They say you don’t buy a lottery ticket because you think you’ll win; you buy one so that you can fantasize about winning.
Perhaps it’s only because I recently watched Công tử Bạc Liêu, a movie in which a fascinating true story is reduced to shameless idolizing of the rich with pretty costume design, but I’ve been thinking a lot about money lately. In particular, what would I do if I had more of it?
While walking Saigon streets awash in perpetual buying and selling, from fruit vendors to car dealerships, hand-painted signs announcing rooms for rent, to glitzy billboards hawking vacation developments, I find myself wondering what I would do if I experienced a windfall. A winning state lottery ticket, the kind sold by wandering vendors and small shops, pays out a maximum of VND1.8 billion (approximately US$80,000) after taxes. It’s not that much, but it's enough to daydream.
The baubles offered on Shopee promise a painfully transient ointment to the human condition. Ditto any fancier objects offered in shops or boutiques. I’d buy my cat Mimi some of the wet food she likes, but I’m fine with Hảo Hảo. So putting aside the obvious most responsible option of saving it, what would I do with the money?
Công tử Bạc Liêu movie poster via SGGP.
Công tử Bạc Liêu was wealthy by birth, which is just a genetic version of the lottery. There is some further irony that his father amassed that wealth by profiting off the gambling addictions of his relatives and locals. In the film based on legends, Công tử Bạc Liêu uses the fortune to hold grandiose spectacles like cooking chè by burning cash and hosting an opulent prize fight. While these are merely selfish attempts to project an image, he justifies them with the explanation that “wherever Công tử Bạc Liêu goes, joy follows.”
I know no greater communal provider of joy in Saigon than the zoo, but, sadly, it owes VND846 billion in tax debt, a staggering sum I’d be unable to make a dent in. Ditto the woefully beleaguered projects that could improve people's lives, such as the Bến Lức-Long Thành Expressway or the anti-flood system. I’d probably be better off giving the money to a small charity: Blue Dragon, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, the Wisdom House project, or Sách hoá nông thôn project.
Or maybe, the best use of the lottery money would be to simply hand it over to the street vendor who sold me the ticket. Surely they need it more than I do. It’s nice to imagine myself doing something like that. And fantasies, like movies, allow us to wallow in illusory versions of ourselves, even if we doubt we’d live up to them.
