Another week done, so many more wow moments. I have two moments in particular that stood out to me the most as we traveled through Hoi An. On our last night there we had a group dinner at Trip Nguyen. It was a very small, but welcoming environment. I had actually eaten lunch there with a few of my friends there earlier that day, however I didn’t have the same appreciation of it until we came back later for dinner. When we first arrived there for lunch the main guy, presumably the owner came over to us and had a small conversation with us and asked if we were in Vietnam with a whole group. He was extremely friendly and cheerful, which made me like the place even more. The food was very good and the people were extremely nice so I was excited to go back there for dinner. While we were having dinner I needed to use the restroom and asked where it was. The guy pointed to the back of the restaurant so I proceeded to walk back there. This is when my wow moment occurred. As I walked to the back of the restaurant I reached the kitchen. At first I was extremely shocked that the bathroom was beyond where the kitchen is, and at second glance I noticed that there was only one cook. One cook, cooking four dishes each for 25 people. That’s roughly 100 dishes in the matter of about an hour. I was astonished at how hard this guy was working. As I waited to use the bathroom I watched as this guy cooked without skipping a beat or blinking an eye. He was a machine. After we were done with our meal, the owner sat down with us and he looked exhausted, but still maintained a cheerful smile. After seeing these two men work and serve us, I couldn’t help but think about how hardworking this culture is.
My second moment came as I was walking down the street and saw a military or government building (not sure which it was) and there was a huge mounted machine gun at the top of the building over looking the courtyard. As I continued to walk down the street I began to hear children’s laughter. Next to this government building was a children’s school. I couldn’t believe that they had these two buildings next to each other. I’ve never in my life seen a mounted machine gun; the sight of it made me a little scared. However, these kids no older than 12, see it every day. No parent in America would let their child go to a school next to a building with heavy artillery mounted to the top of it. Such a small thing as the location of buildings made me notice some differences in our cultures.
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