A Vietnamese Wedding

Yesterday I attended my first Vietnamese wedding. The events here are somewhat of a legend. Most Vietnamese spend the majority of their time dreaming of and planning their marriage. The actual event, therefore, is the culmination of years of desires, day dreams, hopes, fears and anxieties.

The invitation said to arrive at 5:30pm so we did. We sat there fairly uncomfortably for a full hour before the next guest arrived. Apparently it's considered normal to arrive an hour after the invitation says to...? Right on schedule, at 6:30pm all the guests streamed in, throwing us shocked and mystified glances and taking their seats on the plastic stools set out for the wedding.

I became the focus of conversations a few times..."so when will you be getting married?" "I'm sure you have a beautiful voice, please sing karaoke" and so forth. I even had to pose for a photo with the bride's bouquet which is said to be a sure sign of marriage in the near future.

The reception itself was tres bizarre. Guests streamed in in outfits ranging from dresses to jeans. One five year old girl had her hair crimped, her make up applied and her nipples sticking way out of her dress. Until someone mentioned it to her and made her self conscious for the rest of the event.

The waiters consistently replaced our empty beer bottles and the guests dutifully drank it, shouting "Mot, hai, Ba, YO!" (One, two, three, YO!) before every second or third swig. Six courses were served, five of them containing meat. So I sat and accepted the horrified reactions at my vegetarian preferences...

And then the wedding ended as abruptly as it had began. Seconds after our last course had been placed on the table, 400 people somehow received a signal to leave and simultaneously rose and left. Of course we were the weirdos who don't know enough to do things right. We weren't aware that we had arrived an hour early by arriving on time, we missed the signal to bolt for the door and I didn't eat the meat??????????? Those weirdo foreigners...

Same same but different

One of my students asked me what the date was this morning and I answered "the 6th of June." Yes, it's 6 days into the New year yet it already feels like it's been six months.

Perhaps the long and taxing days have something to do with it. Our 20 student school accepted 50 new students this morning and our 4 teacher staff has been working like crazy to try get everything sorted out for them. We've hired all sorts of new teachers including Cindy and Matt who will be taking over one of my classes. I handed them over to him tearfully and will miss that awesome and boisterous class who never fail to entertain! And I'll be taking on two new classes including a Fun with English class which I personally designed...it'll be a fun class with TV, Poetry writing, creative response, music, plays and more. Should be good. And I'll also be starting a college level class for my graduated advanced students. We'll be reading novels and adapting them into conversation, presentation, writing and research. Should also be challenging yet fun.

What else might be wearing me out? Perhaps the fun and games us Saigoners get up to at night. For an extensive list of our fun-time crew, "click here." This weekend Dave, Mike and I will go to our first Vietnamese wedding ever. From what I've previously heard, a wedding here normally consits of tons of food, tons of drinking and a fashion show down a cat walk in the middle of the reception...? Say wha?

So, the moral of the post is that life is same same but different, that I have become less like my party-gal self than I ever have been and that life is good but crazy. And that Saigon is the shiz.

Pho Shizzle

ha ha ha

New Years where it's not a New Year

Twenty expats in Saigon came together to celebrate a New Year in a country that doesn't acknowledge January 1st as a new year. Yes, they will now consider the date to be 2005 but the Vietnamese will wait for their annual celebration of Tet before they celebrate their New Year. Nonetheless, us foreigners threw a party on the new big pimpin' home of Saigon that belongs to Mike, Linda, Mat, Euan and Tiana. We drank an exorbitant amount, played good tunes, shouted out the count down and generally had a eastern new year with a western face.

What's a New Years without resolutions? I have resolved to not only learn how to play pool but also bowling and badminton before the end of the year. Hopefully it won't take me 12 months of frustration to become decent at these games. Our social lives in Saigon tend to gravitate towards activities and I have become determined to master the skills.

So, Happy 2005 to all my friends and family throughout the globe. Have an awesome year and hopefully we'll get together at some stage in 2005!