Here I am in Saigon on a writing retreat.
“Retreat to HCMC!” I hear those in the know gasp… “The noise! The hustle! What kind of retreat is that?”
In the chaos of this marvelous town, I have found myself an oasis within a walk-up, rabbit warren of a complex.
Most of the business tenants are squatting here, including myself… they on hammocks behind their iron mesh screen doors, me on a rather comfortable futon a metre from my desk. We are locked in from 11pm-5am which was quite a surprise the first night, when I worked late as I do. I am after all… the night shift.
I can’t for the life of me work out just how many businesses are stationed here 50? 500? There is a laundry across the way with a daily change of clothes hanging from a special rail, waving like prayer flags in the breeze… with every downpour of monsoon rain the staff run out to shift the clothes under cover and return them when the shower passes. There are food prep stations, all sorts of industry and a “pet shop” with a rooster alarm that rouses all the tenants each morning and signals it is time for me to rest. The sound of packing tape and a chorus of love ballads sung in Vietnamese calls me to my desk.
When I am not writing, I play with watercolour… an oil painter, this technique goes against everything I know. I am a gestural painter, the direction of the stroke purposeful even in abstraction, I mix as I go and work the oil paint… Watercolour has its own agenda and whispers “Are you challenging me?” as I fumble. My esteem for my former Square One studiomate Margaret Ackland and her sizeable detailed watercolours grows with every dip into the pan.
Lada Dedić on a writing retreat in Saigon HCMC, Vietnam 2023