Living a Dream: Love Story in Vietnam

Chapter 2 - The Ben Thanh Market: Bargaining

So, yes, I love this movie, and I also love that the main character's name is Amanda, which is my first name. Just a note. Also, in the story, I made up Scott's background. I don't know much about him.

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The market scene was the last scene we had to for the day. After the chariots, we did the scene where Amanda, who was played by Rachael, has to cross the street through dozens of mopeds, and Sinh helps her. Apparently, there were no crosswalks in Vietnam. People just had to cross the street at their own risk, and they would trust the other drivers not to run them over.

The "crossing the busy street" scene took a couple of hours since the time had to be just right for them to walk through. Everyone was pretty beat after that scene since it was so noisy and stressful, and laughingly, in the movie, it would come before the market scenes. Usually, scenes were shot out of order and would be put together later like a movie puzzle. I learned that in school in a film class.

Now, I had seen Asian markets on TV and in shows, and had been to a few in LA, but this one took the cake. It was huge! I stood there, mouth agape, when we first stepped into the noisy, bustling place. The perk of shooting in this place last was that we get to go shopping after filming, actors and crew alike. I was looking forward to that, and immediately, I was eyeing stands and shops to check out later. Excitement buzzed me. I loved shopping, especially for Asian things.

"Holy cow, look at this place!" I hollered as I stared around, and my team around me laughed. They had been in Vietnam longer than me and probably had already been through this market. It was popular for the tourists. Vietnam was a great tourist destination, but not a lot of people thought of going here, hence the idea for this movie.

"It's something, isn't it?" asked Joey, a guy of about my age, maybe younger, who was on my team, and he was a Vietnamese-American like Scott. He was also pretty cute and resembled one of those Asian pretty boys from boy bands. He had the look and hair for it. He was the one who called me earlier at the hotel.

"It really is," I agreed, looking around and not knowing what to look at since there were so many stalls and people. The natives noticed the crew and stopped and chatted with the other natives who were a part of it. "This place is huge. After filming, I'm going to spend some time and go to each stall."

"You're going to be here until midnight."

We both laughed at that, knowing he was probably not wrong, and got to work. As I was helping set up a stand of fruit for the scene, I bumped into someone. I turned around and saw that it was Andrew Barth Feldman, who played the youngest of the tour group in the movie, Alex, the one who was on a gap year before college. This kid was around twenty years old. A baby. Well, to me, that is. All people born after the year 2000 were babies to me. I was a 1989 baby.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the redhead, only his shade had more brown, creating a nice auburn. He also had some freckles dotting his nose and cheeks.

"That's okay. Sorry, it's pretty nuts in here."

"Yeah, no kidding! I about passed out when I came in here."

He was beaming. His character and he himself seemed a lot like the same person—giddy and outgoing. "Me, too. I'm Sophia, set production."

He shook my hand. "Andrew. It's a pleasure to meet a fellow redhead here in Vietnam."

I handled my hair that I tied into a long ponytail as it was draped over my shoulder. "Yes, very much so. Some lady at the street scene earlier, at one of the shops, gushed about my red hair, saying she hasn't seen anything like it. And mind you, Scott had to translate everything for us in that conversation, and that's how I knew what she was saying."