Hi!
Me again, I'm on a business trip to Saigon, I haven't been back to this lavish city in a long time. It is said that Saigon city is a city that does not sleep, of course, it is not wrong. All the activity here is going on day and night. Saigon is very large, this is the largest industrial city in the country. People from all parts of the country came here looking for a livelihood. Everyone has the desire to get rich, everyone has their own enthusiasm. Besides, there are many pitiful circumstances, the rich and the poor are close to each other but far away from each other, not far away from the geographical distance but far away from the class in society. Every society has a class of the rich and the poor. The distance is adjustable, but the class distance is hard to come close to. It is often said that the cloud will meet the cloud, the rich will play with the rich, very few have a close relationship between the rich and the poor. And everywhere, every society has many classes and classes, just different ways of treating people.
When I was thinking about it, my phone suddenly rang, I suddenly remembered having an appointment with an old friend. I've been sitting here thinking and forgetting to tell everyone about a new place that I had the opportunity to introduce to my friend today. Somewhere in this bustling city, there are still quiet and idyllic spaces where we can rest and relax after long days of hard work. The Saigon skyline is in the hot sunny season. In addition to the busy roads, the city has millions of people, so traffic jams occur frequently, especially during rush hours. In the hot sunshine of the coming weather in the summer, there is nothing better than to find and pull over to a certain bar to make a cup of coffee. The cafe I'm taking you to today is called Cafe 81. The bar is located at 28 Nguyen Huu Cau Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. The bar space is designed in Vintage style, with both a modern touch and an extra touch of antique. The bar is arranged and arranged according to the type of open space, the arrangement, and presentation of items according to a certain layout. The way to decorate each bar is different like hanging an ancient clock of dozens of years old or may have a longer life placed right in the middle of the room, at the bottom is an old wooden table, the color of paint fades silver over time, the pictures of the old decades are put in the old wooden frame hanging leaning in any corner of the bar also makes us feel strange. But in general, they all show an ancient beauty, but still exude a delicate and highly aesthetic line with rough but soft and exuberant lines without creating a tangled feeling for guests to see. Everything here is shaped like a vase that has to be right in the window, the lamp has to be placed right in the corner of the table. The book must be in any order on the bookshelf. It reminds us that, no matter what we do, no matter where we go, we have to remember to go back to our original positions, not because of a little bit of superficiality, the temptations outside of society to lose our identity.
All the furniture in the saloon takes advantage of the wooden material. Wood is both environmentally non-hazardous and can be reused and loaded. Its wooden interiors are close to nature, both protecting the environment and reducing the amount of waste that is not good for the environment. I keep seeing wooden objects that I like so much. I like it because I understand the suffering, the effort of the artisans who make it up. It's simpler than that because this is my father's job. The profession of trying to stick with my father's life, the profession of feeding my family and my sisters to become human. My family used to be very poor and my parents worked very hard. My house was just a cottage, the walls were built of honeycomb stone. My father took bamboo to form a partition, separating the rooms in the house from each other. You don't even have enough money to buy bricks to build walls at that time. In my house at that time, the most important and precious thing must have been the bicycle, used as a vehicle for my father to go to work. I was in second grade. My school is near my father's workplace, so he drives me to school every morning. At that time, I was very surprised, I was too young to feel the hard work my father was going through. When he drove me to school, he rushed his car to work. The carpentry work, if the outsider looks at it, thinks it is stronger than other manual work because it is cool inside, unaffected by the rain and sun. But who knows, every job has its advantages and disadvantages. My job, while working in the house, is very harmful to my health. Careless work, industrial accidents can occur at any time because of frequent contact with sharp iron machineries such as saws, drills, and electric machines. Not to mention the thick wood dust that clings to the white, so every clothes of my father are old and plump. Carpentry requires great skill and concentration, to produce a complete product, everything must be 100% accurate from the line, ink to each drill bit, so over time my father's eyesight also weakened. I remember printing, when my father was in a sawmill accident, making a hand that was about to break off, the glossy blood of a puddle. I was very afraid, I cried a lot, I was afraid of what happened to my father, I was afraid he was no longer with me, but luckily I was given first aid in time, so he didn't lose too much blood but fiercely risked his life. Although I was a child, I was conscious and felt the hard work, the sweat of the bones and blood that my father had passed down to work. Because of that, I love all the wooden furniture, and I know and understand the joy, the effort, the suffering of the people who make those works, which I always value most. That's probably the reason, too, that trendy bars like 81 always have a certain sympathy in my heart. Although very rustic, simple but heartwarming.
In short, for me personally. I like it but the café is a bit like that. It has a distinctive twist and trait that when we step foot in it gives us a sense of being in a parallel world between the present and the nostalgic. It seems to remind us that, although life is changing, becoming increasingly modern and developed, let us not forget the traditions of the nation. The culture of each Vietnamese people, of 54 ethnic groups is always an endless flow and there, the connection between tradition and modernity is a bit of a direction and a very important role, it is a link that nothing can cut. The appearance and culture of a country and of the whole Vietnamese nation must be further built, preserved, and promoted. The ancient cultural values must be preserved and always developed in parallel with modern life to remind us to always remember the national cultural traditions.
Thank you cafe 81 for giving me endless inspiration, thank you to the Hive community for accompanying me in this roadblock!