Rain, a Train, and a Chubby Vietnamese Kid
The other morning I got up at 4:30 and learned how lazy I'd been all my life. On my way to the train station, I crossed the new bridge closest to my house and witnessed hundreds of Vietnamese already in action, either walking at a brisk pace over the kilometer-long span or stopped along it doing calisthenics. Orange street lamps illuminated the scene, but my blood-shot eyes weren't ready to make out more than silhouettes. "So early," I said to my cab driver, who'd already polished off a ca phe sua da (iced coffee). I could tell from the beads of precipitation still clinging to the empty cup in the holder next to his seat. "Ba Ria?" he shot back, slowing the vehicle to a virtual halt. He thought I'd asked him to take me to a town two-and-a-half hours away. "No, no, no, no," I said. "Just ... train station. Di doi, Phan Thiet ." I've been here eight months, You would think a lot of the cultural gaps would've been filled by