A great deal of everything will open tomorrow in Da Nang

We have been under rather strict lockdown for a couple of months now and lately there has been talk of a "great reopening" of sorts that is going to take place very soon. The dates kept changing but now it appears as though we are truly going to re-open this city in a very real way starting tomorrow.

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The timing of this decision on the part of the government is rather convenient if you ask me because the population of this city at least, were already kind of reaching a point where they weren't complying anyway as a lot of businesses that hadn't gotten the appropriate "permits" to be open were opening anyway and as far as I could tell the police kind of gave up on trying to actually enforce this. I say this because no one was getting in trouble and given the very rumor-mill-nature of this city, if something like this had happened, or even if someone simply saw something that looked like it was happening, we would have heard about it.

This is great news for all of us that have been really looking forward to dining out but mostly it is because we want to go to a restaurant that isn't really a restaurant and have some drinks with our friends although I believe the allure of this notion will wear off pretty quickly since most people tend to hang out with the same people at a pub that they would at their own houses... it just costs a lot more.

I was in a bar a few nights ago that was not even trying to be covert about the fact that they were open and the TV's were on, the music was blasting and a bunch of people were in there drinking without even trying to hide this fact. According to friends this has been going on for a couple of weeks and it is all over the city. The people basically had decided on their own that they were not going to stay home and stay closed anymore and it seems a little suspicious that the government conveniently decides to "allow" this just a few days after this starts to be a city-wide phenomenon.

I suppose this is how Vietnamese people resist and bring about change in this country. The same can be said for the lockdown that was imposed in Saigon and how it coincidentally ended its own lockdown right around the time that thousands of people started rushing barricades and roadblocks that you had to be tested in order to cross and forced their way through. The police and officials were outnumbered 100 to 1 and simply got out of the way and let it happen... a few days later the lockdowns were dropped by apparent political decision.... hmmmmm seems a little convenient doesn't it?

Regardless of how or why it is happening, I am happy that it is happening because while I have a rather comfortable home and plenty of food and drinks, I think this relatively poor country has suffered to the point where no matter what happens, they are not going to take it any more.

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So for now I think basically everyone is excited to see how things change tomorrow and whether or not it can actually manage to stay that way. I have a feeling that even if something bad does come from this that this country will not go back into lockdown again the likes of which we have already seen and the government will step away from showing case numbers to anyone because I really don't believe that the population will comply anymore.

One thing that concerns me about the official word from the government is where they say "with certain conditions" because that could mean a lot of things. It will be an improvement over what we currently have going on regardless though, and that is a very good thing and has been a long time coming.