The Kindness Diaries: One Man's Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World

by Logothesis, Leon

  Vin explained to me that offering me lunch was not a rare act for her. “It’s part of my nature,” she told me. “I like to help people. Especially foreigners who are not familiar with our country.”

  She opened her arms wide as she exclaimed, “So I speak for the people, and I welcome you and host you.”

  If only the border guards had been so inviting.

  “What are your dreams?” I asked Vin. “What do you dream about?”

  She thought about it for a second. “I do dream that I can help people have a better life.”

  As we were finishing our lunch, she told me about a doctor she knew, “He believes in kindness, too. In helping people. This doctor he gives people their eyes back.”

  Okay. I was a little confused. “He helps the blind?”

  “Yes, for poor people. With him, they can see.” She thought about it before asking, “Would you like to meet this doctor?”

  Twenty minutes later, after a terrifying trip on the back of Vin’s scooter, we were at the clinic of the doctor.

  We walked into the waiting room, which was filled with people. They were all visually impaired, some accompanied by a child or grandchild. The doctor came out to take back a new client, but Vin quickly went to him and explained where I was from and what I was doing.

  He asked if we could wait while he attended to a few more patients for the day. As we sat in the waiting room, Vin translated various conversations with the people around us. I learned that many of them lived in rural communities, where access to doctors was difficult. I discovered that many of them weren’t suffering from permanent blindness, but simply cataracts. In the West, cataract surgery was a very common procedure, but for these rural villagers, it was out of reach. Most of the patients expected to go blind by the end of their lives, despite the simple fix.

  “But the surgery is so easy,” I told Vin.

  “Yes,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just hard for people to find doctor to do. They cannot afford.”

  Not long after, the doctor came and brought us into his office. Dr. Nguyen spoke English, which he had picked up while studying in England.

  He explained his work as simply being a part of his community: “I think it’s just a part of my job, helping the poor blind people to see again. Being blind is such a heavy burden for them and for their family.”

  The doctor’s humility helped me set my own worries aside. Sure, Kindness One sat in lock up at the border, but what did that matter in comparison to this work? “It puts everything into perspective for me. That I saw all of those people upstairs who couldn’t see when they came here and now they can,” I shared.

  The doctor gently shrugged and replied, “It is my job. It is my calling.”

  I remembered back to the first day I set foot in America, determined to cross it on only $5 a day. There I was—a grown man, who had once been the awkwardly shy kid in class—going up to anyone who would look in my direction, asking them for help, trying to plead a cause I wasn’t so sure I believed in myself. Adventure had set me free. It was what made me feel a part of this collective life. It was my calling.

  Though the doctor had studied abroad, he had decided to take what he had learned and bring it back to his own people. He had brought the adventure home. I wondered whether I might do the same. Or whether chance meetings like this might always call me away?

  I motioned to Vin, saying, “Had you not been in that noodle shop today, I wouldn’t have met you.”

  And then I turned to the doctor, “And had I not met Vin, I wouldn’t have met you. I wouldn’t have seen the amazing work that you are doing.”

  I smiled, realizing out loud, “One second difference, and none of us would have crossed paths. And here we are, sitting together.”

  Vin laughed, replying, “I think this came from your side first. If you didn’t plan to be in Ho Chi Minh City, you could not see all of us here. So this came from you first.”

  She was right. Had my bike not been detained, had I not been stuck in Ho Chi Minh City for days, I wouldn’t have met either of them. I wouldn’t have seen the doctor’s inspiring work, or met his wonderful patients, or made a new friend in Vin.

  Suddenly I felt overwhelmed with emotion. Waiting for the bike. Meeting all these wonderful people, who just wanted to connect, to help, to love. Seeing how this man had realized that the best work didn’t happen someplace else, but locally. I could feel my voice choking as I blurted out: “What I want to do is help pay for one hundred surgeries.”

  They both looked stunned. I think I was a little stunned as well. In America, one hundred surgeries would have been very expensive, indeed. What had I done? Surely this would bankrupt me.

  Fortunately, I soon found out that the cost of the surgery in Vietnam was far more reasonable.

  The doctor thanked me, still a little in shock from my offer. “We are very, very happy when we see kind people like you, who are giving help to the poor people. I also think if you do that, you also feel happy.”

  Vin added, “I wish you have a long life and that you help more people around the world.”

  As I walked out of the clinic, Vin’s words echoed in my ears: “I hope you help more people around the world.” I wondered if this trip were just the beginning. Just as I had loved connecting with strangers while crossing America a few years before, now, I had found another love, another calling: helping others fulfill their dreams. A lofty goal, I know, but I like lofty goals.

  Should all that stop after I returned home to LA? Maybe I would be taking what I learned from this journey and finding new ways to continue it—not only across the world, but also at home.

  I continued walking through the city and decided that if ever there were a time for karma to return to me, now would be it. I went into an Internet café and pulled out my computer, feeling like a gambler at the slot machine in Vegas. Come on, Vietnam! What I found was nothing. Well, something, but nothing good. It was another email from my friends at the shipping company. They still weren’t able to get the Vietnamese to sign off on releasing my bike.

  I shut down the computer and thought long and hard, and then I opened it back up and went to Google. I typed in six very important words: US Embassy Ho Chi Minh City.

  It was time to bring in the Americans.

  Now why not go to your own people, you might ask? First, for logistics—the bike was a registered American “citizen.” And second, I had a feeling that no one likes getting a call from the US embassy.

  After finagling a place to stay with some friendly backpackers (Canadians, in fact!), I woke up the next morning and met with a representative at the American embassy. They looked at my documents, heard my plea (no crying or lying this time), and promised to look into it.

  “I am trying to get on a boat in four days,” I explained.

  The American agent was at least more friendly than the border guards, but he was not much more optimistic. He looked at my documents again as he murmured, “Four days?”

  Finally, he looked up. “That might take a miracle, Mr. Logo-the-tis.”

  I walked out, stunned. I thought if anyone could help, it would be the US embassy, and now even they were talking about miracles. I had already been praying for a miracle. What I needed was some good, old-fashioned diplomatic strong-arming.

  I didn’t even notice where I was going as I walked down the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, frustration boiling up inside me—the anger, the pain, the exhaustion of being trapped in a foreign land, with no clear passage home.

  I thought back to when I was riding through Cambodia, believing I was only days away from boarding the ship that would take me back to my adopted continent, and now it felt like I would be trapped in Ho Chi Minh City indefinitely. Talk about the walls closing in. I would like to think that I wasn’t talking to myself (I was) when an older man approached me. He was dressed in a
modern suit, and I could tell by the clean haircut and shined shoes that he was probably someone kind of important. He had stepped out of the imposing wooden doors of the Ho Chi Min City opera house and walked right up to me. I feared he was going to tell me to get off the marble steps but instead he asked me with a deep concern, “You are okay, Mister?”

  I was most certainly not okay.

  It’s one thing to be blathering on to yourself, but it’s an entirely different thing when your audience includes an elderly gentleman in a business suit.

  “No, I’m fine,” I explained. “I’m just having a minor meltdown. I’ve found myself stuck in Ho Chi Minh City. Which has been lovely really, but . . .”

  He stared at me, waiting for something else.

  Finally, I confessed, “I’m just tired.”

  “Yes, life can do this to us.”

  His sympathy made me relax a bit, enough to explain my journey.

  “And how perfect,” he replied, laughing. “It has brought you here to our opera house.”

  “Well, not in the best condition,” I admitted before telling him about my journey.

  He smiled at me warmly, reminding me of the fatherly concern of Filipo in Italy. He seemed to know how fraught long days can feel.

  “Are you here tonight?” Bao asked me. I looked up. Removed from my frustration for a moment, I hoped he might offer me a meal or a place to stay.

  “Yes,” I quickly replied.

  “Then maybe we make your night better. Would you like to come and see the opera?” he offered.

  I felt like I was back in India, suddenly being asked to a karate match while Kindness One leaked in the background. But I figured no one was going to kick me in the face at the opera.

  That night I arrived and sat in my seat, wearing the same shabby clothes that had accompanied me the whole trip. I had discovered upon going into the opera house to retrieve my ticket that it was the director himself who had invited me. At the intermission, Bao came up and asked me if I would be interested in joining the performers on stage.

  Joining the performers on stage? Surely this man wasn’t real.

  He was real, and soon I found myself standing on stage in front of an audience of hundreds. You cannot make this stuff up.

  During the last ten minutes of the show, they gave me a set of drums and allowed me to become a part of the performance. For those ten minutes, I poured everything I had into those drums—the exhaustion, the joy, the fears, the kindness, the cry for home, and the exhilaration that had reverberated throughout my journey. I had never been much of a musician (as Tchale and Finesse could certainly attest), but in that moment, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t just banging away on some drums, I was telling a story, one that I hoped might end well—or at the very least, would end with me getting out of Nam.

  As I came out to give my bow, people started enthusiastically clapping for me. And it hit me.

  More than anything else, the most important thing we need is to be seen by others. It wasn’t just the fuel for greatness; it was part of the foundation of survival. I thought back to Seng, alone in her rickety house, with no one watching out for her. Perhaps loneliness is the most fatal disease. We all need to feel acknowledged by those around us. We need to be seen. And we also need to be able to see others. Doctor Nguyen was restoring sight, but more than just fixing their vision, he was acknowledging their right to have a dignified place in this world.

  And in many ways, through my gifts, I was also trying to do just that. If nothing else, I wanted to acknowledge their existence, their struggle. Because life is hard. And sometimes it brings us to our knees. We need someone to find us on the opera steps, to remind us that no matter how desperate or terrifying or mundane our lives might become, we shouldn’t lose sight of the music around us. In fact, it just means we have to play louder, play so loudly that we drown out the pain or fear, or even the impossible border guards waging war against yellow motorbikes!

  For so many years, I hadn’t felt seen, and yet here I was at the Ho Chi Minh City Opera House, bowing before an applauding audience—because sometimes it’s also the big moments.

  Chapter Twelve

  “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.”

  —Ben Williams

  I got the call at seven in the morning: “The ambassador will see you today.”

  Upon arriving at the consulate, however, I discovered that I would not actually be meeting with the ambassador, himself. Instead, an appointment had been arranged with a consulate official that worked in customs. Sounded just as good to me.

  After the call, I headed over to the official’s office to find out just what miracles they had in store for me. He asked if I had all my documents with me. I did—my bike’s registration, the carnet, and other records that basically vouched for my status as a really good guy and not someone who was part of an underground terrorist network.

  The official then handed them to his assistant and asked that they be photocopied. He turned to me and explained: “I can’t make you any promises, but we’ll see what we can do.”

  As the official and I waited for the assistant to return, he tried to explain the tricky little Vietnamese customs law that had kept Kindness One locked in solitary confinement for the better part of the week: You could only bring in items that you could literally carry. Unless that item was new. But Kindness One was far from new, and there was no way I could carry it.

  Not long after, the official seemed concerned that his assistant had not returned. He called him back in the office and asked for the documents. The assistant cocked his head: “The documents?”

  Oh, shit.

  “Yes,” the official tried quite valiantly to keep his cool. “The documents?”

  “Oh,” his assistant replied nonchalantly, “I shredded those.”

  Yes, you heard that right. I mean, at the time, the official and I both doubted our hearing, but what the assistant had said was true. He had shredded all of my most important documents. In the process he had actually done me an enormous favor—though I certainly didn’t know that then. I could barely hear the official talking as he made apologies, promises, and tried desperately not to dress down his hapless underling, who was now only beginning to realize his error. Or should I say, the magnitude of his error.

  I left the embassy in a fog of desperation, shock clinging to me. All week Hao had been saying, “Don’t worry, Leon. Everything is going to be okay.”

  But Hao was wrong. Everything was not going to be okay.

  I went back to the apartment where I had found shelter the last two nights and called Lina. I was going to have to start coming up with other ways out of Vietnam. I was going to have to prepare myself for leaving behind Kindness One, and returning home . . . by plane.

  “Leon, there could be far worse fates,” Lina tried to comfort me.

  “Name one,” I tersely replied.

  “You could be not coming home at all. You could have gotten hurt on the road. Or worse.”

  I knew she was right, but still, I had begun to create a new dream in my head: an image of me riding back into Los Angeles on Kindness One. The prodigal boyfriend returning home.

  “You’ll come home however you’re supposed to,” Lina continued. “Remember sometimes the universe sends a rainstorm so we don’t drive into the tornado.”

  Who knew my girlfriend was a direct descendant of Mother Teresa?

  I went to bed and prepared myself for another day of stormy weather.

  The next day, I got another call from the consulate: Calls were being made, papers were being drawn, I should plan to head back to the border the next day to try to claim Kindness One. If I could have run to the consulate and kissed that assistant myself, I would have. Because here is the other side of kindness—though happiness cannot be bartered, to a certain extent, kindness can. Be
cause of the documents mishap, the official likely felt he, how shall I put it, “owed me one.” And that tradeoff might just have been Kindness One’s only way out of Vietnam.

  I returned to the guard who had denied me only days before.

  The guard looked down at my paperwork and nodded: “Hold on.”

  Hold on. Okay, that I could do. I had been doing it for five days, so what were a few more moments? He went and spoke with the chief, who had been telling me no for days on end—via email, via telephone, and in person. The men nodded and looked gruffly in my direction.

  The guard came back, and replied without smiling, “You take bike now.”

  “Into Vietnam?” I asked.

  He nodded again, as though this were not a big deal. As though foreigners with vintage yellow bikes did this every day. He told me to go to the container where Kindness One was being held.

  Never had I been so happy to have annoyed an entire country.

  I had learned by that point that things are never easy at border crossings. After Hao drove me back to where Kindness One was being detained, we soon found out a rather unfortunate slice of information. After speaking further with the Vietnamese border authorities, we discovered that I could have the bike, but I would not be allowed to ride it in Vietnam.

  I could have the bike, but I would not be allowed to ride it in Vietnam?

  The magic of yellowness had finally met its match. Or had it? Because where there are problems, there are solutions. If only I could find a solution before having a heart attack in my late thirties.

  I would need to have the bike transported in a sealed container to the port, seventy miles away.

  Sensing my growing desperation, Hao came to the rescue and offered to arrange a truck to take Kindness One to the port. I accepted. Blood pressure reduced. Hope increased. When the truck showed up, however, we realized it was missing one very important detail: a ramp. As in, the ramp we needed to wheel the bike into the back of the truck. After some thought, I came up with the only plan that made any sense—though, as you will see, it actually made no sense. We would lift the bike into the truck. Yes, we would lift a nearly one-ton bike into the back of a Vietnamese truck.