saturday in hoan kiem

This past saturday my friend and I were hanging out outside KFC by hoan kiem lake, the center of the city where most tourists stay and where most of the people trying to sell you zippos, tshirts,and shine your shoes convene. We met a couple shoe shiners on the steps and were talking to them and making fun of tourists in vietnamese as they went by. I asked them how old they were and how long they'd been shining shoes. One was 15 and the other 16. They had to drop out of high school because they couldn't afford the 50 us dollars a year they have to pay. When I finally let them shine my shoes they first said one dollar, then after taking my shoes off they said one dollar per shoe and each of them took a shoe. They liked us, but still didn't hesitate to rip us off. After a few minutes a few cops rolled by and they immediately scattered. They came back and explained that the police will arrest kids around the lake and then make them pay or go to jail. When we walked away we could hear them yelling "fucky the police!!!"