I enjoyed lunch today with five Canadians and one Vietnamese. All of them are ethnic Chinese, five of them speak Vietnamese, all speak Cantonese and most of them also speak Mandarin. One of them is called to work with ethnic Vietnamese, the others to work with ethnic Chinese who are born here and are Vietnamese citizens.
They told me that there are about 700,000 ethnic Chinese in Vietnam; but only a total of 11 churches. The estimate given was about 2,000 believers among these 700,000 Chinese. Thank God for these few churches and pray for those who are committed to helping them reach others.
During our meal, we were intrigued by a small thin white item that was part of one dish. Our host asked about it, since though he was born in Vietnam, he had never eaten it before. We learned that it comes from the inner core of a coconut tree. Coconut trees are valuable; so only if they fall down, or must be cut down, are people able to harvest the inner core of the tree trunk. Then it is made into thin strips to add to certain dishes.
Occasionally we rent a small hotel meeting room to gather together with a few new foreign friends. One hotel we use charges us $200 for a meeting of 25 people for a three hour period, including tea, coffee, fruit and cookies. I checked on another hotel today and their price is $700! This is my experience in Ho Chi Minh. There is a huge variation with wide spectrum in price for restaurant meals, hotel rooms, apartments, clothes, etc. Those of us from the West are amazed to find things at very low prices; and then can be shocked to find similar but higher quality items costing as much or more as we would pay "back home".
No comments:
Post a Comment