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Modern youth burn through cash at discotheques
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VietNamNet Bridge – When the sun sets, many modern Saigon youth gather at discotheques and night clubs to waste another night. Tuoi Tre investigated.


Humble playboys

Following Lam, a young playboy, Tuoi Tre reporters went to a café on Nguyen Kiem Road in HCM City’s Phu Nhuan district. At 8 pm, Lam summoned his “teammates.” Thirty minutes later, two teenage girls in very short shorts and decolleté blouses and an oddly dressed young boy joined the group.

A Tuoi Tre reporter urged Lam to head for his “special club,” but Lam explained that first his group had to wait for “the goods”. Understanding his meaning, a girl took the keys to Lam’s motorbike to go somewhere to buy drugs. Lam explained: “Some are addicted to ‘ke’ (xí ke, or ‘scag’) and others to ‘da’ (đá, or ‘rock,’ that is, crystal meth). It is not cool to go to a ‘special club’ without these things. A dose of ‘da’ costs 1.3 million dong. ‘Ke’ is cheaper, around 200,000 dong/dose.”

When the girl returned, the group found a cab to go to a hotel on Bach Dang Road in Go Vap district. The receptionist seemed to know this group well so he didn’t ask for ID’s. The group went up to the third floor to shoot up. Inside the rented room, the girl put the drugs on a wooden table. Lam took a needle and a distilled water jar from his bag while the girl cut down the pills into smaller pieces. The group shared these pieces, then left the hotel for a night club on Le Van Tho Road, also in Go Vap district.

The club was crowded; perhaps 150 people were dancing insanely when they came in. Sexy waitresses circulated through the crowd, vending beer and foreign wine. Lam and his group both danced and drank beer. The boy gave 400,000 dong to a man in the night club to buy him two pills of ‘keo’ (kẹo, i.e., ‘candy,’ or ecstasy).

“Let’s chew it and dance!” Lam cried out. The four friends continued to dance and drink in the dim light until the night club closed at 1.30 am, running up a bill of 2.3 million dong (roughly the monthly wage of an ordinary worker).



Playboys

On a Saturday evening, a Toyota minicar stopped at the gate of the HCM City University for Social Sciences and Humanity. The driver was a young man of around 20. He made a call from a most modern mobile phone. Several minutes later, a female student hopped in.

The boy was Vu. His father is a banker and mother is a real estate trader in Dong Nai province. Vu explained that he “started going to night clubs at the age of 15. It is only fun to go there in a group.”

Vu and his group invited a Tuoi Tre reporter to join them at a discotheque on Pham Ngoc Thach Road where young playboys drink hundred dollar foreign wine like water. “Feel free! This bar is not very big but I spend at least 15 million dong ($800) each time I come here. Today I will spend twice as much,” Vu boasted.

He took out his wallet and tipped some waitresses 100,000 dong each, then continued drinking to the cheers of his friends. Vu and his group danced madly to nerve-cracking music and drank more and more. At 2am, Vu paid over 40 million dong for the night.

Another young man is called “Grandpa” though he is only 24 years old. He is the son of a famous doctor in Dong Nai who also owns a lot of real estate. From the age of 20, D has been a familiar client at top discotheques and night clubs in Hanoi, Hai Phong and HCM City.

“I’m fed up with local discotheques so recently I’ve been to clubs in China with my friends,” D said. These are the famous Haoshi and KK night clubs, which serve Vietnamese students at Guangxi University.

D said that each time he goes to these night clubs, he pays nearly 30 million dong ($1.600) for wine, drugs and dancing with his friends. He has often stayed there for a whole week.

“I told my parents that I am studying at the Chinese Oriental Medicine Institute to pursue my father’s career. My parents often send me 50 to 100 million dong each time,” D boasted.

Then there’s ‘LP,’ who’s famous among young players in Saigon. He’s the son of a rich family in the nearby Binh Duong province. This youth often spends several dozens of thousand dollars on trips to bars in Singapore and Thailand. Recently, he organized a million dollar birthday party at the Paradise Club in Hollywood, USA.

Tuan, a teenage playboy, says he goes to night clubs because he’s very sad; his parents have been busy at their business and haven’t paid attention to him. Starting at humble night clubs, Tuan has progressed to luxurious clubs and his expense for a night out has risen to several hundred dollars.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre