A Silent Hero

Let's take a moment to discuss this.

I walk by this box pretty much every day.  I think it's some kind of electrical box that controls the streetlight on the same corner, but that's just a guess.  It looks like there are other boxes on the corner for that. It may not serve any mechanical purpose at all, but it does serve another potentially greater purpose. From what I can tell, this box is the most popular urinal in Ho Chi Minh City.  This non-descript box sees more dick than a Dutch hooker.  I'd say three times a week I walk past a guy actively micturating on it, the other days, it's just the remnants.  The last time I saw a guy actively using this recepticle was, well, yesterday. 

So the question is why this box?  What makes this box extra special?  Is it because it's on a corner and easily spotted from the road?  Perhaps it's because it shields the reliever on two sides, where a tree or just a wall only offers one, or none at all.

When I pass and see the rivulets I can't help but marvel at the Vietnamese ability to pee on pretty much anything at anytime.  My personal favorite is seeing children running and playing in the park, while an oldish man relieves himself on a nearby tree.  It's downright pastoral.  This is not tucked away on some back alley, mind you, but is located here:

For those readers currently living in HCM, you can make your own pilgrimage!

If you're too lazy to click on the map to view a larger version, this is pretty much the center of District 1, also known as Downtown.  There is essentially a non-stop parade of cars and motorbikes in, not one, but two directions.  This includes people sitting and waiting for the light to change at the intersection.  Traffic tends to stack up here at rush hour, so you can picture hundreds of people sitting at this interesction at any given time of day, but especially at 5:30.  Pretty wild.

The thing that is most striking to me is just how often there is more than one puddle here.  It's hot here everyday.  Liquid on the street does not last long.  As you can see from the photo, I only just missed at least two people when I arrived.  Do you think they made eye-contact? And it's not as if I scouted The Box for weeks until there was a day with two puddles.  I didn't wait for the leaves to fall just so to make this photo.  I'd passed it so many times, seen the evidence and smelled the smell so often that I was moved to document it.  How many times in your life have you had to urinate so badly that you just went on the ground?  You didn't find an obligatory McDonalds or get up while the seat belt sign was still illuminated, no, just whipped it out and let it ride. 

I can tell you that this has happened exactly once since I've lived in Vietnam.  It was my first trip to conduct company business outside of Vung Tao.  I'd lived in Vietnam roughly ten days.  A couple of us finished before our coworkers, so we hit a local restaurant to kill an hour and have a pre-departure cocktail and snack.  I made the fatal error of ordering a second beer (it was so hot and the first one was so good!), which I then had to rush through because the meeting ended.  Consequently, there was no time for a break to use the facilities.  About halfway into our three hour journey home I was floating.  I silently told myself that I could make it another 90 minutes.  I think this feeling is the same for everyone.  You notice the urge, so you put it out of your mind.  Then you find you can't stop thinking about it.  Then you find you can't stop squirming.  Inevitably this happens in as bouncy an environment as possible -for example, a 12-seat Sprinter Van over rurual Vietnamese roads.  Don't be fooled by that Mercedes logo on the front.  The Sprinter van is a plastic-seated nightmare on a long journey.  Add an incapacitating urge to pee into the equation and it's on par with a medieval torture device.  Given enough time you start to have very real and very serious conversations about the repurcussions of just going where you sit (I'm not the only one am I?).

 "Can we please stop for a bathroom break at the next good spot we see?" I squeaked, for fear that the pressure applied to my bladder by the movement of my diaphragm would unleash the hounds.
"Where do you want to stop?" Asked one of the managers.
"Anyplace with a bathroom...?" I said, clearly not understanding.

You see, public restrooms are not easy to find in Vietnam when you're outside the city.  They don't have things like rest stops or fast food chains or hotels with lobbies like the ones we're used to in the US.  There are no exits.  There are no blue signs to tell you what's coming up.  Walking into a store and asking to use the bathroom here is akin to walking into a Wendy's and demanding access to the back so you might cook your own square burger in the US.  It just doesn't happen.  Or maybe it does happen when you can converse with the locals, but I draw the line at playing "piss charades" with a non-English speaking stranger. So I too was relegated to hitting the side of the road.  In my own defense, I will say that I had the driver stop in a brushy area so I could have a little privacy.  I jumped out and sprinted behind some tall grass and got started.  Once the initial relief had passed, I managed to look around.  The looking around part only comes when you're suffering from the extreme bathroom emergency, because you find yourself standing in one place long enough to contemplate your surroundings.  In my surroundings I noticed the following details, details that I hadn't previously noted in my panic, about where we'd stopped:

1.  I was about eight feet from a house
2.  This patch of ground I was christening could be construed as their yard.
3.  There were half a dozen children playing less than ten yards from where I was standing.

I learned a valuable lesson that day.  Never have a second beer at the bar in Vietnam unless you're going to have time to get rid of it before a 3+ hour car ride.  And, even in an extreme emergency, give a cursory survey of the grounds before unleashing the dogs of war.  In the US, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a public restroom.  Really I should know better.  I found myself wishing I'd chosen a spot with privacy on two sides rather than just the road side.

Which brings us back to our friend The Box.  I find it difficult to believe that there are that many potty emergencies going on at precisely that location at any given time.  I've never seen a child using The Box.  Surely a full grown man can recognize, before leaving someplace, that a bathroom break might be neccessary prior to departure*.  

 *If I'm in a bar at the airport before my flight, I know that I should hit the head before my butt hits the seat.  I can't put my hand on the supporting text, but I believe there is a scientific corollary that states "If you have 2+ beers at the bar and don't pee before boarding a plane, you will be stuck on the tarmac (read unable to get out of your seat) for at least forty minutes, and then the flight will be bumpy and the seatbelt sign will remain illuminated."

I know it's not entirely normal to feel affection towards an inanimate object that isn't soft and/or fluffy, but I feel it for The Box.  What kind of life must it be to sit and receive a constant barrage of urine when that isn't the task you were built for?  Urinals are designed and built for this sort of thing.  They love it, look forward to it, have mechanisms in place to handle it, but The Box has nothing.  It must be a tough life.  If that box could talk, it could tell you things.  Maybe next time I pass, I'll put a rearview mirror tree on it's handle.  Although I'm not sure I can stand to get that close.

But then again, I've only lived in Vietnam for about ten months.  Perhaps The Box was the site of a horrible transgression in the lengthy history before my arrival; a transgression which resulted in creating a long-standing tradition of holding it until you get to this particular corner?  I can say with confidence that this is not the site of the Burning Buddhist Monk, because that has a slightly grander monument than a nondescript box on a street corner.

And since I've spent time wondering about the history of the box, I've spent time wondering how it came to be such a popular spot considering it appears to house electrical equipment.  If presented with an array of places with which to take refuge from a swollen bladder, electrical gear would be at or near the bottom of the list.  Somewhere in the vicinity of bear trap and land mine.

In conclusion, I'd like to address The Box itself.  Box, I know that you do a thankless job.  But I want you to know that your work and silent dignity you portray in performing it has not gone unnoticed.  In a world where people expect things instantly, it's good to know that you're there serving a greater purpose; shielding us on two sides from the indignity of urinating in public.  You aren't just an antiquated electrical junction box, no.  You answered a much higher calling long ago.  Quietly taking care of us all in our times of need.  It may not be fair, but let's face it:  "We want you on that wall.  We need you on that wall." 

Yep, this is the sort of thing I think about....