an update from your ambiguous friend, j.
It's been a while.
Many of you have known me for some time, and you've seen me through many fluctuations and expressions. You've seen me go through iterations of my instagram feed, only to remove all of the posts and start again—at least six times.
Often I find it so difficult to formulate words to describe the flows of my experience and to relate those experiences to others outside of the few relationships I've purpose-built to exist beyond the surface of status-quo social relationships mediated by the spectacle, commerce, trade, or industry.
At some point, I want all of my relationships to exist on this plane: where we speak to each other like we know each other, where we ignore polite social queues, where it feels like we've been waking up and going to sleep in neighboring beds since we were kids.
But ultimately this is a romance novel desire. Instead, those of us who hold such presence are too sincere, too earnest, or too calm while moving through an accelerated society in the throes of the techno capital commodification of Life itself.
Where does this leave us?
On July 1st, my husband Dominic and I moved to Saigon. Being in Vietnam as someone born in the country that occupied and ravaged this nation between 1940-1970, I live in a state of remembrance.
My brown skin and facial composition make it obvious I'm not a native, and that has some local people curious. Although many here don't speak English well, they know enough to ask "where are you from?", and they do with my letters "U.S.A" what they've grown accustomed to doing—accept.
For Dominic, being a walking symbol of whiteness draws the same attention it does anywhere. The brute legacy of the British Empire is felt throughout the world. I find it odd that people could be so welcoming and kind to either of us being that the imperialist regimes of our homelands maintain their terrorist policies on the global poor, working-class, and POC.
Aside from that, living here is wonderful. I'll spare the details for another time.
As someone who works online as a website builder, I must admit my social position parallel between the "Digital Nomad" and "Expat" tech-worker who, using their foreign salary, live on par with the upper-middle-class and superimpose themselves on the many locals who do earn less.
I don't associate with either of these camps or seek them out in their infamous "neighborhoods" here in Saigon. I equate both of these positions to the same kind of entrepreneurial attitudes that are so prevalent in a capitalist society, and so harmful to the human spirit.
On the one hand, yes, the cost of living here is much lower than it was in our previous home Lisbon (that my Portuguese salary is so low that I'm in survival mode whether living in Europe or Vietnam is another curious point that I won't question now). On the other hand, Dominic works with Chinese music and our now closer proximity to China aids him there. That was, ultimately, where we thought we'd live before the pandemic border closures.
Regardless, today I am only a worker and my website building is only a job. Aware of the class politics that my being here imply's, I ask for grace and patience from the people of Vietnam so that this dumb American can get his shit together while living in their country.
I've been holding off from sending this because I wanted it to announce a new essay, to tell you all that I'm being a good, little commie nerd and showing off my latest political analysis. But between moving, survival, and the news cycle, I'm hardly even finding the time to study and write.
And it's not like many of you aren't already aware that our global-social order is in a state of perpetual madness at the behest of the global political elite and capitalist executive class while we rapidly phase into the endemic state of enviro-chaos politics.
I'm not sure what's next for me since the "what's next" for humanity is so uncertain. When I ignore finality or the logical end, I see myself further studying at university (within a socialist economic state like Vietnam, for instance) to better poise myself with an understanding of governance and policy as it relates to labor, industrial, and regenerative agricultural ecosystems, environmental protection/preservation, DeFi, sustainable technology—political economics in short.
Being an un-credentialed website builder (designer, if you can call it that), I'm not sure how these aspirations align with me or how tenable they are to assume. In any case, we still live in a world whose primary organizational logic is that of patriarchal capitalism where roles of leadership have a particular preference for white people with big assets and big networks.
Today I am essentially invisible. You can see the impossible challenge that I'm determined to overcome. I don't see myself as doing this alone, but in lockstep with the global south, and the revolutionary party. I've just yet to find my product and valued place there.
If you're still reading this, then clearly you're interested in what I'm doing.
This past week, I published a major update to my website including two photo galleries and six projects. All of my old journals are there. The goal of my site has always been to present my artistic work within a conducive environment—one which understands the politics, the violence, and the Life of my work.
I hope that this iteration of the design lasts for many years to come, and acts as a solid foundation. I will send another update soon about a special project that I've been working on—an educational, political resource.
So, that's it for now. Check out bilhan.website and browse all of the new and old work within this refreshed web space.
I welcome any of you to write, give your feedback, and comments, or just send me an update as well.
Stay free.
With love,
- j.