Writer's rooms

Back in my wee river cottage in Viet Nam after a long expensive journey, I wonder if I am home. Or if I have a home. Or need one. But oh how I want a place that is my place to write. "A Room of One's Own." Indeed.
What I have here is so ephemeral --the fishing village will soon disappear for a marina for tourists, for rich people who can afford a boat. And for a fake fishing village with cafes and restaurants with lots and lots of beer.
And the fishermen and fisherwoman (this is an equal labour village), what of them? Well, they are to be given a nice new apartment in a four storey block with no access to the river or the sea. But they will have indoor toilets. They will have new kitchens. No gardens but they can buy vegetables and eggs and chickens in brand new supermarkets -- when they are built. Buy everything they used to grow with money from ...hold on, money from...they won't be able to fish. Or keep chickens to sell. Or ducks. Or vegetables. The coconut trees which are another source of income are to be cut down.
Me, I have a passport. I can move on. Sooner than I had hoped but I will find another little cottage somewhere in the world. I will write. I will earn a modest income. Maybe keep chickens.

I, we, all of out there in the West have it so good. Jump on an aeroplane and visit my former fishing village. Eat delicious seafood. And perhaps, in the dusk, as the sun sets behind the strange flat-top mountain, and the karaoke music echoes across the still, muddy water, you might see the ghosts of fishermen and women, standing up and rowing, spooling out the nets then banging with the oars to frighten the fish into the nets. Banging, late at night, not loud enough to disturb, but enough to awaken. And I return to sleep, to the rhythm.
Perhaps those fishers will not be ghosts. Perhaps they will be comely young people paid to be fake fishermen and women. And instead of nets, they will scatter little plastic boasts with tea-light candles glowing in homage to the very expensive Western consultant who came up with this traditional ceremony circa 2005.
Then at five AM the National Anthem blasts from high towers out across the river and the rice-paddies, followed by the news and propaganda and adverts for Omo. This is one ceremony that no amount of complaints from tourists or hotel owners will change.
So if you can't beat 'em, wake up have a cup of tea, then start the days' writing.

Aa' the best.