Week 21 - A Day in Da Nang, Tin-roof weddings, & Open Air Theatre

Hello everybody,

Here in the quiet little town of Hoi An, we have been having more interesting and unexpected events; that help the weeks just fly by! Take this week just passed, it began with yet another farewell party. This time, Roz, a volunteer with the children's home 'Blue Dragon' who had been here nearly 5 months, returned home to Australia, but not before we all joined her for a leaving dinner just across the road at my neighbour's place 'Cafe 43' ( a must for all visitors to Hoi An). Roz's 'best bits' are too numerous to mention here, but she was well known around town, for being the most focused cyclist in town, usually because she crash at any given moment, with the slightest of distraction. Roz also kept us entertained with her many embarrassing stories, no more so than the sun burned bottom story which was acted out for full dramatic effect! God bless you Roz, and we hope to see you again soon! Roz can be seen in a fare few of my facebook antics, and is in the centre of this picture below, (next to me). Wednesday lunchtime will certainly be remembered as being the closest I got to going to a Vietnamese Wedding. I arrived back at home at 1130, for my regular 2 hour lunch break, ready to make my instant noodles, when I could hear this incredibly loud noise, and it seemed to be coming from right inside my house, from the kitchen! The 'noise' turned out to be some guy on a microphone with loud cheering echoing around the house... I ran in to the house to find the intruder, and on entering the kitchen I found the reason! No word of a lie, the space directly behind the house, which for 4 months has been a dumping ground for building materials, was cleared no more than a week ago, and there in front of me on this day, stood a mini-shelter, with a temporary tin-roof, lots of plastic chairs and tables with people siting all around, and a little stage, with great huge speakers, a man with a microphone, and a guy with a keyboard... I knew this could mean only one thing! Wedding Karaoke. No sooner were my noodles boiling, than the loud and tuneless screeching began, from men and women, in between the numerous toasted being made from the stage... shouts of 'mot' 'hai' 'ba' (one, two three) were frequent followed by the swigging of alcohol. It's just amazing how people here don't place importance on the place they celebrate their wedding day, the only thing that matters is the company, and the karaoke!

Thursday night was 'pub quiz' night, the only reason I mention this very non-Vietnamese event, is because our team won, even though it was by default, as the real winning team were disqualified for not writing their team name on the paper.. oh thank god for technicalities!

Friday night was another unexpected surprise as I joined my Vietnamese colleagues and friends, Loc, Binh, Anh, & Lai, to go to an open-air theatre performance. I didn't even know there was a theatre of any description here. The play theatre as you can see from the picture below, was pretty large, and the 'natural seating' was damn uncomfortable, especially after one and a half hours without an interval! My bottom was killing me!! The interesting thing about this play, was not the performance, but more the reaction of the audience to either serious or 'romantic' moments. People just starting giggling and laughing, at what seemed to be very serious moments... this is something I have noticed here in Vietnam, and whilst there are times when it seems to me that people here 'appear' to be immature when dealing with anything of an emotional nature, I think that they just deal with with these kind of issues differently. People do not seem comfortable discussing very personal issues here, or even entering a conversation about anything of a sexual nature. Of course this could be that I don't know people well enough to enter into such topics of conversation here, and of course I don't want to generalise these observations to other places in Vietnam! Still I find this kinda thing interesting to talk about! (see the theatre below)

On to Saturday's exploits. Before 0900 myself and my colleague Anh, set off on our motorbikes to Da Nang, to visit another colleague Phuong. We arrived at Phuong's house, an hour later, and were greeted by her father and brother. I spent the morning talking with Phuong's brother and father, whilst I hardly saw Phuong, as she was preparing lunch. Oh boy, what a big lunch. As it took a while to prepare, me and Anh were encouraged to do some home karaoke, and Phuong's brother ventured off to one of the neighbours to find me an English Karaoke CD! Luckily the food arrived just before I murdered any more old pop songs that seem to be the only ones available to sing here! The meal was different kinds of noodles with egg, shrimp, meat - anything you can think of! I was so full afterwards I could hardly move! Phuong's father insisted that after lunch I should have a lie down, (now, I really don't feel comfortable to actually sleep on someones bed, the first time I go to their home...) after several refusals, I eventually gave in, especially after he has gotten a blanket and pillow, and placed it on the bed, which was in the same open-style room. Within minutes I was fast asleep, no worries, and I did not feel uncomfortable at all... I woke up to some more Vietnamese karaoke singing, from Phuong's dad, which including some pretty groovy moves! We eventually left to go to the city centre and catch up with another colleague, Lai. The 3 girls then took me on a shopping tour of Da Nang, including shoes and clothes! They wouldn't allow me to buy anything without their approval, and when I did eventually lose them and buy something, they told me how bad my choice was!!! Charming I thought! As a thank you, I took the girls bowling as 2 of them hadn't been before, and despite one broken nail, (not mine), we all had fun! The girls have now started calling me Miss Dan, as opposed to my usual 'Mr Dan' title. They find this highly amusing! The main thing I took from this day, was just spending time in the home of my colleague, and how relaxing everybody made me feel - to the point I slept for 2 hours in the middle of their house!!!

I don't have any pictures of this day so this picture of my & Phuong at my house warming!

Ok, so that's enough for this week...

Regards from Vietnam

Dan