The Teleological Suspension of the Edible

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard argues that amidst a life defining commitment, a particular person may, in accordance with the demands of this liberally lavished loyalty, be called upon to rise above the universal ethics of his or her culture. His mascot, of multiple mentions, whom he posits plainly pioneered this phenomenon, is Abraham the patriarch. His case is loosely as follows: a man of faith, in allegiance to a higher calling, brought his son Isaac to Mount Moriah for a purpose too peculiar to be esteemed as ethical. It’s a controversial claim to be sure, with philosophical implications way beyond the breadth and nature of this blog. However, this notion has been heavy on my mind as of late, due to a recent eating excursion I embarked upon, leaving me far outside the camp of edible American ethics.

In effect, at least according to this deep thinking and arguably great Dane, I was dragging many of my beloved childhood heroes up those sacrificial slopes. Lassie, who had time and time again saved that accident prone Timmy from the deadly depths of the village well, was to meet her own ideological end on these craggy heights. Chance and Shadow, who crossed vast and dangerous distances to reunite with their subsequently overjoyed owners, were to find that perhaps, in the end, they were safer in that foe-filled forest. Spuds Mackenzie, “the original party dog”, was about to realize that liver disease wasn’t the only fatal factor to fear.

When the summit was reached, that is, when the dish was placed on the top of the table, warm and speckled with ginger, there was no replacement ram. No beef. No chicken. No pork. Not even tofu. In fact, to add to the trepidation of the trial, this serving was coupled with a crustacean flavored condiment made of shrimp. This strange sauce was purple in color and amazingly potent in aroma. I wrapped my right hand around a pair of chopsticks, pinched a small portion of meat, dabbed it in a shallow well of violet, and brought the contents slowly to my reluctant lips. And with that, I ate my first bit of dog.

In Vietnam, it’s a popular pastime for men to go out together with the purpose of consuming this canine cuisine over a couple of beers. My best guess would be that the alcohol functions as some type of chaser. Such dining only takes place during the first half of any lunar month though, as it’s unlucky to partake of this amply processed Purina once the latter half hits.

In my case, my good friend L. brought an order of this mutty meat, purchased from a local street side shop, to the guesthouse as a compliment to the dinner a few of us American teachers were preparing. The main course was to be a batch of sloppy joes, courtesy of Scott’s kitchen expertise, which would easily rival that of any Rachel Ray recipe broadcasted on the back of some “Mesquite Style Lucky Charms” box, alliterative namesake and all.

This doggy bag brought with it much to ponder. For the sake of cross cultural friendships, you’re sometimes faced with such situations, where you must either cling to the familiar normality of your native notions, or suspend them for a time while you take part in some relatively trying tradition that stretches your previous conceptions of what constitutes food, dress, conversational exchange, and so on. So, with a relationally fueled resolve, I ate what was before me, as described above, and honestly, once the mental hurtles had been jumped, thanks to the bulging thighs of my spandex laden neurons, the taste was that of any grilled meat. However, it did take a while to dissolve in your mouth. I suppose this left it somewhere between a Big Mac and a Jawbreaker.

With all that said, I’m not making any Swift style proposal to deal with all of the strays running loose in the land from where I come. That place has it’s own culinary conscious, rendering such a meal as something less than edibly legitimate, even with the culturally consoling thought that all of these perspective entrees would go to heaven. Besides, man’s best friend could never become his Wednesday lunch special, at least not without some form of demonizing done to the eaten party. For instance, merely consider the tarnished reputation that Ronald dealt the Hamburglar to justify each and every quarter-pound piece of flesh sold and devoured.

If America slandered these precious pets in any sort of similar way, we’d lose a lot. Not least of which would be police comedies featuring high strung detectives paired with large, unruly dogs and, of course, an important artistic heritage of portraits portraying these animals gambling socially. Quite frankly, that’s not an America in which I would want to live.

However, for the time being, I’m in a different place with a different palate. As such, I will continue to counter my conception that dining on dogs is a wrong practice. I’m not going to rush out and sample a side of shepherd any time soon, but, if a friend buys a round of Rover, then I’ll courteously partake.

So tonight, like every Sunday night, I’ll watch the recent remake of the Shaggy Dog. If I find that the animal actor looks abnormally appetizing, I’ll let it slide, at least for the remainder of my stay in Hanoi. I figure it’s not until Tim Allen begins to look delicious that I should start to worry.

They remind of Dignan in that way

A few days ago, I was having dinner with a student who I’ve come to count as close friend. Amidst this meal, stocked with a queue of cuisine that I no longer consider curious, I asked for what seemed to be a simple and straightforward favor. The request was for a small compilation of various phrases, chosen at his own direct discretion, which would serve as fashionable accessories to the bare halter-top that is my Vietnamese lexicon.

He excitedly agreed and, after several swelling servings of food ingested and words spoken, hurried home to hone his fantasy expression roster. A lot of the heavy hitters that dominate many of the everyday exchanges had already been drafted, but I knew there were still some quality picks resting just below my rudimentary radar. I wasn’t necessarily asking for an Air Bud or an Icebox, but rather, simply something solid, like Gary Busey in Rookie of the Year.

Well the next day I received the list and was taken back a bit by the conversational content. The only phrase translated in entirety was as follows, “At the bottom of my heart I want to say that I love you so much,” a statement quite forward for anything short of a Hallmark card.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite partial to the people that daily peruse the bustling street on which I live. It’s largely a cast of familiar characters and, at least mentally, each time they come into view and offer their own salutational catch phrases, given pronounial distinction by their age and gender, I hear a healthy appropriation of applause. However, in response to these friendly fragments of hellos and goodbyes, I just wouldn’t feel anything close to comfortable offering up this newly learned bit of language. In fact, I suppose there’s only one person I could sincerely say this to, and sadly, he stopped being in charge of my days and my nights, my wrongs and my rights, long ago.

Later that day though, pondering hard at my desk, this bit of translated romance began to make sense, in light of something larger. It was a talkably tangible representation of a tendency evident in many of the students here. It made me realize that I was the one who was a little off. I was the cynical American. All I had was Charles, but they had so much more.

I thought back to a teaching episode that had transpired last semester. It had been a week of much work, which had left me faintly fatigued for the final class of that stretch. Afterwards, some of those in this course asked me if I had lost love. It was their first and most confident suspicion to explain this lack of teacherly tenacity. It was a little awkward, and since then, just to be safe, during those days of densely scheduled duties, I’ve taken to mainlining the most extreme energy drink legally available. That’s right, Commando Bear. And my platelets have never been so ferocious. Seriously, they will clot your freaking face off.

(It really is a drink. I saw a billboard for it on the way to a city named Ninh Binh: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11955465/Commando_Bear_Energy_Drink.html)

On another such occasion, I was with some friends enjoying some ice cream. The weather had not yet turned for the frigid, but we were clearly on the cusp of this change. The conversation went from the weather to the ice cream to a combination of the two. I learned that it was regarded as romantic to eat this snowy snack in cold conditions, a fact I consciously filed in a folder already thick from other such notions. I carefully slid it behind the last entry: the romance attached to glasses on guys via the Fabios from Korean films.

However, this too is a piece of something bigger.

In Vietnam, karaoke seems to be the preferred activity for most nights out. As such, the nationals can belt ballads like nobody’s business. The lists of songs vary greatly from place to place, but there seems to a be a few pieces present in each and every papered procession, likely laminated and usually enclosed inside a thin plastic binder. One of these consistencies, often selected and subsequently sung, is “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. It’s performed with the utmost sincerity, each lyric a layout for global improvement. However, sitting among a room full of swaying shoulders, each in beat with the rhythm and the message, I always find it difficult to take this song seriously.

All that to say that there’s an idealism here quite unlike anything I’m Americanly accustomed to, and I really do admire it. Back in the states, I wouldn’t have counted myself a cynic, but in this land, at least by comparison, I feel like the Larry David of Chua Lang Street. Tomorrow is a new day though, and perhaps, just maybe, each and every person passed will, to me, become a Baio.