The difficulties of becoming settled in the new environment subsided somewhat. I have concentrated more on my own during the last days and met people. After three months of investing all my energy for other’s businesses, doing something for me now also meant buying a trendy motorbike despite financial constraints. And it feels good to fly through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. The plate numerals summed up result in “chin nút” - that stands for perfect development and luck.
Peer group pressure in the Socialist Republic – I became weak and followed one of the commercial trends in the most capitalist country ever seen. Howsoever, it’s fast and comfortable…
Opening my eyes, seeing the people, listening to friends, reading the advertisements and observing the attempts to an advanced lifestyle in Vietnam, I learn that everything is about money in this country. Having to take care for myself and possibly for a girl and a child, this tiger-nation-mindset does now also affect me. I am looking for ways to make more and more. Passing the national bank on an early morning and seeing money loaded out of fright containers, some gangster-movie ideas came up: anesthetization gas, a helicopter, a pool-villa on a lonely island…But what to do with billions of Vietnam Dong there?
three container trucks full of money at the backdoor of the national bank
Anyways, this is not a good way to make money. And actually it does not have to be that much. Just enough to make some dreams come through. The show-off that Asia’s rich love to celebrate does not have to be. Even the middle class show-off in the trendy cafés of the city seems somehow ridiculous to me. The coffee shop culture in Vietnam is taking off into undreamt highs. Or is it just a revival of a new colonial lifestyle of the better-off in a dual society?
the newly opened Windows café at Alexandre de Rhodes Street – rendezvous for arrogant Viet Kieu, dolled up call-girls and the young, rich and beautiful of the city
In such a competitive society it is even more important to have a few friends one can really rely on. The best and most open-minded guys, however, seem to feel the need to discover the world and leave the country for places where people are more open-minded and less struggling. Tam had invited me to join a farewell dinner with his family before he left to the United States. It was great honour for me. I will keep him in good reminiscence. This guy was always there for me and he is a person I could really trust. A pity he left. We could have made some good business here. Maybe there will be another meting in Phoenix, Arizona or in California one day.
the best guys are leaving the country – Tam will always remain a real friend
Generally spoken life might be good to me. Chris recently mentioned that we are in the position to not even having finished our university but already living an expatriate (is it that neo-colonial one?) lifestyle. He is right somehow. Life quality in Saigon is good compared to other bigger cities in Southeast Asia. I could afford much here. However, for some reasons, at the moment this is not possible. Saigon has atmosphere, maybe much more than any other city, but it lacks activities that are different from eating, shopping and clubbing - all of which I am not that much interested in. Recently we drove to district two at a creek of Saigon River. An American entrepreneur has built the city’s first artificial rock there. Be was invited to try to climb and he did the first five of 26 meters as fast as a flash. We were impressed of how fast and fearless that small skinny boy climbed up the rock.
Be climbing up the artificial rock
on the way to school – every street in this city means for me that girl
From the beginning here end of last year, life has had much of a kind of daily grind. Even before, I had always recognized this place as a place of negative vibes generally. No social responsibility, no intellectual thinking, not much of creative open-mindedness, and elbow-society. The last months were really hard as we had to get over many problems. And in times of hardness it is good to have some people around who really care. I have to say thank you to friends who listened on the phone and who replied emails; and also to my neighbour Mrs. Hoa, the elderly lady who literally forces me to a daily small talk. After my time as at the service in the hospital a few years ago, I see once more that sometimes the oldest people are the most relaxed and progressive thinkers.
co Hoa and her husband – the best neighbours ever…
…and her most ever delicious mushrooms.
The house I have been renting for more than three months already is located in the district one of Ho Chi Minh City, inside a small alley of Tran Hung Dao Street. Neighbours are ok, and the area is more or less safe, even though at night time Tran Hung Dao looks quite strange and somehow run-down. Our house is very narrow, maybe just 3 meters wide, but high. We have 3 floors and two roof terraces. The rooms are small. Unfortunately the house is somewhat hot during daytime. The alley is so narrow that it can be a mess to go through it and pass parking motorbikes. However, I loved the place from the moment I saw it and had to negotiate hard until I could rent the house. Now there are rumours that the landlady wants to sell it. I hope she won’t. I would like to stay there for a while – until I have a better salary or leave the country.
narrow but high and very basic but all enough – our house at Tran Hung Dao Street
the living-sleeping-multi-function-room
the neighbourhood right of us
the neighbourhood left of us
the view from the roof terrace
Besides the area around the house there is much to explore in Saigon. It is a city with some much of positive and negative aspects that the institution of life itself seems somehow dramatic in this country. Everyday here feels like a movie in a world that offers the whole range from deeply grotesque to very aesthetic pictures. It is a place that makes you much more aware of the reality of this planet than the ordinary life in Germany can ever achieve. I am not sure whether this is due to the fact how I am living here or whether it might be the general perception of people coming here to explore life in the metropolitan area of a developing nation.
The Mieu Ba Co temple in one of the worst areas of the city…
…however one does not even have to go to bad areas in order to get insights into the negative aspects of this city…
…on top the Ong Lanh bridge all seems peaceful.
Whether poor or rich…
…children are often the ones who are able to make the best out of all.
As Christmas is not really celebrated in Vietnam, we also did not celebrate it much. A small gift, a round across Nguyen Hue Boulevard, a snapshot at the mall. Besides that, hundreds of thousands of people on their motorbikes, a lot of carbon dioxide and pure unnecessary stress - as so often in this country. Because everybody wants to be the first people are blocking the ways of each other. However, we sat on your posh new Christmas present and thus did not have to care much, and instead enjoy the chaos.
imaginary Christmas at Saigon Centre’s ground floor
Wishing everybody a happy new year 2008!
Peer group pressure in the 
