I suppose if you had asked me some time ago what the defining sights of my very early twenties would be, I would’ve been at a loss. One, nevertheless, would certainly not have come to mind.
For a number of reasons during the last two years in Saigon—poor air quality, constant stop and start rain, my own permanently-addled immune system—I’ve found myself with the sniffles more often than most others. Thankfully, it’s very easy to find a staggeringly wide array of medications for oh-so-cheap cheap without as much as the scribble of a doctor. Coincidentally, I used to live on one of the city’s unincorporated pharmacy streets, Hai Bà Trưng, and thus became familiar with the wood-paneled, doorless expanses of medicine bottles on display. But I’m usually just after the basics. In no time, I had figured out what the Vietnamese name for Mucinex generic was, an invaluable piece of information which has been used with striking regularity.
So back to that most familiar sight. It’s raining, I’ve just left work and am loosening my tie over a bowl of hot broth, likely either hủ tiếu or bún bò Huế. And I’m stuffed up. There’s a bag sitting on the damp pavement below the metallic table, and I fish out a skinny packet of Ambroxol 30mg. In front of me is a dinged-up tin cup full of the ubiquitous iced tea of South Vietnam—a fine, if not preferable, substitute for water, it should be said—and a pitcher. Down the hatch it goes, and I’m back to what’s most important: the food in front of me. In an hour’s time, my nose will run and run, and I promise myself to never again take for granted the pleasure of clear sinuses.
Glamorous? No. Yet it seems like something worth remembering. There’s another space, a Highlands Coffee just outside the terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which has also proven crucial and a bit more existential, but I’ll leave that to another time.