The cafe shoe-shiner

I was doing work at a central cafe right behind the Opera House in district 1. It is one of my favorite cafes because it is outdoors, comfortable, and it is planted in the middle of a lively intersection in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

Throughout the afternoon, a humble Vietnamese man kept popping through the side entrance and looking around for something. I caught on that he was scouting out the shoes of people, so that he could find potential customers. He was a shoe-shiner, and where else to offer services then at a busy cafe where many tourists, business people, and socialites gather?

He would ask people if they'd like to get their shoes shined, but most people declined. Finally, I was heartened when his perseverance did pay off about an hour after I first saw his head peek over the handrail on my side. A businessman sitting at the table beside me contemplated the shoe-shiner's requesting face, looked back at his own shoes, and just when I thought that he was just going to get back to his partner and continue where he was interrupted, he beckoned in acceptance to the shoe-shiner. The latter came around the terrace and came up to the businessman's table to gather his shoes, replaced them with a pair of slippers, and went back to the side entrance of the cafe where he squatted down and started his labour.

After about 8 minutes of dedicated scrubbing and shining, he brought the newly-shined leather shoes back to the businessman who was engrossed in some business talk. The businessman asked him how much it was, and I couldn't really hear what the answer was, but he handed the shoe-shiner about 75,000 VND. That is about $3.25. I'm not sure if the businessman gave any tip in that amount or not, but $3.25 is not a bad rate for 8 minutes of work, considering that the average salary in Vietnam is $185 per month. The shoe-shiner would just need to get two clients per day to reach that target.

May more easygoing businessmen with dirty shoes come to cafes!

My Summer with VUS

 
The final section of the kid's summer scrapbook project is about their English class at the school, VUS.

By following a guided script, they write about where their school is located, what their course is, who their teacher is, who their friends at VUS are...

Good way to make students reflect on their learnings and experience in English class? Or good ol' brand-name reinforcement and advertisement for VUS?

In any case, the children's depictions of the VUS buildings are quite reflective as they showcase the well-known maroon-red color facades of the franchise across the city. On a more shocking note, the students described me, their teacher, as having "blue eyes"?!? What??? How could I have blue eyes? Well, I am sure they were just re-copying the sample script that was handed out to them... But they did manage to change the nationality part to "Canada" for me though... They would've assumed I would have blue eyes?

But then again, a lot of students in Vietnam have a misconception of Canada as being a Caucasian-only country, as is illustrated in the following dialogue that I have with students of all levels (including adults) all too often:

(First day of class:)
- Teacher, where are you from?
 - I'm from Canada!
(whole class heaves "ahhh" in wonderment...)
- But, you look Asian!!!

Their depictions of me: 

Sunlight showers

The other day, the rain was very beautiful. I was eating in a restaurant and suddenly the sound of rain smashing on the streets took over. I looked out the window and saw water streams dashing through a big canvas of bright light. It was raining, but it was very sunny.

The sunlight lasted a while. I went home and it was still lit outside. I wanted to change into swimwear and just run around in the rain. Of course, I didn't.

There's something about rain in daylight that makes you happy. It makes life look beautiful. I do not know why. Perhaps the contrast of rain and sun, or dark times and bright times, blended together.

A reminder that life is composed of the two, but when you put the two together you realize life is still more beautiful on the whole.

I tried to capture the sunlit showers on camera, but near the end it started getting more cloudy. Nevertheless, there's still always something soothing about hearing rainshowers.

Food stall... out of the rubble

One day, as I was riding down a big busy boulevard around my area, I noticed a new food stall selling fresh Bánh xèo. Why, this Vietnamese pancake dish is sold all over the city in the streets and alleyways, sometimes made with very basic home cookware. So why did I notice this one? Well, because the tiny street eat stood at the edge of an empty, dusty, demolished site.

 Well, they couldn't have a backdrop that worked more to their advantage, I thought to myself, as I rolled up beside the street "resto". Any passerby would notice this stall as it clearly stood out in the middle of this vast deserted lot. I asked the lady wiping down the neatly propped up metal tables if they were open. She nodded and placed me at one of the tables. I ordered a serving of the bánh xèo and the lady proceeded to cooking. Another lady swept the premises, although to me this deed seemed obsolete as we were planted in the middle of a large dust warp. I opened a wet nap provided and wiped down my hands which seemed so parched amidst the breezes of sand.

I asked the lady about the site. Isn't there going to be construction here? To my dismay, she replied yes. They were scheduled to start construction in several months (I forgot the exact amount, but she said the exact number of months). So, you're only here for [x] months? She confirmed affirmatively. She has the actual permit to set up her stall out here, attached to the pole hanging up the tarp. So she knew about the construction plans... she was not just a hustler illegally selling food and trying to take advantage of the empty space...This was an organized plan... I ate my food, which was tasty as expected.

But why did you decide to set up shop here, knowing that this space is only available for very little time? She told me that she was desperate, and she needed to take all of the opportunities to make the money.

A few months vacancy right before construction is set to start may seem like a feeble and futile window for Westerners to even think about doing business... but for many Vietnamese, survival means seizing all of the opportunities in sight, no matter how big or small.

 

 

Cafe Sua Da with a View

What is better than enjoying a good ice-cold Vietnamese coffee (Cafe Sữa Đá) in Ho Chi Minh City? Enjoying it over a panoramic view of the city, of course!

Strata Cafe&Bar just recently opened several months ago, and serving at the 50th floor of the Bitexco Financial Tower, the view is nothing short of breathtaking. Bitexco Financial Tower (262.5 meters high) is now the second highest building in Vietnam, after being topped out by Landmark 72 Tower in Hanoi (336 meters) in January of this year.

The views are definitely off the charts, but at about $4.50 for a Cafe Sữa Đá (which normally costs 50 cents on the streets), so are the beverage prices. However, the on-top-of-the-world feeling makes it all worth it!

Kids' favorite things

The third part of the children's Summer Scrapbook program is about the students' favorites. What do Vietnamese children like? What is their most prized possession?

For some girls, it is a Walt Disney cartoon, such as Cinderella, Snow White or the recent movie Tangled, and for others, it is a book, such as the world-renowned series of Chicken Soup for the Soul (in this kid's case, "for the Kid's Soul" edition). Other girls cherish their pet dogs at home. And for Minh Anh, playing soccer is her favorite thing, which she usually does after she finishes her homework.