I'll Huff And I'll Puff And Then Get Raging Head Spins

In an unlikely turn of events, I ended up talking to one of the project leaders of the giant building going up across the road from my hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. A Scottish bloke, who was impressed with how much he could sweat in a day. (I lost two and half kilos today, he boasted.)

I had been running into a particular sort of Vietnamese behavioural idiosyncrasy all day and was feeling frustrated. When he admitted his job, I said,

“Oh yeah? How’s that working out for ya then?”

“Right. I know. It can be tough to get stuff done. I’ll be sorting some health and safety issue on the building site, and I’m actually having to tip-toe around all these sleeping bodies lying all over a working construction site. They actually just lie down at 12 on the dot, no matter where they are or what they’re doing.”

The reason they have a little lie down in the day, is so they can jackhammer all night. Twenty-four-hour-a-day construction zone.

To be fair, if I had to do manual labour in this weather, I’d do it at night. Screw the insomniac round-eye across the road.