Welcome to The Manor

I remember there being a mother and her barely-walking toddler, a cute little girl with a red backpack and necklegth hair, still puffy from her earlier nap in the crib. The two were just going through a strolling the open air, on the wide streets of the amnor’s luxury blvds. The five of us would come to see the whole family as we completed our tour of the area. We later found the father at K-mart, the Manor’s local Korean goods market which doubled as a generic kwikie-mart, taking inventory and directing the delivery man where to drop the boxes of ramen and potato chips. We passed Louis Vuitton quick-stops and the orthodontist, the local Korean BBQ restaurant and the Manor’s own personal Big C, what we now call the mini Big C due to the fact that the big Big C is only two bus stops away. 

In general, the Manor was a luxurious housing complex that is nearly self-contained. No one must leave its perimeter to live a comfortable and rich existence. I would have been satisfied with just the local pool bar that also served pho, nearly everything I need for my existence. I would live at the Manor for this reason alone, but I couldn’t help shake the feeling that the Manor was in a state of decay. We arrived to find mountains of dirt, a hint of the further efforts for development in the area, but at the same time, I would look up at the sides of the apartments only to find leaky air-conditioners staining the concrete walls of each Manor apartment unit. Vietnam’s humidity is no timid creature, and it’s violent monsoons return every year to remind the people of The Manor that they too are subject to the whims of nature. The Manor is in open defiance of nature. It’s clearly unsustainable with its mass of air-conditioners and single bathrooms. These are reasons I wouldn’t live there. Besides that, it seems designed for isolation and privacy, not for community. This can’t be good for quality of life, and that’s ultimately why the Manor wouldn’t be my choice for a place to settle down.