Good Morning, Vietnam?

It's interesting, to me, to trace the little routines and habits that come to make up the grander expansion of days of our lives. Who am I outside of my existing, carefully-crafted and lovingly maintained routines? And do I even exist at all, stripped of all the little ways I have of doing life? Am I even real, or am I only capable of writing now with my words, my one voice that's many voices depending on the witch-wind blow, solely because I brewed my coffee the right way around this morning?

Do you ever think about this? I do. Often. I think about neuroplasticity and all the little ways I'm letting neurons become entrenched and perhaps not in places they should be. In order to maintain activity and keep our brain from souring, we're told we should be constantly changing the way we "do" life.

One teacher suggested something as "easy" as changing the way you towel off after a shower. Try it. You'll be surprised how difficult it is, switching into override of that impulse. Manually, laboriously doing things another way. I tried for a while, but I'm growing lazy again. I've fallen back into old patterns. I like to think I'm contributing to my brain's welfare by putting it to work so damn much. One day, I'll find the stairway to insanity has been so laboriously, lovingly chiseled, there is nowhere else for me to go.

As everyone here will recognize, coffee is quite a major part of my life, and how I "like" my coffee is becoming quite crystallized as well. I generally love strong, black, good coffee brewed inside my Moka pot. If not, a stranger's Moka pot will do. I do not think kindly of Airbnbs that don't offer Moka pots, not because I deem it a necessity, but what kind of people are you, you know?

I'm wary of taking my coffee a different way. I like things I know, but that leads to rust. In order not to corrugate, I must occasionally try newness.

Visiting Prague last month, I ended up in so-called "Little Hanoi", a neighborhood occupied by the immense Vietnamese immigrant community in the Czech capital. It was an interesting experience, as the area was largely populated by Vietnamese people, with some (mostly Czech, I think) "tourists" gawking around. There were restaurants and stores selling everything you'd never want to buy. Needless, cheap things. Horrible, infinite streams of clothes racks upon clothes racks made of cheap plastic and strange designs. This isn't being racist, by the way, it's decrying a valuing of shit.

But it was an interesting experience, and it was like stepping out into a different town for the day. And since it was a day, it needed to involve an afternoon coffee spot at, of course, a Vietnamese coffeehouse, called the Hippo Cafe. Don't ask me why. There were none, as far as I could tell.

Since it was quite a hot day, I decided on the Bac Xiu, also known as a Saigon-style coffee, which is served cold and combines coffee with condensed milk and I think coconut milk. I figure it won't kill me once in a while. From what I understand, this is actually a Vietnamese take on an originally Chinese recipe.

Now, I'm a big coconut person (as opposed to small coconut people) and while I quite enjoyed the nutty flavor of this one, it was overpoweringly sweet to me, and I coudn't make heads nor tails of the coffee itself. Was it good coffee I was drinking, or was it just a sweet, nutty thing?

@godfish (who came up with the idea of this hop across borders) went with the Ca Phe Phin, which he kindly allowed me to try (and photograph). A more traditionally Vietnamese option, this one is a slow-drip approach where the coffee itself is brewed inside a metal container, the thingy on the top, called a phin, then slowly drips (duh) into the container below, which (in the version we experienced) also contained condensed milk. You can see the thin layer of milk sitting underneath the coffee which, thanks to the slow drip, managed to sit on top of it uniformly, rather than becoming blended.

Sipping the coffee like this, before mixing it, actually allowed one to taste the coffee itself, which was quite nice and robust, not to bitter (I thought), but quite aromatic. I thought it had a different weightiness, if that makes sense, than the Moka pot one I'm used to, so that was interesting.

However, I was not a fan of the taste after mixing. It just seems to me condensed milk (or any type really) robs it of its flavor, not to mention add a sweetness that - for me - does not go with coffee.

It all comes back to tradition, though, doesn't it? We have a habit of praising and glorifying other traditions, particularly if they come from afar. This is traditional Vietnamese coffee. Quite exotic, huh? But what that's really saying is only "this is the way in which these particular people have learned to do life, this is what helps keep them grounded each day".

And in that sense, it becomes infinitely more interesting, because you get to see not just into a different culture, but into a foreign reality, becaue it belongs to someone else, and every one of us is foreign to the other, because we're all experiencing different realities.

This little metal thing helps a good portion of Vietnamese people maintain their hold of reality, of life as it is meant to be. Isn't that fascinating, that this sweetish, slow, patience-demanding thing is actually a sliver of someone else's reality?

It was interesting, stepping out of my own beaten path for the day, though ultimately, I go back to my moka pot. We tell each other it's a not good thing, falling into patterns and routines, being "boring", but the truth is, we need little helpful rails to keep us, for there is chaos and madness all around us. It does not do to play with the borders of our reality too much, else they become frayed.

Or perhaps I'm just babbling. Perhaps it was just a coffee, and nothing more.