During the early hours of the morning, when most Ho Chi Minh City residents are still fast asleep, a lot of the city’s cafes have already opened their doors.
It’s an early morning tradition for a town stepped in café culture. Some come for a cup of coffee before heading to work, some to chat with friends, but there are some who come for a taste of unbridled competition and a partner to play a few games of Chinese chess with.
Passersby at the residential area near Nhieu Loc Canal in Binh Thanh District often see dozens of people, sitting face to face, pitched in epic chess battles.
“The start of my day is a few games of Chinese chess with anyone,” Hoan Ky, a local elder said.
His partner on this day was college student, Nguyen Manh Hung who lost both games to his older competitor.
“You are still young, you should learn how to master the game, don’t use tricks only for the sake of winning,” Ky told Hung while teaching the young student some moves he knew.
“It has been a year since I opened the shop for Chinese chess players,” Huong, a café owner who is also a chess player, said. “I have learnt a lot from the sophistication of the youths to the poise of the elders.”
She explained the recent boom of café-cum-chess-venues in the area stemmed from the increasing demand for a place for local chess lovers.
“The coffee shop owners could be chess fans themselves,” Huong said. “But others only imitate the success of other shops upon realizing the love for chess of their customers.”
“The number of chess players keeps increasing, I have bought six chess tables but it’s still not enough,” Quang, a coffee shop manager in District 10 said.
“Most of my customers are intellectuals and I absolutely have no complaint about the way they play chess,” he said. “Really sophisticated and everything is in order, completely different from other noisy, chaotic eateries.”
While most roadside chess venues are packed with older people and blue-collar workers, students and office workers often spend their spare indoors.
“I often come here to play chess and spend some time with my friends,” chess player Nguyen Van Phat said. “The prize for each game could be a meal or a drink, but the most exciting thing is (when) they create poems or sayings to go with each move they make on the chess board.”
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