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| “Cyclò, mister?
Best transportation in town” thinking about that little thick and sweaty
boy finds it hard to transport me in this so terrible climate, annoys me.
Thinking it again I understand the ethical considerations
of mine are the less required to survive. Ambitious and enterprising
as the new Vietnam, Song asks for discounted tariff if I contract
him for the whole day.
I discover this way that the cyclò is the best way to tour the city which has intensified a lot the life rhythm and grown wildly in the recent years. Here in town, which used to be called Saigon, temples of the imperial age, French colony fashioned houses, buildings and monuments of the communist age and ultramodern ones, buildings that reflect the opening to the global capitalism, within the south-east countries risk to merger and to resemble each other.  Measuring
distance to use brakes less possible, giving priority to who is stronger
and making its way unscrupulously among weaks, Song navigates along the
great boulevard as a Venetian oarsman. Sitting above on my back, he pedals
quietly in this unbelievable traffic of any swept volume and origin car.
Unhurried, we go through elegant boulevards, exotic goods plenty
markets and the alleyways of Chinatown.
Where Le Loi boulevard crosses Nguen Huè boulevard is the Lvendy zone, plenty of galleries, private clubs and de luxe and antique-trade stores. Song keeps in its portfolio the visiting cards of some only for men clubs. These are places where you can  drink
accompanied by beautiful girls. Who wants more must be deceived . The communist
regime would not maybe have succeeded in eliminating poverty but
it has eliminated at least prostitution, minor prostitution mainly,
spreading instead in the contiguous countries as Thailand and Cambodia.
In an Go Chi Min City old popular quarter, plenty of cheap little
boarding houses, frequented by travellers who prefer the Lonely Planet
guide instead of the tour operator, we rest for lunch on the street among
the people of the quarter. Rice and thick past dishes, fried fish and vapour
cooked ravioli are prepared. The streets are plenty of people who deal
in any imaginable way. All the country seems to live in an economic development
delirium, unthinkable some years ago. Tourism has increased and had become
an important entry source. The status symbol the most wished by young people
is not a cyclò, but a Japanese half -automatic motorcycle
that reaches the 100 km per hour.
But it is an expectation hard to realize for Song who earns an average of two dollars a day. The money saved is employed to repair a tyre or to purchase a new saddle. Moreover, twice a week he must give money to a man who is an usurer to pay the licence. 
“What will it happen if you don't pay?, I ask thinking about the story of the Cyclo film. Normally there's no problem but if I keep on without paying, they would take me away the cyclo. Getting back downtown Song makes me notice a very big abandoned building. It is the old head office of the United States of America. Invaded the night between 30 and 31 January 1968 by a command of 19 Vietcong boys that opened the surrounding walls with bazooka and raised up the red flag on the roof. Other fighting groups, dressing the typical black pyjamas of farmers, attacked the hotels requisitioned by the American officials, attacked barracks, occupied and destroyed the presidential palace, attacked the general headquarter of the American army, the command of the “Seventh Air Force” and that of the “South Vietnam Joint General Staff”. This war that have opposed along ten long years this  small
population of farmers against the greatest power of the world, haven't
left evident offences. To see the invisible ones it is necessary
to go to the “War Crimes” museum . I go through, with Song, the rooms plenty
of terror and violence testimonials. You can find torture instruments,
employed by Americans to make the prisoners speak. And there are some of
the bombs thrown over this country, the number of them being higher than
those thrown in Europe during Second World War. Defoliant and napalm bombs
destroyed woods and villages. We go out shocked by the photo of a marines
group that poses proudly while pulling off the head to a Vietnamese.
When Song was born the war was already over. Like most his contemporaries is interested more at music than at policy. His family lives in the number 4 quarter, a slum along the Ben Nghe channel. His mother carries out little house works, while his father emptied by long working years, sick and without any  old-age
pension lays on a mat almost all day.
Even if formally it is a communist country, Vietnam is far to be a welfare state. The health system is in dire straits and sources for medicines lack. When Song brings me back to the hotel are 4 a.m. o'clock, we exchange addresses promising each other to meet again. Then he get up hi cyclò and disappears in the dark, leaving in the air the sweet sound of the riscka bell.  |
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