Vizi Andrei wrote in his essay An Invitation to Slow Living, “Being busy is a status symbol now. We feel worthy of respect only if we have something to do.” Being busy, in a rush, or constantly stimulated is not only normalized and, in many cases, rewarded, but it’s also highly tempting. In a major city like Saigon, a place that doesn’t stop moving and growing, every corner invites you to pick up the pace, and keep your eyes forward. Go, go, go. Don’t stop. Don’t blink. Don’t blink! However, even amidst the mad rush that is Saigon, if you look deeply enough, there are pockets of peace and quiet. If there is one place that I think embodies Andrei’s invitation, it is Cafe Slow.
“Once you refuse to be in a rush,” wrote Vizi Andrei, “you will feel the true elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of your time.” At Cafe Slow, that feels possible. And it’s more than just the name that creates that feeling. While they have locations in District 2, 3, and even in Hoi An, I like the District 3 location most.
Tucked away down a hẻm off Huỳnh Tịnh Của, the space invites you to leave the main scene and refuse the rush. After you park your bike around the corner and walk over through the green gate, you’ll see people having a chat, baristas making drinks in the back, and a couple of French bulldogs lounging around. It feels calming every time I return here. The round paper lantern pendant lights hanging from the ceiling illuminate the room with a soft, diffused glow. Light music fills the air while the rest of the vinyl records stacked on the table await their turn. The big, welcoming tree outside provides shade for guests while its leaves slow dance with the breeze. Grab yourself a pastry, sweet or savoury, a cup of coffee, iced or hot, and a seat, upstairs or downstairs—no matter your choices, there’s always a cozy spot awaiting you.
Beyond feeling worthy of respect from others, why does the temptation to keep busy wield so much power? The power comes from an undercurrent of panic coursing through daily life. An unyielding river of doubt. If I’m not keeping busy, am I really living? “Get busy living, or get busy dying,” old Red said in the movie Shawshank Redemption. In other words, get a move on or get moving on.
Every time I’m at Cafe Slow I glance around—everyone looks busy, but nobody ever seems in a hurry. Perhaps the physical creates the metaphysical. The lights in the room, the lyrics in the air, the leaves in the breeze. It’s all tempting you to slow down and calm down.
Andrei’s invitation to slow living really feels like a segue to one of his other essays, How To Waste Time. He writes, “Paradoxically, only those who know how to waste time are truly busy, productive, and hard working.” Only those who truly appreciate the beauty of slowing down understand the art of wasting time: it's the only way to get stuff done. Not all those who waste time are wasteful.
Although these days I mostly write at home, I rarely come up with any ideas at my desk. They always seem to appear when I’m somewhere else: going for a drive, going for a drink with friends, or wasting an afternoon at a cafe. Why is that? I think it has to do with an experiment I read about in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. It’s the same experiment that I was shown in my first psychology class back in university: The Invisible Gorilla. Subjects are asked to count how many times people pass around a ball in a video. In doing so, people completely miss the fact a huge gorilla walks right across the scene—even stands there for a few seconds.
Essentially, it shows that when we focus intensely on one task, we completely miss something obvious happening right in front of us. It’s a cognitive illusion. The more information you’re trying to process at a given time, the more you become distracted, and the less you notice. As Kahneman explains, your pupils are wide open, yet blind. If your eyes are the window to your soul, then in many cases trying to move too fast through life results in missing the big, hairy meaning of life pounding its chest in clear view.
Slowing down, then, isn’t about doing less. It’s about seeing more. It’s about reconnecting with the most creative and personal ideas that arrive only when nothing is demanding them. That’s the value of wasting time. You allow yourself to notice what has been obvious all along. At Cafe Slow, wasted time is never a waste. And it’s more than just the name that creates that feeling. Beyond the lights, music and cozy seats, it’s how the other guests, the staff, the dogs, all make you feel calm, welcome, and in no need to rush. In a city that rewards speed, Cafe Slow offers something different: an invitation to slow down. Not to escape life, but to notice it again.
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Photos are courtesy of Cafe Slow.
