Tag: Ho Chi Minh

electronics mart for Viet consumption

“I want nobody nobody but you” blasted out from, of all places, busy Hang Xanh circle, Electronics Supermarket by Thailand. Buy a laptop, got a free phone. Flat screen tv‘s, refrigerators and karaoke systems.

Should be the envy of our proverbial Maytag man since N American market has been saturated for a while. How many TV’s can you fit in the kitchen – LG double-door refrigerators already came with built-in TVs).

Now, comes the hard part: connecting all these “smart appliances”. For now, when sold separately, they are “dumb” appliances.

Dao Vinh Hung, the pepper-sprayed singer, bought a 5-million dollar house in Phu My Hung, completely furnished with bells and whistles.

His perpetrator, meanwhile, is out on bail (money pulled together by ardent supporters).  Tech and gadgetry. Mass produced for mass consumption.

There will be a TV show aiming at the upper crust (Managers and expats), all in English. Once the dish is on the roof, and the screen is in the home, people need to channel surf. With choice comes decision (and confusion).

In the US, paid cable subscribers often have to sift through a menu of programming, anything from Spanish soap to Euro soccer.

And Hulu is out to give the control back to the audience. Finally!

We have been talked at for so many years. Now we don’t have to shout out of our window like in Network ” I am mad as hell, and I won’t take it any more”.

The change will take hold with the next generation who are glued to I-phone screens, TV screens, and computer screens. Slowly but surely, fashion will claim its dominance (the old Rex complex is now renovated and ready for trading up).

District 1, playground of the rich,  will both showcase and accessorize the city. Look at me! I have it made e.g. watch, pen, jewelry, glasses, ring, tie, socks and shoes, belts, manchette, wallet (preferably thick), purses, handbags, hats, lighters and cigarette cases. (This reminds me of a scene in Line of Fire, where Clint Eastwood and Renee Russo, as secret service agents loaded with ammunition and gadgetry, droped one after another on a hotel wooded floor).

Meanwhile, out in Binh Thanh, people just wait for the green light, and listen to “I want nobody, nobody but you”, and the electronic mart was just hoping that blasting music will result in lasting impressions, subliminally ” I want nothing else but electronic gadgets for my home. Like Dao Vinh Hung of Phu My Hung.”

Now I understand the cult of karaoke. You get there faster by singing than studying.

Sound of Saigon

Young population. Lots of noise and headsets. Night clubs and bars open every single night of  the week.  And let’s not forget those Karaoke stores, coffee shops and sidewalk beer stalls. Certainly not Sound of Silence here.

My morning starts with greetings from those neighbor’s roosters. From there on, it will only get louder: bike’s traffic (very few electric bikes), horn-blowing at each turn, people belling on the phone and at people on the other end, CD vendors on wheels with au-par-leur “we-buy-scrap medals…”, bullhorns broadcast a circus act in town etc…..The day finally ends with the peddling sound of a in-call massage vendor.

The emergency responders here drive like a maniac, Buses would swing from the far left to cut through bikes to stop on the right side of the street. Street sweepers would sweep the dust to the side (like their Mexican counterparts in the US who uses grass blowers) just to have it blown right back out by bikes approached illegally on  a one-way street.

Sound of Saigon. Simon and Garfunkel  “in restless dream I walk alone”.

Yet one thing is clear: the barber shops are busy with people who need to clear out their ear wax.  In the US, with the aging boomer population, it is predicted that audiologists will be in high demand. Here, the same would hold true, even for a much younger post-war gen. The DJ’s for sure will need this medical service.

I on more than one occasion asked the waiter to turn down the volume.

He couldn’t hear or understand my request.

At least the sound I used to hear (choppers and gun shots) are long gone.

Peace-time Saigon, with Hotel Caravelle and Rex no longer filled with Western journalists covering the war.  Now, they’ re just local businessmen hang-outs.

District 1 still holds its charm, but many satellite districts have sprung up to accommodate urban migrants.  I was hoping for some peace and quiet in South Saigon. And it’s true that the Highland Coffee in South Saigon close at mid night, Unlike District 1 clubs which have just begun to take on some life (party) at that hour.

I heard about a sandwich stall which only opens at mid-night and closes at 2AM.

Why bother working hard during the hot day when you can take in just as much income with less efforts?

Wonder if she participated in Earth Hour last night? If not, at least, by the time she starts selling her first sandwich, she can say, it’s already another day in Saigon.  And people shout from their bikes: “I want 2 special orders”, all for $1.50.

Then when I hear the sound of the massage vendor, I know it’s time to call it a night. It’s hard not to eat out at night, because it’s a quite a scene full of   sight,  scent and sound of Saigon. In restless dream I join others, under the neon gods that they made.