Distributor of future

I should have been a policy maker.

Apr 07, 2024

Dear friends,

What is the chance of hailing the same Grabbike driver on two consecutive days knowing the driver’s mobility is variable and the booking time is random?

Couple weeks ago, a Grabbike driver greeted me enthusiastically “Here you go again!” as I ran towards him swinging a sticker-covered silver helmet in my hand.

“I picked you up yesterday and drove you to Hoan Kiem Lake, remember?” he said, responding to my skeptical look.

“Ah,” I exclaimed in surprise, climbing onto the bike’s backseat, “now we’re going to the West Lake area then”.

Hà Nội, as the name suggests, is surrounded by rivers. There are hundreds of lakes in the city – remnants of disrupted distributaries.

“Call me if you’ll go to any other lakes tomorrow. You have my numbers,” he shouted while buzzing through the capital’s weekend streets.

I laughed as the boy got rizz.

If I was Celine Song, I would start writing the synopsis for my debut movie raveling around a concept of inyeon – a kind of first world problem crap lacking the gravitas to go beyond a Saturday night sleep trigger.

Instead, I got serious and asked him about the gig that he was doing – wondering whether that was his main source of income or just something he did in free time.

The driver turned out to be a third-year student in banking at a university near my home. He started working for be – a local ride-hailing service – 3 months ago, at the same time he kicked-off his internship at a major bank.

“I earn better than being a shop-keeper though; and this helps me to learn about personal finance,” he said.

“How can I apply the 6-jar system thingies when the allowance parents give me can barely sustain myself?,” he added sarcastically. The boy comes from a rural village in a Northern province that part of my mom’s family moved to during the war, enough mutual facts for us to keep the conversation going.

In Vietnam, the average revenue share of ride-sharing companies for motorcyclists is around 70%. On top of that, gig workers need to pay these platforms extra fees and fines based on their performance.

Sharing the same consumer mindset of cross-checking services for the best prices, drivers run several apps simultaneously to catch as many riders as possible.

More than ten times was I picked up by drivers in Grab uniforms after booking the rides via be and vice versa. They shouted my name and destinations to earn the trust.

“It’s me. It’s me. No worries.”

The tactic is practical and utilitarian in a society where laborers are put at the lowest scale of the policy making process.

In contrast, the country’s Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has just proposed to limit students’ working time to 20 hours per week during semesters and 48 hours per week during breaks.

The rationale behind this proposal is still vague while there is no regulation at all for hourly minimum wage.

A common coffee shop server in Hà Nội can be paid VND20,000 (80 cents) for an hour, just enough for a bánh mỳ sandwiches. And one cannot snack bánh mỳ all the time.

In a vlog on Tokyo street style, a schoolgirl disclosed that she worked part-time at an independently owned hamburger shop for $7 an hour.

It’s important to note that Japan’s GDP per capita is roughly 8 times higher than Vietnam, however, $7 is enough to cover a complete meal with main dish – ramen, sando, salad bowl – and coffee/dessert at any combini.

I don’t expect any Vietnamese policymakers to binge watch “how much is your outfit?” videos like the nosy me do but they at least can ask a random gig worker how much they make to feel ashamed of their inconsiderate top-down practices.

As I was re-reading the first volume of the Three body problem trilogy, one detail struck me. It was about the (fictional) time Einstein stopped next to a boy smashing stone on a Shanghai’s main street maintenance site to ask how much he earned each day.

“Five cents,” an accompanying scientist told Einstein.

Recalling the memory several years later, the scientist concluded to his son-in-law: “In China, any idea that dared to take flight would only crash back to the ground. The gravity of reality is too strong.”

I wonder if the same thing applies to the everyday life of a common Vietnamese.

In a recent podcast, The New Yorker critics recited Williams Gibson’s famous quote to talk about the gray area between what is reflected in science fiction and reality.

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed”

It reminded me of a gimmicky superhero film flop directed by Vietnamese director Nguyễn Quang Dũng released some 10 years ago with the title “Siêu nhân X” (Superman X).

In one of the key scenes, the main character said in a solemnly tone:

“Actually, being a superman is just a side gig. To earn extra cash.”

Till next time,

P/S:

Do send me some words.