Internet cafe - Hue style

I had started to fall way behind on my photo uploading and was getting nervous that my new camera's 2GB memory card would run out of space before I had a chance to clear it. So I took myself off to a local Internet cafe.

As I wondered along the streets of Hue, looking for a suitable spot, I noticed a lot of grandparents taking care of their grandchildren; playing with them, feeding them and just hanging out. The Asian mentality of family bounding is well and truly prevalent in Vietnam.

I came across a small sign pointing down a long hallway which touted "Super Fast Internet". I couldn't see any computers, but there was blaring music and a health grouping of bikes and scooters out front. I headed in.

The hallway open out into a large room with about 16 computers all closely packed together. There were already about 4 other people there, all playing games and IMing about 5 people at once.
I was sat next to this one young guy who was chain smoking, playing a Vietnamese version of Pac Man and IMing several people, plus he was in charge of the music. This meant that his machine had speakers and he was signed into a P2P music sharing service. When I arrived, Rihanna was blaring out.

I got started on my photo uploading which seemed to be moving at a pretty health pace. As I waited for my 125 images to upload, I checked in on messages and facebook.

Within about 20 minutes the place was filling up with high school kids. All of them signed into networked shoot'em up games. They were all playing each other. Every time someone got a good shot on someone the place would erupt into taunts and laughter. My upload speed for my photos plummeted.

Within another 30 minutes the place cleared out again. These kids all seemed well seasoned in terms of how many minutes they could eak out for the minimum charge of 2000 Dong (just under 10 cents)

The smoking DJ next to me took his leave as well. He was quickly replaced by a younger guy who asked me (in very broken English and lots of hand signals) if I wanted the coveted seat. I declined by pointed to some tracks I wanted to hear on the music service. My selections met with his approval, so we had Shaggy and Kanya West for the next round.

The next wave of people flooded in and the gaming chaos started all over again.

All in all I sat there for nearly two hours. I got caught up on email and news. I only got 50 images uploaded but I had a great time jamming with the locals.

I am sure there was an ancient temple nearby of great historical importance, but in my mind it is just as important to have these modern day exchanges. It is somehow reassuring to know that school kids in this part of the world manage to find time to slip in a few mindless games on the way from school, just like kids back home.

Those young children I saw earlier so content with their grandparents as playmates, will be blasting the hell out of their friend's avatars in a few years too.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network