Inside Scoop (Hanoi, Vietnam)

Quick story... catching a train soon to the mountainous Northwest of Vietnam to a place called Bac Ha. Its really close to the border of China, pity we won't go.

Anyway, the other day we were hanging out with this girl Phuong from Denmark, who's family is Vietnamese. She speaks the language quite well. After heading back from a pub, about 6 of us stopped into a mini-mart to purchase some snacks. The thing is only 2 of us really wanted to buy something, the rest just kinda browsed around and talked as we waited. There were two clerks, one male, one female, tending the store but at first they were across the street watching a film inside this building and ran over when they saw customers. One of us, Tizz, bought and paid the male clerk for an ice-cream cone and was already eating it inside the store.

Everyone else was kind of pondering and possibly thinking of buying something, all the while the female clerk kept smiling politley at us. A couple of minutes passed and the clerk then says to the man in vietnamese "Did that damn girl pay for her ice-cream?! If these people aren't buying anything, why don't they get out of our store so we can go watch our movie?!"

Superstition

Phoung, who's travelling with her parents are making her carry around a clove of garlic with a metal nail pierced through it. Reason being is because if you're the first customer that enters a shop and does not buy anything it is looked upon as bad luck for the shopowner's business for the rest of the day. In return for not buying anything, the shopkeeper will put a curse on the customer as they walk out the door, having the garlic and nail will prevent the curse from happening. Maybe I should go find some garlic and a nail...