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Ten years ago, I visited Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. Ten years later, I visited Saigon, the largest city of Vietnam. The differences between the two cities are obvious: Hanoi is traditional, bureaucratic, and backward while Hanoi is colorful, dynamic, and developed. However, what strikes me most about Vietnam during my recent trip are NOT the differences between the two cities but the similarities that are prevalent everywhere you go and see in the daily life of ordinary Vietnamese.
Vietnamese people, rich or poor, are greatly influenced by the French culture given the fact that Vietnam used to be a French colony for over 90 years. French influence is reflected in the routine life of Vietnamese everyday, particularly the coffee and bread you see all over Vietnamese streets and markets. This is something very unique and westernized in Vietnam that instantly reminds you of European culture and style. Look at all other things we saw there: millions of motorcycles, facial masks of female motorists, colorful folk dress, short and thin males, dark and skinny females, etc. All those reflect Vietnamese tradition and culture but not so with coffee and bread.
Coffee
Drinking coffee is so common for Vietnamese just like drinking tea for Chinese. But we found way more coffee houses in Vietnam than tea places in China. Typical Vietnamese coffee houses are small, simple, crappy, and messy spread all over along city's main roads, on pavements, at street corners, and in back streets. One day, I ran into two men playing Chinese chess on the street with a cup of coffee next to the chess table. I was amazed by this street scenery: Chinese chess with coffee (see picture 1). This is something you would hardly see in China where coffee is a symbol of luxury, white-collar privilege, and taste of life. In Vietnam, it is an indispensable part of everybody's daily life. Vietnamese, especially men, often meet in coffee houses in the morning and chat there for hours and hours throughout the day or well into the evening. What a life!

Vietnamese inherited this life style from the French but turned it into a symbol of social status that no French had ever imagined when they colonized Vietnam. One interesting scene at all the coffee houses is that you see few women there. A coffee house is predominantly a man’s place and a masculine get-together. Why? Today in Vietnam, men enjoy a much better social status than women because there is an imbalance of more women and fewer men living because thousands and thousands of men lost their lives during decades of war in Vietnam’s recently history. As a result, men are pretty spoiled in Vietnam today. Women work to make a living, feed child for a family, and cook food for husbands while many men enjoy life by drinking coffee and financially replying on their wives for a living. No wonder in Vietnam they joke that when it comes to a marriage, it is not a man who marries a girl but the vice versa.
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Bread
Can you imagine that bread is also seen everywhere throughout the day in Vietnam? Bread is an essential ingredient of Vietnamese daily food. To be exact, the bread sold in Vietnam is called baguette, crisp and golden brown on the outside, light and airy on the inside. It is again inherited from the French. In China, people usually eat bread together with some butter or jelly for breakfast. But Vietnamese use baguettes to make sandwiches for meals. This is why you see the bread sellers displaying baguettes in an eye-catching place of her fast food cart on the street (see picture 2).

"Hot bread here" is a very popular announcement from the bread sellers which can be heard all day, from about 5 am till late at night. It is said that some people wake up by those people who shout to sell fresh bread early morning by waling around streets. Lots of people walk around with a big basket full of bread on their heads (see picture 3) or sitting on the pavement trying to sell bread (see picture 4). This is one of the most common forms of walking business in Vietnam. But it seems easier than others because bread is not as heavy and if the sellers can't sell all of them they can give them back to the bakery, which isn't a bad deal. I heard it is a good business for money. Sales cry!

This bread scenery reminds me of the cities in Europe where you see shops or markets selling bread everywhere like on the streets of Paris. But one thing puzzles me still. I have a hard time figuring out why Vietnamese are fond of bread as part of their daily cuisine and why this French life style of bread is so popular among ordinary Vietnamese?
Though my trip to Vietnam was short this time, I enjoyed it a lot, especially the one full relaxing day at the beach with my colleagues and loved the food which is much less greasy than Chinese food in general. I also wish I could eat a lot without being worried getting fat like Vietnamese who are skinny and slim, no matter what gender they are (see picture 5).
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