Nowhere Near Trump, Musk, Mars or Robots

[Vung Tau, 1/16/25]

In an alley café with a bare brick wall, I’m surrounded by one man and 11 women, all over 45. Just after I walked in, one whispered, “He’s a reporter.” She had seen me type.

Squatting on a terracotta stove, a steel pot boils. Two plastic buckets for washing glasses rest on the floor. Fancy joints advertise “machine brewed coffee.” Here, tin filters still take forever to drip. They don’t care that terrestrial life can be terminated any second. The proprietress is a woman about 75. Pissed at being startled by ring tones, she doesn’t carry a phone. “You’re taking a shower, it rings!” Then, “Even when watching TV, my husband has a phone in his hand.”

One broad is going on about leather purses. Another says an overseas relative gave her a used one bought for $500. Still, she didn’t like it. The richest one here is married to an architect. Free from work, she organizes dance performances. With a troupe of older, creakier ladies, she has traveled all over Vietnam. Their choreographer is a queer. She also hustles public cash for poor neighborhood kids. Just now, each got $16 and school supplies worth four bucks. Last year, she organized a trip for them to a Saigon amusement park. Getting off the bus, they had a hot lunch, then baozis on the way back. “No one went home hungry!”

Now, the talk is about buying gold, then merits of assorted grapefruits. Even fluffy conversations calm, amuse and cheer. Deprived of faces and voices day after day, you’re liable to become an enraged prick who must go online to prove this repeatedly.