Hope at the noodle cart (part 2)

I waited for my noodle guy, M, to pack up his stall last night so I could talk to him.

I stood on the footpath about 50m away, outside a nightclub, but I suspect he knew I was there. Young people were spilling out onto the pavement,as the nightclub had just closed.

As a typical suburban nightclub it is run-down, and looks much rougher than its smarter counterparts in town.

The carpark on one side of the nightclub is fenced off, so the young patrons now leave their motorcycles on the sidewalk in front.

As I stood squeezed between 100 motorcycles and a bank of public telephone booths, a few drunken girls asked me where I was going.

Two young men had taken over the phone box next to me. One sat with his head in his hands, moaning, while a friend kept him company.

M starts work about 4pm, and that night finished at 2am. The noodle stand has no roof, so when it rains, he gets wet, and when the sunburns intensely, as it has this summer, he suffers in the heat.

All the seasons pass by over his head, as he waits for those dreadful8-10 hours to tick down.

At the start of the day, he pulls out the cart, someone fires up the gas, starts preparing food. He sets out two or three tables and chairs in front of the stand, and then waits. When the customers arrive – and it is busy, most of the time – he will take them their bowl of noodles.

He will clean up after them, then wait for the next lot. But he does not merely wait…he always seems to be lifting something, carting something, cleaning, fixing, tidying.

Ten minutes later, he appeared on the footpath which takes him home, wearing his customary shorts and T-shirt. I stopped him before he could walk past.

'You want the rest of your life to be like this?' I asked. He looked at me, shook his head, then walked on.

Now see part 2