On the weekend after a business trip, I am roaming around Ho Chi Minh City taking photos of cracks and curbs, as I do. I’m in a part of town with no tourists, crouched down on my knees taking a photo of two street poles sticking vertically out of the concrete. Despite having disappeared from the world into the camera lens, I sense a security guard meandering over. This happens all the time, no matter the country. Some security guard gets uptight about his turf and tries to stop you from taking photos on public property. I start debating whether to challenge his authority or just walk away. This guard, however, just leans over my shoulder to see how the photos are coming out. I keep shooting. Then a motor biker delivering whole fish, who I had noticed out of the corner of my other eye, gets off his bike and scurries my way.
He picks up a brick and places it very strategically in front of one of the two poles, improving the composition. Pulling my face away from the camera I say, in certainly terrible Vietnamese, "cảm ơn" (thank you). A woman, who had come out to see what the heck I was doing, repeated "cảm ơn!" in her best I-can't-believe-this-American-just-tried-to-say-cảm ơn voice, and she, we all just erupted in laughter.
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Robert Heavrin can be found on Instagram @robertheavrinphoto