Pocket Pissing

"Pissing in pockets."
A saying that was imbedded in my mind by a good friend who used it to explain the shenanigans of a certain breed of expats who frequented the back alley cafes of SaiGon’s Pham Ngu Lao Street. These lanes are exponentially quieter and freer of tourists than the main drags of Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham. But still, there can be a bit of drama. After all, this is where the bull shit gets heard.
Not that bullshit doesn’t exist elsewhere. It does. Everywhere, in fact. It’s simply that this small space is where I have found it to be most pronounced. Said pocket pissing takes place on a proportionately epic scale.
This kind of expat chatter is nothing new. Good God, Ernest Hemmingway made himself a legend by capturing the stuff on the page. Tough talk about bullfighting, hunting, fishing, war, death.
Usually, the purpose of this talk is simply the talk itself. Actions, whether real or imaginary, are sometimes performed for the sole purpose of using them in conversation. And there are props. On gentleman used to carry around a set of business cards he’d collected from clients, flashing them during conversations about the import export business. “These are my contacts. And these are just the one’s I carry around on weekdays. I’ve got another one for weekends,” he say (or something to that effect). Eventually, his money ran out. Everyone knew it, but he still persisted, bragging about his business plans. Some of the other guys would encourage it, voicing their own pipe dreams. I guess this is what is meant by pissing in one another’s pockets. “You give me some bull shit, and I, in turn, will give some to you. There, the score is even. We can now both feel that we will now succeed in our personal conquest of this part of the world.”
You feel sorry for them. Then, as the alcoholic beverages flow, things get a little more hostile, and you forget that you ever felt sorry for them.

I’m sure that pissing in pockets is harmless enough. Just remember to take any expat’s advice with a grain of salt. Especially when there are other expats around and alcohol is involved.