VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese millionaires are rich enough to spend billions of dong on a bird cage, millions of dong on a Canadian gooey duck, or thousands of dollars on tiny shrimps.

Billion-dong bird cage for bird collectors

Not only competing with each other in collecting twitting birds, Vietnamese millionaires have also been vying in bird cages.

The prices of bird cages depend on the materials and the way of treating materials to create the cages. The ones carved in sophisticated style would be more expensive. Especially, if the bird cages are made of elephant’s tusk or tortoise shell, they could be a fortune.

On some cages, one can see the carved images of the heroes and the battles in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. On others, one would see the images of 12 animal designations existing in Oriental culture.

The most expensive bird cages are the ones made of elephant tusks or tortoise shells, which could be priced at 500-800 million dong. The bird cages made of old bamboo with sophisticated carving would be valued at 50-120 million dong.

Hung “xiec” (Hung circus) proves to be the best known among the bird cage collectors, who is believed to possess the most expensive cages. One of them is the “ngu long tranh chau” (five dragon cage scramble for a gem).

Tuan, a man who lives on Bach Dang Street of Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi, is believed to possess some valuable bird cages worth one billion dong. Other cages are cheaper, but each of them is worth a fortune, about hundreds of millions of dong.

5 million dong spent on a gooey duck

More and more original dishes have been added into the menus of the rich. Millionaires now like gooey ducks imported from Canada, which they believe are very good for men.

The seafood restaurants in Hanoi now provide the luxurious Canadian food products at 1.9-2.5 million dong per kilo.

Since the products are especially expensive, the way they are served to clients is also special. At the restaurants, gooey duck imports are put into cistern where they receive special care. The water here is always clean which is at 10 oC temperature.

A serviceman of a high end seafood restaurant said gooey duck is the choice of many clients, but only the rich order Canadian clams because they are very expensive. A two kilo clam is priced at 5 million dong, the sum of money big enough to afford two tons of rice.

The tiny shrimps worth thousands of dollars

Tuan Dung, a tiny shrimp player in Hanoi, burst into laugher when he was asked why such a tiny shrimp is priced at thousands of dollars.

Dung showed his aquarium, where there are 150 tiny shrimps, each of which is as big as the tip of a toothpick and said that raising aquatic creatures is now in fashion among the players in the north, after they became popular in the south.

Dung said the hobby takes him a lot of time. “They (the tiny shrimps) would die if the conditions are unfavorable to them. Especially, the weather in the north is so changeable. Therefore, you need to take care for them,” he said.

It’s very costly to raise tiny shrimp. A shrimp may costs thousands of dollars, while its life circle is very short, no longer than one year.

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