…women dare to walk about in dirty, stinking feet.
Vietnam is a country of salon services. Manicures and pedicures can cost as little as 10,000 dong (or 50 cents) each, feet cleaning costs about 60,000 dong ($3), hair cuts cost 40,000 dong ($2), and getting your nails done (which is a mani/pedi plus painting the nails with intricate designs) costs 25,000 dong ($1.25). Sure, these are your basic, hole-in-the-wall salon rates, but the services offered are at par with the $22 manicure I used to get at Rivermark Nails in Santa Clara. Mind you, all the staff was Vietnamese there too!
Now, why, in a country like this, does one need to scrimp on personal hygiene. I don’t believe there’s ever a reason to scrimp on personal hygiene, but really, in a country like Vietnam, where it’s so cheap to keep your feet fungus-free, and stink-free! I could post some pictures of disgusting feet, but I wouldn’t want you to be turned off, and I wouldn’t want to have ‘Happy Feet’ Google ads spamming my blog.
You have to consider the fact that for two years, while I was in the U.S. of A., I was quite cut off from the rest of humanity. You see, there were people, but they weren’t too close to me. Close enough for me to see, or smell, their dirty feet.
There were colleagues, in office, but I had a separate office of my own.. not just a cube, an office – a whole room to myself. There was an occasionally-occupied desk in the room, but the occasional-occupant was such eye-candy, and smelled so wonderfully of pine-nuts and Bailey’s! The rest of the colleagues had their own, separate offices. We ran into each other occasionally, but never in a space crunch, where I’d be forced to smell their feet. Or, see their feet. Even in the warm weather of California, we wore closed shoes to office. The air-conditioning on full blast in the summer never failed to remind me how cold it was gonna get in a few months.
And, before that, in India, I don’t remember any of my friends EVER, EVER taking a walk if their feet were the least bit dirty. Yes, I belong to the upper-middle class in India, a society in which women can afford and go for manicures and pedicures, thank goodness for that.
Then, why, oh-dear-god-why, do women in this country, not get pedicures when they desperately need them? It amazes me to see black sole upon black sole, blackened by the pollution and dust that envelopes Saigon, walking freely and uncaringly, clad only in flip-flops, and sometimes not even that (shame!).
