This post isn't what the thumbnail image might suggest it is. I am not trying to make a post about a $4 plastic alarm clock that I picked up just to have a clock in my living room. That IS why I got it because I am old school and I like to be able to look at an analog clock rather than reaching for my phone anytime I need to know what time it is.
This thing is just like you would think it would be: A cheap piece of crap that was made in China for a 20 cents and they sell it for $4 and make massive profits. This is not my real alarm clock though. I don't use an alarm clock because I have been fortunate enough to position myself in life to the point where I can wake up anytime I feel like it since I work on projects with broad timelines. My various employers don't care when or where I work provided I get the job done. They are also quite ignorant about how long it actually takes to do the things they ask me to do and well, I'm not going to let them know this information. Normally they give me 4-5 times as much time as is actually required to complete all the tasks they assign me.
Back to my alarm clock. I now wake up every day at 7am and it isn't always by choice. It is because of these jerks who are right outside my balcony.
Vietnam law states that there can be no construction noise from 10pm to 7am and while they do bend the rules every now and then they normally will stick strictly to the 7am start time. I think that in other places in the city they don't really adhere to this timeline but there is a small police precinct in my neighborhood so I think they are one of the projects that is probably held to the law a bit more than others.
While it is extremely annoying to have banging and cutting get fired up every day at 7am, these guys do exactly that without fail. I have in the past attempted to sleep through it but it is a waste of time. They are relentless and when the clock hits 7:01 they are all in position with their hammers drawn waiting to bang on something, anything, for the next 10 hours or so.
I don't get upset with the individual workers, it certainly isn't their decision and I actually felt kind of bad when I was told from a local about how much a semi-skilled construction laborer can make in a day. Let's just say that if I tried to hire a majority of you out there per hour what these guys make in a 10-hour day, you would likely tell me to get lost. Their daily wage is around what teenagers in the United States make per hour for washing dishes at Burger King.
That's just the way the world is folks and while it is tragic some people who have always lived in the west might be a little alarmed to find out that most of the world subsides on a couple of dollars per day. According to statistica the average income in Vietnam is 4.7 million VND per month. This translates to just over $200 a month.
That's so tragic but that is just the way it is. This is half of what my rent is and I regularly complain about the quality of my condo. I can only imagine what sort of place these laborers have when their wages are so low. It makes me feel sorry for them and now I don't want to throw rocks at them nearly as much as I did before. In order to have their hammer in hand ready to start banging on stuff at 7:01 that must mean that they are waking up at 5 or 6, eating, driving their motorbike to the site, maybe having smoke or two with a cheap coffee, and gearing up and clocking in by 6:30AM.
This occupation also brings the 2nd thing this post is about into perspective as well.
I constantly complain about the intense summer heat here in Da Nang and I was noting this just a little while ago as I was closing my balcony door and switching my air conditioning on at just past 8am, which sounds crazy that this is necessary to most of the world.
Again though, these are my 1st world problems. Those guys across the street that wake me up every morning are dressed head to toe in full construction gear including boots. They are also in the sun. I'm indoors, shirtless, sitting in a chair and I am the one complaining? I think that if I had to work just one day in their boots that I would pass out from heat exhaustion but that being said my Nordic blood wasn't built for intense heat. I rarely see Vietnamese people break a sweat even when they are exercising. I also know that the reverse is true as far as temperature is concerned.
I love the "winters" here. The temperature will drop below 20 degrees C in December to February and this is my favorite time of year. I will still wear short sleeves and shorts for the most part and in the meantime the Vietnamese are all cloaked up with winter jackets the likes of which I would wear if I was trudging through snow. People definitely are geared for different climates based on their genetics.
In the end I chose to live here and moments like my new alarm clock kind of need to put things into perspective and realize how good I actually have it.