A Wedding and a Swim with Nemo - August 10, 2008

Brian and Kieu Le with their pre-wedding photograph

It was a beautiful venue

(photo by Adeline)

Noel (an ex VSA volunteer) gave the toast to the bride - he reminded her of the importance of keeping her husband happy so that he attention does not wander.

(photo by Adeline)

The cakes look good enough to eat but looks can be deceptive.

One was "sliced" in the traditional fashion

(photo by Adeline)

(photo by Adeline)

I have never seen champagne quite as red as this before

(photo by Adeline)

Anne presenting a rose to one of the diverse range of performers

(photo by Adeline)

(photo by Adeline)

(photo by Adeline)

This is most of the VSA staff (interpreters, housekeepers, drivers) and volunteers





(photo by Adeline)

The woman on the left is Hanh - she is the wonderful person who cooks, cleans and washes clothes for me

(photo by Adeline)

The man on the left is Tuan - my fantastic but part-time interpreter. The other man is Nuyen, who is an interpreter for other volunteers.

Anne, Alan, Adeline, me, Nuyen and Pat

Believe it or not hidden beneath the surface is a beautiful tropical coral reef

This child was playing knuckle-bones in almost exactly the way NZ kids do

The daughter who they wanted me to take to teach English is standing in the centre.

The daughter who I was not introduced to is sitting in the background

A Wedding and a Swim with Nemo - August 10, 2008

I have had another lovely weekend the bookends of which were particularly enjoyable. On Friday night I went to the wedding of Brian (a volunteer who has been here for about four years) and Kieu Le (a local woman who is a singer). Some of the volunteers had bought with them clothes suitable for such occasions but the necessity had not occurred to me so I put together the most suitable things I could find and joined the others for the wedding at 5:30. It was an entertaining evening.

Between four and five hundred guests gathered in a large open-air restaurant that looks out over the sea to Quy Nhon city. When we arrived the bride and groom with a group of female attendants, greeted us at the door beside a glamorous photo of the couple dressed in white. I see these portraits often outside wedding venues and have wondered why they take the pictures before the big event – apparently it is customary here to make an occasion of this with the bride outfitted in a number of different frocks. When they met us Brian was wearing a suit and Kieu Le a gorgeous fuchsia ao dai and headdress.


Within a few minutes the first of an extremely varied range of entertainers began their performance. To the beat of hip-hop music, played through speakers set to an excruciatingly loud volume, they burst on to the stage and performed moves normally associated with American music videos. After one song they were replaced with a man playing jazz clarinet and then by an orchestral rendition of the wedding march. This pattern of contrasting and varied styles continued all evening. We had rockers, crooners, queens, Latin American, pop, soul and Christmas carols all jumbled together. The only common thread was the volume which never changed from ear-splittingly loud. It eclectic, entertaining and enormous fun. Whoever thought that I would be sitting at an August wedding in Viet Nam singing along to “we wish you a merry Christmas”? The dancing was equally diverse. Their were couples performing striking Latin American moves, complete with floor level dips while young men bounding about like head bangers of the eighties. The guests were just as entertaining as the performers. There were tiny grandmothers in velvet ao dai, young women wearing miniscule miniskirts, Vietnamese cowboys, small children in traditional satin costumes, resplendid transvestites, florid western men with their arm candy, and people in jeans and t-shirts.

There was a pause in the singing for the ceremony, for which the bride had changed into a lovely yellow ao dai, but as this was just speeches, not an actual wedding ceremony, it did not last long. As they cut the five layer cake, which I discovered later was iced cardboard, and poured astonishingly red champagne into tiered glasses, the bride and groom were showered with explosions of silver foil squares.

Early in the performances we began our seven course meal. This sounds like an extraordinary amount of food but each course was quite small. People ate and drank beer with gusto and happily flung their chicken bones, fruit skins, bottles and butts on the floor. Within an hour many people were very merry and sociable. The bride, (now wearing her third and last frock, a white western wedding gown), and the groom moved rapidly around the room pausing long enough to be photographed with all of the guests. Their movements were matched by roving groups of guests who stopped at tables long enough to shout “Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo” (One, Two, Three, drink) at which point all of the men, and a very few of the women, slugged back more beer. We joined in the fray, albeit some of us with coke rather than beer.

The place was rocking; the floor was trashed with rubbish, the tables had turned into gruesome messes and many people were decidedly tipsy but it was a great atmosphere – fun and inclusive but then the food was all finished and all of the over 400 Vietnamese guests suddenly left, the musicians packed up and the staff started sweeping the floor and rolling up the red carpet. It was 8:00 pm! We westerners, (volunteers, Brian’s family and a few others), suddenly found ourselves wandering aimlessly in a large empty room wondering what happened to the party. Apparently this one went on longer than usual. A group of us were back at my flat, having a little brandy and reflecting on cultural differences by 8:30.

I felt like we had been to a party set on fast forward – it started fast, rapidly reached a high point then suddenly ended. Because this was unanticipated it was somewhat disconcerting but on reflection it is probably the perfect arrangement for a party phobic like me. I certainly did not have time to get to my usual “is it too early to leave yet?” state.

The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet. I had a lovely surprise Skype phone call with my sister Jenny and niece Catherine on Friday, another pleasurable one with my son Chris on Saturday and a great chat with my friend and workmate Susan on Sunday. Skype is a wonderful invention. I also recently have had long calls from Jenny and from Mum and Dad who used an Oasis card (NZ$10 for 135 minutes incase anyone else is interested!!!!). Talking with people, without the pressure of a rapidly mounting bill is so nice – emails are wonderful but voices from home really help me to feel connected.

On Saturday night I had my favorite dinner, Banh Cuon (fresh spring rolls with a peanut sauce), and then a drink in a café down by the ocean with volunteers Adeline and Pat. Sitting in the balmy evening air, under coconut palms watching the twinkling lights of the squid boats while the sea is gently lapping on the sand is not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening.

Today I went to the market and bought a pile of lovely fresh fruit and vegetables. On the way home I stopped to take photos of some of the dozen or so people who sit dotted along the footpath sewing garments on old sewing machines. I wanted to take some photos for Rebecca at Wintec who includes sewing machine images in some of her paintings. The women I approached were really lovely, unlike a couple of men who refused very abruptly, but my photos were again disappointing. I get self-conscious when photographing people and almost always muff it up. I am having fantasies about buying a better camera again but unfortunately this will not overcome my one’s major limitation – the person behind the lens!

Alan (upstairs) is away for the weekend so I have borrowed his CD player. Bliss. Being able to play music, other than through my tinny laptop speakers, is one of the things that I miss the most. So with Mick Jagger for company I made a big pot of pumpkin, kumera and curry soup so I won’t need to cook much this week.

Not long after I had finished Pat called offering to pillion me to a beach about twenty minutes south by motorbike. At the beach I had two wonderful experiences. The first was meeting a really interesting family. Before I had even sat on the sand a woman came and invited me into her home which was a little shack under the coconuts on the edge of the sand. She was very keen for their daughter (one of 15 children) to practice her small amount of English with me. The conversation was pretty limited but we did manage to establish the “essential” facts (my name, age, nationality, number and sex of children, and occupation). The mother was convinced that if she repeated herself loudly and slowing enough that I was sure to understand everything she said eventually. She refused to be put off by me saying “xin loi. Toi khong noi tieng Viet” (sorry I don’t speak Vietnamese) and continued to make a request of me. Finally I guessed from the context and gestures that she wanted me to take her daughter to stay with me in Quy Nhon so I could teach her English but I just kept saying “xin loi, toi khong hieu” ( sorry I don’t understand) because the last thing I need is a teenage boarder. It was never-the-less a very pleasant interlude but eventually I persuaded them that I wanted to go for a swim and made my escape sans teenager.

The beach was very pleasant but unremarkable however Pat , who is here as a marine conservationist, had a real treat in store for me today. I enjoyed swimming about for awhile then he handed me a snorkel and mask and the world changed. Within moments of putting on the goggles and swimming out to sea I was floating above a coral reef swarming with brilliantly colored fish. It was fantastic. I felt like I was swimming in a tropical aquarium. Apart from one species of long thin translucent fish, the fish were small. Most were less than ten centimeters in length but they were all the colors of the rainbow and more. Some were rotund and bright day-glo orange with black spots, there were black and white striped angel fish, iridescent yellow and blue fish and ones with bright red lips that kept coming right up to my mask as if to chase me away. It was an unexpected and magical experience which I am very keen to repeat as soon as I can.

Traveling home in the twilight along the winding coastal road I thought about how I was bought here by such sad circumstances but, given that I can’t change that, how incredibly fortunate I am to have this opportunity. Rob would have loved this experience so much.