It’s our second day in Saigon—we’re staying at a guesthouse, attending nice lunches and dinners, hanging out with Vietnamese kids from the local humanities college, and trying not to be run over by the floods of motorbikes every time we cross the street. We spend a lot of our free time together as a group, walking around and finding places to eat. I love the camaraderie, but the downside is that our large group looks painfully touristy. On our first day exploring the city, I saw a man inside a McDonald’s taking a picture of our group as we walked by the window. Entering the one touristy plaza of Vietnam, street vendors selling art and postcards immediately target us, intuitively sensing our foreignness. The Vietnamese rip us off at popular markets (charging the equivalent of one dollar for two incredibly tasty mangosteins), as they commonly do with tourists. Stares from kids playing sports in the park, people passing on motorbikes, etc are common. But of course, this is to be expected. Actually, I think it says incredible things about this place that I have not experience rudeness once, even though we’re loud, speak no Vietnamese, and are immensely inconvenient to walk behind on the sidewalk.
Despite our obvious foreign factor, I actually feel like more of a local walking around Saigon than I do when I walk around San Francisco, at times. Instead of merely observing the city’s energy, Saigon has so much energy that I can experience it as well. I think a large part of this is Saigon’s tendency for everything to be open and outdoors. Given any random street lined with apartment buildings, every first level of the apartment building will be converted into a restaurant, store, or market that is open to the sidewalk. Right outside our guesthouse, people hang out on their parked motorbikes on the sidewalk, smoking and chilling. Street vendors line the sidewalks as well—our group’s collective favorite, “Waffle Guy,” gives us a free waffle every time we pass by.
While I feel more than comfortable in the city, cultural differences are undeniably noticeable. First, there are subtle traces of communism everywhere. Ho Chi Minh’s face looms large at us everywhere—in the post office, in the exercise park, or whenever we spend money. Police officers monitor many public places that I would not expect, like random markets. Also, gender roles are more apparent—noticeably, but not overwhelmingly. The Vietnamese students from the local university say their school has many more girls than boys, because it focuses on humanities. It’s hard, they say, for girls to learn basic C, and seemed surprised when they learned that Diane and I were computer science majors.
In sum, we’ve spent less than 48 hours in Saigon and I already love this place. It’s vibrant and interesting and complex—I can’t wait for the days to come.
Despite our obvious foreign factor, I actually feel like more of a local walking around Saigon than I do when I walk around San Francisco, at times. Instead of merely observing the city’s energy, Saigon has so much energy that I can experience it as well. I think a large part of this is Saigon’s tendency for everything to be open and outdoors. Given any random street lined with apartment buildings, every first level of the apartment building will be converted into a restaurant, store, or market that is open to the sidewalk. Right outside our guesthouse, people hang out on their parked motorbikes on the sidewalk, smoking and chilling. Street vendors line the sidewalks as well—our group’s collective favorite, “Waffle Guy,” gives us a free waffle every time we pass by.
While I feel more than comfortable in the city, cultural differences are undeniably noticeable. First, there are subtle traces of communism everywhere. Ho Chi Minh’s face looms large at us everywhere—in the post office, in the exercise park, or whenever we spend money. Police officers monitor many public places that I would not expect, like random markets. Also, gender roles are more apparent—noticeably, but not overwhelmingly. The Vietnamese students from the local university say their school has many more girls than boys, because it focuses on humanities. It’s hard, they say, for girls to learn basic C, and seemed surprised when they learned that Diane and I were computer science majors.
In sum, we’ve spent less than 48 hours in Saigon and I already love this place. It’s vibrant and interesting and complex—I can’t wait for the days to come.