VietNamNet Bridge – Putting a burning piece of coal into the mouth, breaking a bulb and chewing it, putting a snake into the mouth and let it crawl through his nose… are the shows of a teen boy in front of restaurants in HCM City.

Le Tri

At 8 pm at a café on the Saigon riverbank, a boy named Le Tri, in a yellow-red T-shirt, shouted clamorously, “hey… hey” to attract people’s attention and began performing circus acts.

The boy didn’t draw people’s attention but he quietly opened his tool-box, took out a bottle of petrol and poured petrol into his mouth. After that, he lit a stick and breathed fire. People began to pay attention to the show.

The boy turned to another item: he put a burning piece of coal into his mouth and kept it closed until the piece of coal cooled down.

The most terrified item was swallowing a snake and let it crawl through his nostril.

After each item, the boy held a bowl and approached every audience in the café to ask for money. Some gave him tens of thousands VND, and some gave him several thousands VND only. But some drove him away.

The boy, Tri, was born into a poor family. His parents work on a sand boat in the Saigon River. Tri had to quit school several years ago to earn his living.

Tri said he used to follow his parents to work. Two years ago, he learned some circus items and began earning his living by performing circus acts at restaurants and cafes.

“I had to practice these items for two years. They were really difficult at the beginning, but I practiced a lot and now I can perform them easily,” Tri said.

Tri’s family is living in a hired room in District 7, HCM City. He goes to public sites or restaurants along the Saigon River to perform circus. He earns around VND150,000 a night on average.

At 10.30 pm at a restaurant on the bank of Nhieu Loc Canal in Binh Thanh district, two boys of around 16-17 also performed circus items like shaking dishes, swallowing fences, chewing light bulbs, breathing fire, etc.

Phi, one of the two boys, said that they learned these items from a Chinese.

“I used to vomit whenever I put a snake into my mouth. I was scared. My nostril swelled and was violently painful, but I’m used to with it,” Phi said.

The two boys have to pay VND30,000-50,000/night to restaurant owners depending on their earnings.

“We are learning new items to attract the audience and to earn more money,” Phi said.

Watching the circus show by kids, Truong, 54, a xe om (motorbike taxi driver) on the bank of Nhieu Loc canal, said, “These boys perform circus here everyday. Their show is dangerous and it is no longer attractive to the audiences who have watched it several times”.

“In the past, these dangerous circus items were only performed by senior kung-fu masters, but now teen boys dare to perform them, just to earn their living,” he said.