The back streets in Vietnam seem to be filled with great opening lines from some international spy novel. "glancing both ways quickly, Mr. Yen put the box in his pocket and slid the razor sharp throwing knife back into his sleeve". You know, something like that. Sitting on Du Duy Tu street across from the street barber, I composed a few of those sinister lines. I'm going to call the barber Mr. Lee Sao. There is something strange about this barber. The first time I saw him I was trying to get a shave. He had a street salon set up outside of the Noch Cay restaurant complete with fashion posters. I inquired about the shave to the young hostess who quickly rushed in to the seated Mr. Sao and relayed my request. He was sitting at what anyone would recognize as a prominent table having a coffee and a smoke. When asked about the shave he slowly shook his head without ever making eye contact with the hostess. She returned to me and in a humble tone said, "now not good time". Really, Mr Sao appeared to be lounging without much regard to marketing his trade or making any dong for that matter. As it turned out one of my favorite street food stales was across the street from Noch Cay and the barber. Over the course of a few days I saw Mr. Sao give exactly one haircut. I saw him turn away at least a dozen. And I thought it was just me. Here is the one haircut taken in a very spy like fashion under my left arm.
He looks like a man you really don't want to let put a razor to your throat. Maybe the gods have smiled on me again. I have a feeling that he could be Madame Woo's son who moved to Hanoi to open a branch of the family business. See previous posting for Madame Woo's biography. No matter what, he isn't going to wear out his knees standing at the barber chair.
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