Ramblings – Rainy Saigon
Saigon has grown chilly these days. The cold outside cannot compare to the chill that lingers in one’s heart, in one’s soul.
Life rushes by relentlessly. At 7:30 in the morning along Nguyen Huu Canh Street, the traffic is already a maze of honking horns. Parents hurry their children to school, while little ones nibble on scraps of bread in their uniforms amidst the crowded streets.
Motorbike taxis and ride-hailing drivers are everywhere. During these peak hours, they hope to earn some extra income – perhaps 500,000 VND a day – just enough to cover the bare necessities in a city that is expensive and unforgiving.
Office workers keep the lights burning from 7 or 8 a.m., and lawyers often meet foreign clients late into the night. Sometimes meetings grow heated, hands pounding tables in frustration. One law firm advertised a 10-hour workday – but in this competitive era, employees often push past midnight, so absorbed in work that they forget even those waiting for them outside.
Some sigh in boredom; others ache from being overworked. Some have time but no money, others have money but no time to spend it. Some skip meals, lost in their work, while others are driven to exhaustion. Life is a pendulum swinging between idleness and frenzy.
Everyone talks about AI now, every household talks about AI, as the world changes at a dizzying pace.
People gossip about economic scandals, corruption, arrests of celebrities and tycoons, and wonder: “How did they make so much money? How do they own so many properties?”
Saigon, with over 14 million souls, makes one question where all these people come from. Walking along Nguyen Hue or main streets during holidays, it feels like the city is overflowing. When schools let out along Nguyen Binh Khiem, one cannot help but ask: “Where do all these children come from?”
Saigon’s rains arrive suddenly and leave just as quickly, carrying countless stories and feelings. Only those huddled under thin raincoats can understand them. Is there loneliness? Yes. A sense of being lost? Not entirely. Sadness? Certainly. For outsiders, it may be the longing for home, the yearning for the familiar. They cling to this city, hoping to build a better life for those waiting back home. And there are countless unnamed sorrows, worries that linger like shadows.
Who said being a boss is easy? Staff may be cheerful at month’s end, but the higher one climbs, the heavier the burden. Post-Covid challenges make every empty contract feel like sitting on a pile of fire, invoices stacking up, wages to be paid. Disgruntled employees may strike, destroy property – there is no peace for those responsible.
Raindrops or tears – how many have cried in the rain, only for someone to ask, “Why are your eyes red?” Ah, simply because the rain had found its way into them.
Rainy Saigon is breathtaking in its own way. Puddles flood feet and motorbikes, yet they vanish after a few hours, just as sorrow arrives and leaves.
Life’s road is long for the fortunate, short for the unlucky. Those left behind carry the pain.
Is there a greater sorrow than losing someone you love?
Who can comfort a grieving heart? You see the sadness in their eyes, a quiet, nameless melancholy radiating from their every gesture.
Even when people leave, memories linger – echoes of laughter, shadows of the past, glimmers of moonlight. If we could trade anything to bring them back, would we hesitate?
A city named after Uncle Ho – why do I stay here? Why choose struggle over comfort? Why bear hardships when ease is possible?
Yet here I am, wanting nothing more than to live in this city, to breathe its streets, to share in its life – Ho Chi Minh City.
A city of dreams. A city of hope.
