My from District 3 home in Ho Chi Minh City I could walk to Ben Thanh Market in about 35 or 40 minutes. I made this trip—there and back with a certain amount of meandering in between—at least five times in the two weeks that I stayed in my Airbnb-rented apartment.
I hated the market. Yes, I, lover of all markets, hated Ben Thanh. People tugging at my shirtsleeves. Bumping into tourists. Dodging trays of hot noodle soup, rice and pork being delivered to salespeople. “Miss! Buy this!” “Miss! You want silk?” “Buy shoes!” “Miss! You want buy coffee? Tea?”
Me: “Is it caffeinated?”
Saleslady: “No, no coffee.”
Me: “No, is the tea caffeinated.”
Her: “Flower tea! You water [she mimes], den you way, den open, den reboy, three minutes, den open, den reboy, then rink.”
I think I got the gist of it, but I’m still not sure if the tea was caffeinated or if the flower re-opened. And I could get the tea flower in Canada. I feel that if someone is going to nag me to buy something and then glower at me as I apologetically step away from her market stall, bowing my head repeatedly, the least she should be able to do is to explain her product to the foreigner she wants to exploit.
I loved Ho Chi Minh City, but I hated Ben Thanh. You walk around the giant stadium of a market for hours, going from row to row as it shifts from housewares to clothing to shoes to jewelry to food by section. You try to avoid having a menu shoved in your face or being pulled into a seat, or having a woman selling linen yell at you because she pulled out five bedspreads before the one you actually wanted to see and then got upset at you when you didn’t want any. “You asked see white one!!!” “Yes, and I didn’t like it.” “Why you ask see if no like? Just like other ones!!” she yelled as I backed away.
I traipsed and traipsed, though, looking for sandals to replace the ones I’d brought. My feet were killing me. HCMC is completely flat, but everyone wears flipflops in summer, and you plod along at a mule pace, wrecking your knees. No one wears sneakers, and try as I might to pick up my pace, the humidity dragged me back down. Life just moves a little slower there, and you walk accordingly.
All around the market there are fruit stalls, cheap knockoff watches and fake designer clothes, gorgeous but factory-woven silk clothes, and more stuff than the world should ever need. So, unsuccessful in my flipflop purchase and not wanting to be harangued by another seller, I took the first dark alley I could find north of the market, got out of the midday sun, and found myself surrounded by storefront after storefont of nail salons filled with young Vietnamese girls getting pedicures while on their cellphones. Just one block off the market, there wasn’t another tourist in sight. And then again people started shoving price lists in my face. I declined the first, but the second lady spoke good English, seemed nicer, and gave me a very reasonable $2.50 price on a pedicure with a mini foot massage included. Well, I’ll sit down for awhile, I thought. She pointed to a beach chair in the middle of the alley traffic. I smiled and pointed to one at the back of her shop, which was only three chairs deep. She nodded reluctantly, seemingly not wanting to give me the good chair, and then asked if I wanted the food scrub too for twice as much. Aw, I see how this works. After a quick no, I saw that everyone else was getting the foot scrub, so fine, I would too.
I don’t do pedicures normally. I don’t do bright toe colours. But I really wanted that food massage, and the skin scrub was probably good for me too. But the most interesting thing was not being able to talk to the (two!) women massaging, scrubbing, and painting my feet, as only the stall owner had any English at all. So I listened to the Vietnamese Barbie next to me talk on her phone and ignore the girl working her feet. I watched the steady stream of people pass the stall, and the owner enticing them to come in to the already full closet of a shop. What made this shop better than the 20 others in the alley? Who knows. But they all had business. And they all knew the food vendors nearby, who delivered sweet coconut milk drinks, stir-fried chicken and vegetables, and rich Bun Bo Hue noodle soups in real bowls and cups, and took payment directly so the women didn’t have to leave their work.
And then another foreigner walked by. Why did she choose our booth? Probably because I was there, and if one foreigner was there and had “vetted” the shop, then it was safe for her to join. Turns out she’s not much into pedicures either. But on the last day of her honeymoon she was away from her husband and pampering herself.
Turns out that after riding a motorcycle through inner Vietnam with a guide, trekking through all the major cities, doing all the touristy things, and being far too together for an entire month, she needed some alone time. She popped out her phone and showed me pictures of the wedding. Us, close friends in a minute because we spoke the same language. Now, instead of staring off and awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the people massaging my feet, I could relax a little and seem more normal.
She was a traveler, a dreamer, a free spirit much more than I ever could be. Irish, blond, personable, and brave. She’d first been to Thailand two years ago on a big adventure to escape an ex-boyfriend, and at the last minute, instead of coming to Vietnam she’d changed course and gone to a beach in Southern India for some R&R. Any vacation where you need R&R instead of continuing on is not much of a vacation, she explained. I agreed, nodding that the lace in her vintage wedding dress was stunning on her.
But now she’d calmed her flighty heart enough to say an “I do” to a guy she’d met in a pub the first day after returning to Ireland from India. She’d spent a lot of time convincing herself it was a good idea, that it would settle her down. She needed to stop drifting. She had a good job in Ireland but couldn’t do longterm relationships. Did she love him? Yeah, she did, she thought. He was a good guy. So solid and down to earth, the opposite of her. “I’m indecisive. What colour should I get on me toes?” she asked me. It took 10 minutes to decide, and finally the woman painting them had to redo a layer on her right foot because it wasn’t what she though she wanted.
“Marriages don’t last these days,” she told me. “Like, some do, but it’s like you cross your fingers and hope for the best. Passion fades. Even now the sex is just okay. It’s good, like, but not amazing. He’s so calm. We plan our days and I’m more of the “run out and see what’s happening” kind of person.”
What are you going to do when you get home? I asked.
“We got a place together. He’s got a good job. If I wanted kids, it was now or never. I’m almost 35. I couldn’t wait around for the perfect guy.”
At my mere 27 years my heart clenched.
“Why do you want kids?” I asked.
“I never thought I’d want them, but then I got into my thirties and got sick of running around. I cheated on boyfriends and I don’t want to cheat on this one. I wasn’t sure at the wedding if I should go through with it. I got this feeling like now’s the time.” What do you say to that? “You don’t want them?” she asked.
“Never,” I said, my toes slowly being glossed in pastel pink. Should I ask her for a pint after? Should we go shop together so she has some female companionship for once? Or should I run and wish her the best on her last day of her honeymoon?
I like to believe that she reunited with her husband that night and he swept her off her feet. They had a perfect dinner. Romantic. Delicious. And they flew home together, where she promptly started calming down into a life that made her happy. But life doesn’t work like a fairy tale, I know. Sometimes good enough has to be good enough. And it can. And it doesn’t feel like settling. And sometimes it’s just not. And the brilliant part is figuring out the difference. Where on the karmic balance did this woman’s needs lie between passion and stability? And would she find someone better than this man in time to have kids, as she wanted? She made the best decision she could and she was going to stick with it.
I left the alley, wandered past heaps of aromatic durian, sliced pomelo, and mountains of mangoes as I skirted the market on my way home to District 3. I didn’t stop for che’ shaved ice as I thought of the woman who’d looked so proudly stunning in her grandmother’s lace wedding dress.
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