Speaking Profoundly

[This is an unfinished/now-published post from a few days back]

What really amazes me about this place is that the people seem to try so hard at everything they do. The way they work, the long hours they put in, even the way they try to appeal to you in the marketplace. This is a society that doesn't take life for granted. Yet above all the grittiness of everyday life they also remain appreciative, caring, and spiritual.

It's so amazing how the city has slowly tried to develop while doing its best to preserve some sense of history. Pagodas are literally (??) embedded in city blocks, just down the street from sidewalk mechanics, men as covered in oil and grease as the tools and parts they're walking on. And for all the little boutiques popping out of the HCMC walls, there's a glaring Western-based fashion store that tend to hog up the spotlight. I saw a whole corner store today for Jockey, I had no idea they even had entire stores!

As with the abundance of art galleries, there's a lot of boutiques here that you'd never spot in American cities. I saw what was an entire store devoted to grandfather clocks and other elegant clocks. There's also one city corner with a few stores for selling safes, SAFES. I guess with gold items being so important here, there is more of a need for those kinds of things. When walking through the market, you're also bound to see the same shirts, same clothes, in different places throughout the square. Is there that much difference among prices or do the locals choose based on the people working the shop stall, and other factors like that we don't really think about when we're in big department stores. As a whole, competition for business is very fierce everywhere you go.