Special day for all Vietnamese, especially for those who lived in Saigon at that historical moment. I was there, a young kid, without knowing about the war, I was packing, with joy, my favorite toys for "the escape". But it didn't happen, our family stayed and...tomorrow, 38 years later, we celebrate the date that many of us don't know how to call - either "Saigon liberation" or "Saigon fall".
I don't want to go into the details what was good and what was bad for us, before and after that real turbulent date, it's too much political, I'm not into that. I was a very young kid before 1975, I hardly remember everything but there is always something that I never forget...in my city.
The 1st story
The classy Continental hotel, after 1975, has turned into a cheap "state cooperative eatery" (hợp tác xã ăn uống). The living conditions were very hard. One day my mom, as habit from the good old times, took us there to enjoy a Yang Chow fried rice (cơm chiên Dương Châu) with her tiny earnings after selling some dress from her wardrobe, my mother used to be a teacher so she got a big collection of áo dài, sometime she gave away her dress, sometime she just traded for an extra money. It happened only once, no second time. Now, it's good that the Continental regain the old look and I already know where is the better place for the fried rice.
PS: By the way, these days I saw they are selling the Yang Chow fried rice as a street food.
The 2nd story
Saigon was much more quiet, less people, less traffic before 1975. Our parents bought their first house long before I was born. It was very narrow, slightly more than 2 m wide but it was a shelter to many of our relatives who moved from Central to Saigon. The house has been renovated once and it was sold in 1970, after my parents got another one - much bigger.
I do remember the ice cream vendor, who always stopped in front of this house, he first played with kids and after that convinced them to buy his cheap sirup ice cream. One day I was sitting behind the balcony (as you see from the photo), I really loved to get some ice cream but no pocket money, so the young vendor tried to convince me to exchange something, I didn't know whose idea, but I finally exchanged it with a pack of french pretzels that I took from a very nice tin box. And that was a present from a friend to my mother.
