ancient culture, I'm reading a book writted by a city planner saddened by the loss of the unique heritage and character of Hanoi and I'm here as part of the same weird quest.

There are very few adverts in Hanoi but today the canteen put up a new Pepsi awning, and umbrellas – much brighter blue than the beetle. People in remote mountain villages, watching TV for the first time, are amazed and wonder at all the things we take for granted and even complain about. They will put up with a marked drop in their living conditions so that they might enjoy these things in the future, so that these wonderful things may come their way. To do this they need money and selling wild animals to traders may be the only way of getting it.

Meanwhile bored by a place of cars and trains, abundant food and more TV and alcohol than I could ever want (which isn't really much), I come out here with the view to finding out about, and maybe helping save, a strange, dark, gentle, mysterious beast of high and distant forests.

So far I haven't even managed to save one beetle – and I really am sad about the beetle, I'm not just pretending in order to write a pretentious blog-post.

What I want to know is, is there any meaning in the transformations, or does it just depend where you stand?

I just ordered a dreamwater (a sweet one) and it turned out to be prune juice. Apparently mơ means prune as well as dream.
It's like in every room I walk into is a footprint just beginning to fill up with water.