Prolific businesses, cafes, and shops - not America

5 May 2006

Prolific businesses, cafes, and shops

Posted by Bob Keith at 5/5/2006 1:230 AM

Categories:  Vietnam Commerce

Busy, busy, people - as a first impression

Everywhere I traveled in old South Vietnam I came upon little shops and cafes.  There are open markets everywhere as well.  Now days it seems like a land of abundance.  I understand that after the war this was not the case.  In Saigon there are bigger stores, even some supermarket type businesses.  I realize the people work everyday - from sunup to sundown.  And, I notice many people have several gigs going on either at once or they finish one job and go to another.  There does not seem to be much regard for what we Americans worry about as weekends.  Work continues everyday.  The women who work in the small hotel in Saigon were I stay at rotate shifts all day.  The hotel, as does the town as a whole, only go silent from about midnight to five in the morning.  The hotel women and girls sleep in the kitchen.

Who are the real capitalists anyway?

Immediately, on walking the streets of Saigon, I began to feel a bit sad.  I feel bad for the hours of work so many seem to be toiling away at but something else begins to dawn on me.  The streets are bustling everywhere from morning to dark.  And when I thought of my stuffy midwestern town in America I feel even stranger.  I draw a contrast in my mind of the seemingly impotent silent downtown streets of my Wisconsin town (many vacant buildings) verses the veracious business environment in Saigon streets and other Vietnamese cities.  If they don't have the product you want, a complex system of networking will emerge to find what you want.  Relatives, friends, and competitors will be summoned to accomplish the sale.  Even villages in the jungle have an entrepreneurial enthusiasm that seems to shame my Midwestern homeland.  I couldn't stop wondering who the real capitalists are - we Americans or the Vietnamese.  At least at the grass roots level, I will never look at my sterile, quiet down town streets in my Midwestern home the same again after maneuvering the commerce crazed streets of Saigon.