Local singers here command higher caches seven nights a week by bar hopping. But occasionally, like last night, they showed up at an open-air concert to entertain the mass. Sandwiched between numbers were the Viet-Kieu comedian couple as special guests. They talked about how the US economy barely stayed out of the red. And of course, they picked on middle-aged men and women who opted for cosmetic surgery yet were so stingy that they overdid (cup size for instance) it to save money.
I took it all in. I noted that years ago, I was among the mass of young people at an outdoor concert as well. Back then, you heard Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and the Doobie Brothers‘ ‘”We are American Band”. We were all-hair!
The CBC band was one of the highlights then. I heard them again in Houston a few years back. They were still playing at their own club but only on weekends. The once-skinny sisters/singers in the band are now in their late fifties.
Still, they shined in some of the French songs (Tous les garcons de mon age se promene dans la rue). And I am sure, their comedian counterparts are also doing what they must: traveling the distance in search of an audience.
The occasional breeze was quite refreshing, as rare as those few moments audience and singers feel connected.
What struck me was whatever the economic condition and whatever the political climate, people manage to survive, to love and be loved and try to make sense of what’s going on around them. Here in Saigon, due to the weather, people interpret shared events over a Heineken. And whether the economy is up or down, Heineken is always up, in sales and branding, bottles or cans.
I was just glad I was among the mass. It took some traveling and resettling before I could be counted as one of them. One of us.
Thang Nguyen 555 