Standing on the balcony with my hands on the balustrade, I close my eyes. Below me, the street pulses with life and bustles with activity in the relative cool of the early morning.
The tinkle of bicycle bells and the shouts of men on their bicycles can be heard as they try their best to manoeuvre through the congested street. With the street this crowded, you'd be better off on foot than on anything. And no wonder too: other than the ones trying to jostle their way through the street, some stop to chat about the latest happenings with their friends and neighbours. At such loud voices, nothing remains secret for long. The better off ones ride on rickshaws but in this traffic, they're no better off than the next, to be honest.
Peddlers display and sell their goods along the street on two baskets which they hang from a wooden stick balanced on their shoulders. The trundling of carts can be heard as Chinese traders cart the latest shipment of their finest ceramics from their boats moored at the docks right up to the doorstep of this mercantile building. Their wheels groan and creak under their heavy burden.
My bookeeper comes out and greets them. What starts off as an exchange of words becomes a parry of loud words. They must've shortchanged us again. It happens all the time: people trying to pull a fast one. It's fine. My man will sort it out. He's very competent. It's why I hired him in the first place.
Everything else remain pretty much the same. The men below are hard at work: unpacking the wares, packing them again accordingly, distributing them to our customers and storing the rest of them. Everything has remained the same this long and will forever continue to do so, as long as Hoi An still stands and one has a good imagination.
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