Saigon, Saigon: The music of my new residence

Editor’s word: English/Japanese Liam Langan recollects how his music style has been formed after residing in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis: from the second he stepped out of the Tan Son Nhat airport to when he started to come back to phrases with the town’s noise.

I’ve been in Saigon for six months now. This metropolis, which upon my arrival danced to its personal fast, uneven beat, now appears to have slowed down so I can catch my breath, wanting round every now and then once I’m cruising its jumbled streets on my motorcycle to assume:

I’m right here now. I’m right here. 

I’ve settled into my new life. One with new alternatives, new individuals, a brand new routine, and extra just lately, a brand new style of music. Ever since highschool, this was the way it occurred. Anytime I’d journey I discovered myself listening to a distinct form of music, as if the style had been a direct channel into the brand new land and my way of thinking there. And like a snake shedding its outdated and worn out pores and skin, I used to be rising into yet one more befitting of the unfamiliar atmosphere I used to be in. 

This thought first got here to me throughout a very bleak winter once I was a teen in Tokyo. Swiftly, I couldn’t cease listening to ‘Form of Blue’ by Miles Davis. The album encompassed every thing I felt on the time, a way of hopelessness dwelling in each nook of the town because the neon pale and there was solely a suffocating assortment of concrete buildings. They had been stacked one atop the opposite, towering and towering. 

From there, the file on the vinyl turned to Home and Techno, owing to my first actual style of independence in an English college the place sleepless nights with mates turned the norm. Regardless of the ecstasy, the transfer additionally got here with bouts of homesickness the place I scoured YouTube for something Japanese. This led to my discovery of Metropolis-pop, a style of 80’s Japanese music that transported me 1000’s of miles again residence right into a time I’d by no means identified. Throughout these songs the promise of Tokyo was alive and effectively, and I used to be all the higher for it. 

Since then, my music tastes have fluctuated. Like some failed runaway I at all times return to Rock and Jazz—my favorites and the 2 ‘mum or dad’ genres that first actually acquired me into music—however I additionally let my ear wander. It’s picked up quite a few tunes alongside the best way to both latch onto or just, let go, however now, after six months in Saigon, I can safely say I’ve developed a love for 2 genres specifically.

There’s no use for a drum roll so I’ll come out and say it: Ambient and Classical music are the 2 genres I can’t cease listening to. It’s ironic that these are those which have taken over, however it additionally makes lots of sense. Nevertheless, so that you can get an thought of why they’re, I’ll have to offer you a top level view of my time right here to date. 

The second I stepped out the door at Tan Son Nhat Worldwide Airport, I used to be met with a barrage of noise. Relations wailed glad greetings, kids operating off into the arms of giggly grandmothers whereas mates and lovers reunited with hugs and kisses. Images had been taken, snap—snap—snapping and the flashes made them really feel as loud as flash bangs.

I’d taken my earphones off and heard every thing abruptly. Saigon, I used to be right here now, dealing with a wall of what seemed like a thousand Vietnamese faces once I was struck with the truth that I knew nobody. And wasn’t that as thrilling because it was scary? Rolling my bag alongside, taxi drivers waved and referred to as me over, asking the place I used to be going and promising to take me there for reasonable. I nodded, considerably embarrassed as I bowed my head, the noise swarming throughout. 

From then on, the noise by no means stopped.

I rapidly realized that in Saigon, irrespective of the place you might be, you’re at all times shut sufficient to listen to one thing. Whether or not it’s the incessant howl of an ambulance caught in site visitors, the bubble and pop of a boiling pot of broth, or a cat’s yawn as she stretches out in a sunlit alley, the notion of an entire silence escaped me—There was no such factor and had there ever been? 

Weeks handed. I began work as an English trainer the place the noise was much more rampant—School rooms filled with twenty-three nine-year-olds letting off steam to smaller teams of five-year-olds the place we sang, danced, and clapped our fingers. Although I then believed a category of quiet, obedient college students could be a godsend, my first lesson with a gaggle of clammed up youngsters proved in any other case. I spent a complete two hours making an attempt to make up for his or her silence, feeling like some weekday clown as I cajoled and joked whereas they stared again blankly; one ought to by no means need to endure such humiliation.

After some time of this, I started to come back to phrases with Saigon’s noise. I discovered my spot within the hubbub and the pitch on the audio system lowered, the unending honks and cheery native chatter fading out till it was all within the again, all behind me. It was like being underwater and looking out up. You see the daylight shift throughout the water’s floor however it by no means touches you. You solely float in deep blue area. I used to be now not affected, kind of ambling on at my very own tempo and name it destiny or name it no matter however it was round then the transition into listening to extra Ambient and Classical music was made. 

These days, Ambient artists like Brian Eno, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Kenichiro Isoda, or Classical pianists like Chopin, Debussy, and John Fields have taken over so my flat is always full of the music of their light peace. However is it a peace from Saigon or a peace inside it? Am I operating from the city-wide insanity or have I tailored to it? That’s a query I nonetheless haven’t discovered the reply to. A better a part of me believes it’s the previous as a result of that one’s simpler to abdomen, however then once more, it’s true that I really feel extra at residence right here now than I ever have. It’s a humorous thought then to think about that possibly all of the locals have some silent Ambient monitor or fairly Classical piece enjoying via their head, as if for anybody to essentially have the ability to operate on this metropolis, one must tune into the order amongst the chaos, be in a perpetual calm despite the storm. Who is aware of.

At this level it’s all hypothesis and on the finish of the day, does it even matter? All I do know is that I’m right here now, I’m right here, and that is the music of my new residence. 

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