Waiting for the light to turn green at Ngã Tư Bình Thái, on the old Thủ Đức side, I admired the new Lê Văn Việt Street. Colorful LED lights lined the mid-rise buildings. Banners as big as truck containers cast shadows over the sidewalks. The word “cyberpunk” popped up in my mind, and I was surprised. I would never associate such a term with Vietnam and, more specifically, the old District 9 (D9). One of the perks of living in Vietnam is how easily available food, products, and services are. I love dashing through traffic on my bike, and twenty minutes later, I came home with the exact haircut I saw on Pinterest. There truly is no place like home. 

Business has never stopped booming. Every two months, there’s either a new phở spot, a new cosmetic chain, a dentist, a florist, or a vaccination center. It wasn’t until I was only eighteen that I began to notice, though, that when a new business pops up, an old one dies. D9 can’t get any bigger. Someone has to give up their space. “Give it two years,” my mom always said when she drove through a new business. She was usually right. 

A few turns away from my house was a Vietnamese-style beer garden — less about beer tasting, more about indulging. Whenever we drove by, there was always a grilled pig on their sidewalk and a waitress in a red skin-tight dress waving a sign that read “Birthday. Free ‘service.’” The place was called “Bia Tuyết,” — their name was printed on the wall with white LED lights, and each letter was as tall as a street lamp. It was never slow, even on Tuesday nights. One of my father’s friends happened to be the landlord of the place. One day, he came to our house, and my parents asked if he’d renew the contract. 

“Heck no,” he said. “They’re dying. They’re moving into an alley.”

My father asked, “Didn’t they owe last month?” 

Two years later, Bia Tuyết became a coffee shop. 

Of course, I never asked my parents. I knew they didn’t have the answer either. But more importantly, there was a realization and perhaps a lesson, which perplexed me, that business could have chosen quality over fast money — if only lessons from business school were applied here. But then that wouldn’t make Vietnam Vietnam, would it? For the economy, “cyberpunk” was a misconception. But for the culture, it felt appropriate.