This is the neighborhood barber, just a few doors down from my apartment. He’s very friendly and keeps signalling that he’d like to have my business – especially since I have a shaved head and he does a lot of close work with a straight razor. I’ve had to pass on the opportunity. It’s a little out of my comfort zone given the fact that he has no hot or running water and uses the same razor and towel for all his customers. He does keep a jug close by, but I’m not sure if it’s to take care of his thirst or to clean the blade between shaves. He seems to be busy, especially in the afternoon when his awning provides a little shade and relief from the searing Saigon heat. This is literally just another roadside attraction. Welcome to the neighborhood.
Every newcomer to Saigon has a honeymoon experience. The people are positive, hardworking, and friendly. The energy is good. The country is booming. There is an emerging middle class. The food is good. There is no violent crime. The taxis are cheap, and there is no winter. The honeymoon seems to last about six months.
There is no defining event that brings the honeymoon to an end. It could be an encounter with the government bureaucracy or an emerging awareness that people around you seem to know what you’re doing before you do. Eventually, you realize the everyone knows your business. That’s when someone tells you about “the watchers.”
The conventional wisdom is that every street has a watcher – someone who watches the daily comings and goings of all the neighbors. It’s so stupid but then again no one says that the government attracts the best and the brightest – maybe the ambitious, the corrupt or the lazy but not the best and the brightest.
The guy with the piercing look and the Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt is an enigma to me. I have passed him every morning and every afternoon for almost a year. He never smiles or says hello, and I get a perverse delight in giving him a big smile and xin chao on my way to and from the office. I get nothing but this stare in return. Everyone else on the street is amused and delighted to play the game, but this dude is not playing. There is nothing covert about his watching. It’s hard to believe, but he sits in his plastic chair on the sidewalk from sometime before 8am when I walk by until after 5pm when I walk by going the other way. The Vietnamese prize light skin. Women go to great lengths to cover themselves so that no skin will be exposed to the sun, but this guy is the George Hamilton of Saigon. He sits there in his little plastic chair all day long as the sun passes overhead – watching life go by. He never moves, at least I’ve never seen him move.
In Vietnam men are the weaker sex. Women do all the hard work – from hauling and mixing concrete to running small enterprises on the sidewalks and keeping their families together. The men sit in their little plastic chairs and drink tea until about 4pm when they switch to beer. During the day they gossip and at night they gamble and get loud. I haven’t figured out how the guy in the picture fits in with all this, but maybe he’s a retired watcher and doesn’t know how to do anything else.
This couple has one of the many tiny businesses that set up on my street every morning. I’m not even sure what their niche is. It’s some specialty breakfast item. There are many like these two – probably half a dozen vendors serving a limited menu in the two and half blocks between my apartment and office. Some have a small heat source; some not. Some serve pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup. Some serve a kind of dry cereal or biscuit. Most have an array of soft drinks or tea. All of them have a cart to transport whatever is needed. Then they sit or squat and wait for their customers. I’m particularly drawn to this couple. There is an unfathomable sweetness to their dispositions. I pass them each morning about 8. I seldom see anyone buying from them, but they are always smiling and always pleased when I say xin chao (good morning). My simple greeting always gets a big return smile and a little chuckle. I know they are curious and amused but we don’t have a common language so we share our interest and respect for each other by smiling and saying hello.
The mystery of small enterprises like theirs is how they subsist. Do they have other jobs? Do they have extended family that cares for them? I can’t imagine that their little cart provides anything like a living. I was even more mystified when I discovered that they were gone before noon. I always imagined them sitting all day by their food cart until the day I walked home for lunch and noticed that they had packed up and departed. The same was true of most of the other mobile enterprises. Where do they go? What do they do for the remaining hours of the day? The Vietnamese are incredibly industrious, so I feel certain that when they pack up and leave it is for another spot and another Mom and Pop effort – maybe a better spot for lunch traffic or another job.
The guys in the picture are the security detail for the Hollywood Cafe and Bar just down the block from my apartment. I don’t know the exact nature of the Hollywood. Does a neighborhood cafe and bar really need 5 security guys 24/7 to keep things under control? And then there are the two good looking girls (not seen here)in black satin and stilettos greeting the customers. There never seem to be many customers but the big TV screens visible from the street make it seem more like a sports bar than love for sale. I stopped once with a friend for a quick beer at an outside table, and I still don’t know exactly what the core business is.
I’m lucky to live just a short walk from the office and that has made me a bit of a local celebrity. As I make my way down the street, holding close to the curb (the sidewalk is reserved for motorbike parking) the locals wave and say hello to the white guy with the shoulder bag. The big guy in the center is the leader of the band and every morning he steps off the curb with a big smile and gives me a meaty “high-five.” The other guys smile and nod but Mr. Big is The Man.
I’m always startled by the contrasts in Saigon. As we sit drinking our $3.00 lattes at Gloria Jean’s we look out on the early morning street life. This woman passes our window every morning on the way to deliver her load. The load is always like the one in the picture – two baskets filled with potatoes, yams, cassava, taro, bananas, avocados, etc. It has to weigh 50 or 60 pounds and she manages it with a serious limp. I don’t know where she starts her journey, but she always pauses, puts down her load, and rests as she turns the corner into this little street. This is the Vietnamese Social Security system. There is no free ride or retirement age in Vietnam. You work until you can’t work any longer and then your family provides. Families are large and close and very supportive. We have a Vietnamese friend who lives with his wife and 21 children and grandchildren in a 5 room house. Social Security is not perfect, but it is a safety net of sorts. That’s what the family is in Vietnam. I don’t know which system is better. I think it might be a combination. We warehouse our old and infirm. The Vietnamese work them until there isn’t anything left in the tank.
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