Street (n.): a sprawl of cement, stone, pavement or dirt splayed across a stretch of earth that has been smoothed, stripped of plants and serves as a communal transport path and thus a stage for the vibrancy of the human condition to play out upon.
Short video Streets of Saigon focuses on the city's characters as they perform their daily routines across the city. Algirdas and Ruta, a couple from Lithuania creatively known as Still Got It Stories recently moved to Vietnam after a year in New Zealand to capture the "hustle and bustle" of the country. This is their first work set here.
When our ancestors climbed down from the trees, our bodies shifted to bipedal locomotion and our innards altered, evolving to match different lifestyles. As we transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers, our field-filled towns started to be connected by streets, and so did our diet. We can't eat raw meat, drink untreated pond water or digest tough fibers, seeds or pits. It's fitting then that this video features several scenes of our modern society's means of preparing food. Meat is grilled, coffee boiled, vegetables pickled and fluffy bread fresh from the oven represents the closest Saigoneers will get to ingesting raw rice stalks.
Roads have gone from feet-worn paths into busy thoroughfares filled with motorized vehicles and in turn, we've become a sedentary species. Exercise has gone from a means of survival to a hobby or lifestyle choice. How strange to now see people dancing and doing calisthenics in parks surrounded by the very inventions that made such activities necessary to stay in shape?
What Streets of Saigon below:
Video via YouTube user Still Got It Stories.
