Miss-ed Saigon

I know a lot of people have ranted about expats behaving badly in Vietnam, not taking local customs and cultures into consideration, but it’s good to have finally had a lighthearted spin put on the matter. Last night I watched a local amateur acting troupe, the Saigon Players, perform a charity show called “Miss-ed Saigon”. The comedy show highlighted (sometimes painfully when you realise, “Hey, wait, I’ve done that!”), the inapt musings and behaviour of the expatriate community in Vietnam. Although it focused mainly on the “real expats”, those with real “hardship posts” at established multinational companies, villas in An Phu (District 2), drivers, and spouses who spend their time getting massages and manicures (basically, the type of expat life I can’t afford or wouldn’t indulge in even if I could), it still hit the spot quite accurately and had even the most jaded and cynical of audience members cracking up in recognition of some antics they too have dabbled in.

For example, they spoofed how difficult it was for some expats to pronounce Vietnamese names: Here’s a watered down version of the dialogue.

“Nguyen’s coming to the meeting.”
“When?”
“No, Nguyen.”
“The meeting’s at two.”
“Yes, the meeting with Thu is at one”
“No, the meeting with Oanh is only at three, what about Nguyen?”
“Huh? What about when? I told you, two!”
“But the meeting with Thu is only at one!”
“Oanh? At three, not two!”
“Nguyen?”

Shamed by “our” behaviour, a few of us decided to go have drinks at a bia hoi – local style (Actually Chi is Vietnamese, but she spent five years in London so she semi-qualifies with her posh Brit accent).

TWTWTW

My favourite football website 4thegame.com – which is like the Bible of everything you ever need to know about team news and transfer rumours – has this weekly feature called That Was The Week That Was or TWTWTW. Once again let me indulge in flagrant vanity assuming somebody other then my parents want to know what I did this weekend, so here’s my personal That Was The Weekend That Was, albeit slightly shorter, less dramatic and with way less money involved then the Premiership version - I guess it would be appropriate to begin with football.

Saturday. The Acet Past Perfects debut in the Soccer for the Streets Charity Football tournament, losing their 0-game undefeated streak to Luat Viet Red Sun by 0-1…The Past Perfects then go on a losing streak by going down 0-1 to Maersk Vietnam…Past Perfects complete their dismal hatrick, succumbing to the superior buying power of the eventual tournament winners the Saigon Raiders 2-1 (think Chelsea versus East Putney Pioneers - haha you guys were lucky Jon), but making a good show of it, as Ian Boyle scores the Perfects first and only goal of the tournament…Café Latin invites a member of the Perfects to sample their quality Larue draught beer later the afternoon…The evening sees Le Pub host the official charity afterparty at which a few brave Perfect team members make an appearance…The party shows the form, spirit and unity that was lacking in the teams performance earlier the day…Café Latin invites back one member of the Perfects and his friend to enjoy the atmosphere of a lively rugby test match between South Africa and England which the Springboks win by 25-14…The evening ends on a high note as Go2 Café invites various late night partygoers to have a seat on their veranda as to enjoy the neon-lights and excitement of the bacpacker area all the while indulging in a fine vintage of Vietnamese rum…

Sunday. Monaco Café makes a bid for two South Africans teachers in a Bosman free transfer (by means of a greasy fry-up and copious amounts of liquid refreshment) in an attempt to lure them to have breakfast at their esteemed establishment…The ploy works…The previously-mentioned teachers move on to District 10 to enjoy a day in the VIP Lounge at the Saigon Horse Racing Club…Not as much money is won as is lost on the ponies who make up the first six races…The thoroughbreds are brought out for race seven and Chilli Thunder and Tung Shing, with odds looking good, finish one-two bringing in 10-1 at the bookies and make two teachers not so unhappy anymore…Maximark Cong Hoa finally makes known their interest in the foreign contingent by means of a well-stocked supermarket where ingredients for a classic South African bredie or stew are purchased…The stew is glorious and reminds them that they're going home in less than two weeks… That Was The Weekend That Was...pictures follow asap.

He's where?

I’m sorry for the lack of posts this week.

I wish I could say it’s because I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my cutting edge, Pulitzer Prize-winning, in-depth article for Newsweek about the Vietnamese Mafia and their plan to buy out three quarters of newly released stock in newly established foreign multinational corporations with Vietnam’s newly-found WTO status, and they’re plotting to flood the market with inflated shares, just to punctually burst the bubble and become the world’s next New World Order.

Or that the Acet Past Perfects have been driven to a secluded marshland in the middle of the Mekong Delta for last-minute training, including “bonding” ala Kamp Staaldraad (in other words leopard crawling naked through bloodsucking leeches-as-long-as-your-arm-infested swamps whilst being held at gunpoint at 4 am) and gone through a rigorous process of emotional strengthening in a hope to reach physical and spiritual enlightenment before the charity football tournament on Saturday.

But alas, I’m not gonna lie to you: I’ve just been working my ass off as usual. Will update substantially on the weekend.

The weekend that was

What a long, weekend. Friday night Brian, Christoff and I headed down to Pham Ngu Lao again to sample a little of the local speciality - Vietnamese Rum...dum dum dum, dum. Yesterday morning we had our VUS Teacher's Day party at the Sheraton Hotel - which deserves a whole post of its own to describe, but which I'm still recovering from so I'll do that tomorrow. This morning we had our final practise before the big charity football tournament, which sucked because we got our asses whipped by some patchwork team, and now I'm at work.

Luckily I bought some new DVDs for tonight, Crank, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, some arty Vietnamese movie called Spirits and last but by no means least: The Return of Jafar - an Aladdin sequel.

Meanwhile, you can check out my expat interview if you like for www.expatinterviews.com. If you're an expat or planning on becoming one, this is a cool site to check out what's happening in your country, dos and don'ts etc.

Soccer for the Streets

The Australian school where I work, Acet (Australian Centre for Education and Taining) have entered a football team for a mlocal charity competition organised by 15 May School, a local Vietnamese childrens charity here in Saigon.

Soccer for the Streets is a 5-a-side competition taking place next Saturday that has some big name sponsorships involved, including Adidas, Coca-Cola and Maersk. Our team is a mish-mash of staff and teachers and thus it's quite a multicultural team including Vietnamese, Englishmen, a Yank, a Canadian, one South African (duh) and a Scotsmen. We've been practising sporadically on Sundays (whenever we get an available field to practise on) and gasping and puffing through the two hour practises, with an occasional smoke break between halves for some. Yours truly will be gracing the forward right side with sublimal skill and a touch of class with the heavy weight and responsibility required to don the legendary No 9 jersey ala Alan Shearer (what a man he is). Hah.

We've been drawn with Maersk, some other corporate team and the Saigon Raiders in the group stage, which is a bit of a laugh because we just managed to scrape a team together and money for kits. We are...wait for it..."The Past Perfects" (only a teacher will appreciate the pun).

If you're in town next weekend, come around and support the charity and have a laugh with us (or at us) and watch some uber-unfit dudes stumble around and hack up a lung.
Come one, it's for a good cause...

November 25th - Tao Dan Sports Stadium, District 1, HCMC. Free entry, games begin at 09:30.