Another Update from Vietnam!

---

Evening all,

How's things? Hope you're all fine and/or dandy.

Not much going on here in Saigon, except it's 35 degrees. How's Melbourne? 😊

Anyways, no preface today. This week's entry is thus:


One day I'll know there'll be a place called home….
One day there'll be a place for us....
- PJ Harvey


I generally avoid talking about work when it comes to these emails, and for good reason. How often do people actually want to hear about work? Does it consume far too much of our lives? Usually. Is it interesting to hear about? Sometimes, but not usually. Unless you're in marketing that is, those marketing guys are hilarious and always joking about, i can't take anything they say seriously.

'I love you marketing guys, everything you say is hilarious because you're always kidding and joking about.'
'Uh, no, I'm serious all the time actually.'
'But I always thought you were just being funny.'
'No, I was being serious in all those meetings.'
'You were being serious? But so many of the things you say are just so embellished.'
'No they're not.'
'But what about in the last meeting? You were talking about launching an underwater ab machine that played Eye of the tiger and Tony Robbins motivational tapes. You said there was a huge untapped market out there because there were all these millions of fish in the ocean that had flabby abs and low self esteem who wanted rock hard abs and to be all bling-ed up to pull chicks. You even had a matrix and
a shifting paradigm.'
'I have market research, and our projected sales forecast says we'd sell 6 million units within 2 weeks. Don't question the research and analysis, it's rock solid, I got it from my Botswanian witch doctor AND my magic 8 ball.'
'Really? Oh ok. So When are we launching this underwater ab flex?'
'I wanted it last Tuesday.'
'Uh huh.'
'You need to get cracking on the follow up model too. We want to add a water desalinator so the fish in the ocean have fresh water while they work out. And to have a model in mauve, because they go faster.'
'Are you serious?'
'Always....'

But anyway, I'm not planning on boring you with my work inanities, but more to provide an insight into the daily routine at work here.

The thing I love most about the working day here unsurprisingly, is lunch. Unlike in Australia, where people generally have lunches in small groups or at their desks, Vietnamese always eat together. It's a very cultural thing. In my case, I have worked my way into a group of around 12 people, where come 11:30, everyone downs tools and heads off for lunch.

We all exit the building, and proceed to play frogger across the busy road and into this general store that is converted into a lunch spot at 11:30. Most general stores are actually the homes of people who live on busy thoroughfares, only the front of their home is used for shop space to stock cigarettes, booze and junk food, and they'll live in the back half or upstairs. When we arrive for lunch, all the cigarettes and junk food will be moved aside for two large tables that are set up in the middle of their shop/home where we all huddle together on our little stools. All 12 of us sit at the table and eat, and it is this particular moment that reminds me of home.

It's the sight of people huddled around the table, busily shovelling rice from their bowls into their mouths, the familiar clinking noises of chopsticks against bowls, the loud slurping of soup. The odd conversation, but mostly it's just people focussed on the art of eating. And the food is what reminds me most about home. Most days they're dishes that my mum cooks at home, like pork stewed in coconut juice and fish sauce, stuffed tomatoes and bean curd, stir fried water spinach, pork chops in lemon grass, steamed fish, and always a soup. Sure, home is where your heart is, but for me it's also where my stomach is. And the amazing thing is, it only costs 10,000 dong per person, that's like 80c for lunch 😊

By noon, everyone stops eating, chopsticks are placed on the table and everyone clears out to run the gauntlet again and get back into the office because it's siesta time. From 12 to 1 everyday, people roll out their mats on the floor, bring out their pillows and doonas and have a 45 minute nap. There's a mad rush to get back into the building by noon, as the shutters come down and the whole building gets closed down for an hour, as even the security guards need a nap.

Despite offers from my lovely colleagues to share their mats for a nap, I find I generallly can't sleep during the day as I'll probably end up sleeping the whole afternoon. I find it so cool though that all these people are comfortable sleeping together on the same mats, and they're not even family, they're just the person that sits next to them.

Somehow I can't imagine that happening back at my office in melbourne, although perhaps I can try taking naps at work when I'm back in Melbourne, and if anybody says anything, I'll just tell them they're not celebrating my diversity and culture.

Dude, don't question me, you don't know what it was like, I was in 'Nam man....

Anyways, enough already, ta ta...

cheers,
Ben

---