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Meal at Haus Bremen. $6.46 for the pork schnitzel, fried potatoes, salad and bread. $5.17 for the the glass of Hofbrau.

Owners are a 60-year-old man from Bremen and his 50-year-old Vietnamese partner. The German has been in Vietnam 3 1/2 years.

Previous to this restaurant, they had operated a beer garden for a decade in Cambodia.

Each year, they go to Germany for a month, primarily to see his mother. The woman has been to Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. When I asked if she had seen a German Christmas market, she said no, since they had to be here to run their business.

"And it's too cold for her!" the man said.

She has two daughters of her own. "But I've known them since they were this small," he said as he lowered his right hand to just above his knees. "I taught them how to swim." He made a butterfly stroke through the air. "They are my children."

The older is majoring in engineering in Saigon. Already fluent in English, she's studying German and will go to Germany for her last two years of college.



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