It didn’t take them long before Binh came to find them. Although they were both done with cleaning (there wasn’t much to do to begin with), Arthur didn’t quite want to leave yet as he felt comfortable being with Lien. Like Duy Anh, she was soft-spoken and well-mannered, but also quite patient. They had exchanged a few words and, although Lien seemed pretty timid, the conversation didn’t seem one-sided so he didn’t really want to part yet.

“Duy Anh had told me to take you with me, Sir. I’m about to go now. Are you two done?”, Binh asked Arthur. Before Arthur could reply, Lien told Binh that she was done cleaning so they should go and enjoy themselves.

Arthur followed Binh out, shaking the water off his hands. Before they passed the gate, Binh asked Arthur to pick up some wooden baskets, hung from a carrying pole. They weren’t as heavy as they had looked but it was uncomfortable.

Binh also carried a big braided basket strapped to her back. Today too, she had worn quite dark-colored clothes. Her sleeves were much smaller than the ones Duy Anh had and her skirt had been tightly tied around her waist. She also adorned a big bamboo hat that almost looked liked those giant waterlily leaves, upside down. Looking at her, Arthur really felt the difference of...worlds. It was as if he had realized that he had traveled time a second time.

They headed to the merchant streets Arthur had been with Duy Anh the day before. Going there in the morning felt quite different. Arthur hadn’t remembered the exact route but for some reason, it seemed much closer today but also, calmer. If not for the bamboo pole digging into his shoulder, it would almost be a relaxing walk.

They soon reached what looked like the street market. A lot of people of all age were showing off their produce on the sides of the streets while some stalls were selling various foods and flowers. It looks like some had come out to eat breakfast there. There weren’t a lot of people yet but each vendor already looked busy, as they loudly and proudly boasted about the freshness of their products.

Binh was pretty quick to hurry to an old man selling a variety of fishes and seafood. She was probably used to the market and knew who to deal with. She carefully inspected every fish and crab that were displayed with a sharp eye.

“This place sells the freshest fish and seafood. They also sell species that would be hard to find. Like those crabs. Ong oi (1), I’d like two of them please. And this red snapper.”

Arthur got startled at Binh talking to him. She was usually pretty quiet, to the point he thought she was set on ignoring him. He didn’t expect her to talk to him out of her own will, even less to give him actual information and not to give him cold one-liners.

“I’ll go look at the vegetables from the woman over there afterwards, do you see her? The one with a bright yellow bandana on her head. In the meantime, could you go around to look for bamboo shoots? They’re Duy Anh’s favorite but they’re not always sold so you can get whichever ones you can find. Just don’t take the ones that look wilted or too dry. Take this coin. Don’t buy it if it’s more expensive than that. Come back to me once you’re done.” Binh’s way of speaking was way too fast!! And the way she pronounced words also seemed difficult to understand. Arthur was pretty overwhelmed and was thankful she took the time to request him something but he didn’t know what to do with the coin in his hand. Binh was already back to her grocery shopping, counting the coins she needed to pay for the fish, completely oblivious to Arthur’s distress! Although Arthur really, reeeally didn’t want to ask her to repeat herself, he was stuck and had no choice. Better be embarrassed now than make a mistake and be ashamed later.

He tapped lightly on Binh’s shoulder with his fingertip. “Erm...chi (2) Binh? I didn’t understand...too well, sorry. Have to go buy what?” Arthur’s voice was shaky, a bit more than he wished it was. It was already fairly obvious he looked confused but now he looked pretty miserable—and he hadn’t even been scolded (yet?)!

“You don’t have bamboo where you live?”, replied Binh, standing up to look at Arthur in the eyes. Why was it that her eyes looked even scarier and redder than they usually were? It was probably Arthur’s imagination. (It was, the sun just happened to shine on her face.) “A bamboo’s shoots. Small bamboo not yet a tree. Do you see what it is? Long like this”, she said as she gave Arthur an approximation of a bamboo’s shoot length with her hands. This time, Arthur understood. He hadn’t heard of bamboo shoots in a while so it sounded like gibberish to him at first but the vague distant memory of duck and bamboo soup came back to him.

His face brightened and he told her he had understood, giving her an enthusiastic OK sign with his free hand. Binh simply turned back to the vendor and paid, minding her own business, as if Arthur had already left.

Arthur was quite fascinated with the market. It wasn’t exactly a new experience for him since they still existed now but if he had to point out the main difference, it would be that everybody seemed to sell there and it was much livelier, noisier. From what he had seen previously, vendors at such markets nowadays were mostly women. Here, men were seen boasting about their carps, chicken, noodle soup or even...cucumbers?? Anyway, anyone of every age was proudly selling their products there. Actually, what was the most shocking is probably how little it had changed from today’s markets. Except for the lower and husky voices screaming around, everything was exactly the same, even to the aggressive bargaining of neighboring aunties.

It felt quite comfortable. He didn’t have much trouble finding bamboo shoots from a woman who sold products harvested in mountains: mushrooms, greens...roots Arthur didn’t know the name of. Arthur had never seen fresh bamboo shoots before and the ones he knew were all sliced and canned so he wasn’t sure what to expect. If there was one thing he remembered, it was her mother often mistaking asparagus with bamboo shoots for some reason so he assumed they should look similar to that.

However what he found was quite different—and much larger. It could easily be the diameter of four or five asparagus bunched together. It looked quite pretty, actually. The gradient of white to the purple hue was quite unique and its green tip proved the product’s freshness. With the coin, he managed to buy a bundle of half a dozen shoots.

Quite happy that he has easily managed to find what was asked of him (and didn’t need to ask for change!), he enthusiastically turned back to look for the vegetable vendor Binh had pointed out earlier.

1. “Ông ơi” could be translated to “hey mister”. Ông is yet another honorific, for older males, usually with either a bigger age gap or who are at the age of having adult children.

2. Yet another honorific, for older women this time! Could be translated to older sister.