Ho Chi Minh City Part 6

After all the food in the afternoon, we went back to our hotel to clean ourselves up because without fail, a coat of grime and dust on your skin if you spend more than five seconds anywhere near a Ho Chi Minh City road. Maybe it's just a placebo effect caused by all the black smoke from all the vehicles and the lack of trees but whatever it was, it got quite irritating. So there you go, I'm that typical spoilt Singaporean bastard, complaining about traveling in other countries because they are not the same as our beautiful little island.



I know, there are so many things wrong with this. Firstly, eating less than three hours after our previous meal but we got a little hungry because of how tiring the three hours break in our hotel room was. Whoa guys hey a thinly-veiled attempt at making a "we had sex" joke. I know what you're thinking, "He could have really done without telling us about it" so here's a picture of a mule to distract your one single working brain cell.



Secondly, eating at an American fast food franchise when you're surrounded by amazingly cheap and delicious food made from fresh local meat and spices? I know how this will dent my street credz yo but I'm always curious about how different food from these franchise stores taste in other countries. That being said, the fried chicken was dry but still managing to be soggy at the same time, that small dollop of mashed potatoes had as much taste as the porcelain plate it was served on and the rest just sucked. Sucked sucked sucked sucked, it really sucked. If I'm to write a haiku for this meal, it would be:

Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked
Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked
Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked

We really should have tried Lotteria instead, which has a lot of outlets in Ho Chi Minh City.

After the meal, which sucked, we went for a walk through this long strip of park in the middle of the district we stayed in and came upon this group of boys playing football with a punctured plastic ball. The kind that I played with when I was in primary school because no one dared to bring a proper football to school because they would get stolen all the time. For some reason, all they did was to play penalty shootouts. Maybe because it's a more equal way of playing football, with everyone kicking the ball from the same spot. In that case, their government has done a good job.



Cong Hoao Na Hoic Gua indeed.

Anyway, the boys were definitely having fun but I just felt like I could do something to make them happier so I went to a nearby sporting apparel shop and bought a Size 4 football for $9.50 which I'm quite sure I got ripped off for. I brought back to the boys and of course, they got excited at the prospect of playing with such a (relatively) beautiful football and I even managed to join in for a while. Until they started playing penalty shootouts again.



The smallest guy in there, we called him "crab boy" because he kept trying to freak Jules out with crabs caught in the park's pond. Not once or twice but he did it for almost ten times and without fail, my very brave girlfriend ran away from that little boy and his crab. Ten times.

They couldn't understand me and there was a coat of Ho Chi Minh air on my exposed arms, legs and face but I had fun. We did know how to play "Monkey" by making Crab Boy run for the ball by passing it to each other or by lobbing it over the little bastard.

After a while though, a pack of rougher-looking boys came over, the smell of fresh rubber on the new ball must have attracted their keen sense of smell.



It wasn't anything serious though, they all know each other but obviously, the older and tougher boys were more alpha than Crab Boy & Gang. When I decided to leave, with the ball in their possession because I was taking it for granted that they knew I was giving it to them as gift, they all run at me with the ball, trying to return it to me. I explained to them (with a lot of arm-flailing and finger-pointing) that I was giving it to them, I got very loud "NO!"s and "You take!"s as replies. They then explained to me (with more arm-flailing and finger-pointing) how the ball will end up being the older boys' anyway.

Just as they finished telling me that, one of the older boys came over and grabbed the ball away from one of the smaller boys and began to walk away. I had to step in so I stopped him and got it back from him, much more gently may I add, and told everyone to share it and how the ball is for everybody. In the end, they accepted it rather reluctantly and just then, I realised what I was doing. I was telling a bunch of kids raised in a socialist state to share a rare resource and how it's for everybody. They, of all people, would know that equality is impossible. They, of all people, would know that the strongest will end up being in control of it.

Maybe I was thinking too much into it so I said fuck it and drank some beer.



But I still wonder, what happened to that ball? How many fights and quarrels have been started over that one seemingly-innocent gesture of kindness on my part? Would live-long hatred and street gangs be formed over it? Or I can be pessimistic and think about how the ball encouraged them to play more football and eventually form two local teams: Ho Chi Minh City Wanderers and the Ho Chi Minh Vagabonds. Would they remember me as the guy who bought them fun or as the guy who came over and upset the delicate balance of power in their 'hood?

Like how the kids from my Primary School brought lousy plastic balls to school because a nice, shiny one would get stolen too often?

I say, fuck it, I'm going to get some beer.