Always someone new (Vietnam)

On Sunday night, I stumbled upon a smiling usher at a Japanese cafe. She greeted me in Japanese. Later, while I was eating, she dropped by to chat. She is majoring in Japan studies at a local university. Once I mention my Japanese wife, we ended up discussing how to connect with Japanese people.
Every time I meet such indefatigable young people in Vietnam, I remember a blurb that appeared in my book.

At another cafe, the hostess gave me a plateful of biscuits on the house. Then, we ended up discussing consumerism in Vietnamese for the next half hour, in the midst of her preparing coffee orders she received on her phone.

And at my favorite cafe in the original Japantown, I got a free chesse cake, a post Tet (lunar new year) treat from the kindly owner.

Back in Pham Viet Chanh, I found a new cafe. The owner is a young woman who came back from overseas, because she missed her mom’s little coffee shop. She redesigned the small shop into a multistory modern cafe. Yet another smiling girl who was happy to chat about all things - urban architecture, nostalgia, climate change. Now I have a new favorite cafe. And the upstairs has a good view of the alley.

Next day, we were back in the neighbourhood for our Caravanserai meet on the Middle East. We shared stories of travels in the region and the interaction with people from the region. Again it was Huyen and Christine who encouraged us to look beyond the stereotypes and entertained us with their travel stories from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Oman.