Dear brothers and sisters,

One evening 3 years ago, my friend and I walked in an area near Ba Chuông Church (Saint Dominic Church), Phú Nhuận district.

It was an intersection in a residential area. The sidewalks of the two corners of the intersection were places where a street foodstall selling snails, soft drinks and beer. The sidewalks of the remaining two corners were empty, except a group of 5 men ranging from 35 to 70 years old were drinking on one corner. The street lights were just right, not too bright and not too dark.

When we arrived, the group were singing. They sang bolero songs in South Vietnam before 1975. There were a young man playing a guitar and another young man singing lead.

We stood there listening to them play music. Then my friend took a plastic chair nearby and used the chair’s surface as a drum. I did the same with another chair. The seven of us became a street band. We sang from yellow songs to red songs, from bolero songs to many other kinds of songs.

They kept asking us to sit down and eat with them. We didn’t want to be drunk, so we kept telling them we wanted to stand to do good drumming. After a while the guitarist gave the guitar to my friend. My friend played for them singing. Now I was the only drummer. And my friend became the main guitarist, because he played so good that they wanted him to keep doing guitar.

Pedestrians, motorcyclists, the people eating snails and the foodstall staffs turned towards us and watched our performance. Sometimes the foodstall owner shouted loudly and applauded.

We played for about 1 hour then stopped and said goodbye, not knowing the name of anyone in the group and them not knowing our names.

What a beautiful memory.

Share with you.

Phạm Thu Hương