Party All The Time

This might seem silly and obvious to everyone, but we spend an inordinate amount of our lives surrounded by people speaking in a language we don't understand.  Even as I write this, there is a steady stream of unintelligible banter going on behind me.  Sure, I heard other languages (mostly Spanish) in the US.  But this is different.  When people speak Spanish around me, I can almost make it out.  Or, if I can't, a Spanish speaker can explain it to me in English I can understand.

Not the case here. And there are times when you feel as if you are living in a modern version of Apocalypse Now.

While at the job site this week, there was a party.  The party was to celebrate the hand-over of the first area of the building to the owners.  The fact that the area isn't finished, and no hand-over actually occurred that day didn't seem to matter.

I was informed of Wednesday night's party when I arrived in our office Wednesday morning.  "The contractor is having a party with dancing girls tonight!" I was told by a breathless consultant from another company.  I thought two things:

Brace for digressions


Thought #1 - 


"Bald guys in their mid-fifties who bear a striking resemblance to Hobbits really get excited when an event includes 'dancing girls'"

Unfortunately the TatVeg gets nervous whenever the phrase "they'll have dancing girls" gets uttered.  You see, I used to shoot photos for a lingerie company in Las Vegas that was entirely owned and operated by strippers.  I made a lot of money, and I was the only guy I knew who received money from strippers; but my opinion of strippers plummeted to the point where I could no longer enter a strip club without a feeling of dread.*  That glassy eyed look of disassociation you often see on strippers faces?  That's not specific to inside the club.  Many just look like that all the time.  It's likely this comes as a shock to no one, and I was just horribly naive, but most Vegas strippers are every bit as vapid and vacant in real life as they are inside the club.

*Once, when Reyna was upset for me over something I fully deserved to be in trouble over, she punished me by forcing me to go to a bachelor party at Spearmint Rhino; the largest and most popular strip club in Vegas.  It was miserable.

Thought #2 - 

I wonder if the guy we passed on the way into town roasting a headless and legless beast on a spit while spraying it with liquid from a pump-up bug sprayer is preparing for our party?

This thing was HUGE. It had to weigh at least 1.5 American Fat Men (AFM -my new standard of measurement since I can't seem to settle on using metric or imperial).  It sat on the sidewalk and was posed on the spit as if it would be running if the legs hadn't been removed below the knee and it wasn't, you know, dead and skewered over a fire.  The mental image of a cow running was confirmed when we nearly hit a live cow running across the street about five minutes later.*

*Have you ever seen a cow run on pavement?  HILARIOUS.  They have to be the most graceless animals on earth.  You know, other than half the girls I've ever dated (not you Reyna!)

So I went to the party.  And yes, there were dancing girls...at first.  They came out and danced while everyone in the crowd with a smart phone, except me, recorded videos.  Then an emcee came out and spoke at length in Vietnamese.  A few people got up on stage and made speeches, also in Vietnamese.  A lot of handshaking, back-clapping and cheering ensued.  Considering we were celebrating a milestone we had yet to reach, the whole thing felt a little forced.

After the dancing girls and speechifying a random guy got on stage and sang a song.  It felt exactly like when you were in middle school and the girl who was the pet of the music teacher sings some inspirational song in assembly while the music teacher accompanies her on a keyboard set to "Vibraphone."  The difference being that the man singing was a man, and a contractor.  A guy who earlier that day had been laying brick or hanging drywall or sweating pipe was now rocking a Vietnamese cool jam.  While he sang he did a dance that was basically an excessively animated version of The Charleston -complete with rolling hips and chugging arms.  I turned to my Vietnamese colleague standing next to me,

Me:"What is he singing about?"

Phuc*: "He is singing a song about building a building."

Me: "Oh...okay..."

*Yep, his name is Phuc.  But know that it's pronounced "fook".  Prounounced correctly, it rhymes with "spook."  What are we, ten?  

And the crowd was EATING IT UP.  Singing along and cheering, while I stood in amazement.*  The only song about building a building I can think of in English is We Built This City, by an aged and downright depressing version of what was once Jefferson Airplane.  No one, in the history of the US, has ever cheered and rocked out to this song.  Go ahead. YouTube it.  I'll wait... 

*Sadly the video I made of this performance didn't save to my phone.**  

**Yes I skipped videoing the pretty girls and shot the strange dancing man instead.***

***What?

Next, the World's Gayest Vietnamese Man* stood up and got on the microphone.  He was wearing a merlot silk shirt with white cuffs and collar, cream pants and matching cream shoes.  Remember, this is a construction site.  We were sitting and standing on gravel.  His hair was curly -meaning it was either done with rollers or he had a perm- and dyed an auburn that came close to matching his shirt.  WGVM got on the mic and hosted a series of game shows:  all in Vietnamese.

*It's not normally TatVeg form to publicly refer to anything as "gay" in a derogatory way.  The TatVeg loves the gays.  And for god's sake, let them get married.  What harm could a little gay sex do in a country where a single mom can have octuplets as a publicity stunt; a country where we need to stockpile weapons to protect us from the same military we salute before, during, after every sporting event and slap support magnets for on our cars?  When do they become robotic killing machines exactly?  Seriously guys?  People watch dudes put dick to ass millions of times per day on the internet, but we can't fathom that happening in a real life relationship where people love each other?  Somehow that's gross and unacceptable.  I'll stop before I really get going.

The crowd routinely fell into uncontrollable spasms of laughter, including the guys I was standing with.

Me:  "So, ah, what are they talking about?"

Dung*:  "He [pointing to WGVM] ask questions, if they answer right, they get a prize."

We are momentarily interrupted by a large roar of laughter. A beat.

Me: "What question did he just ask?"

Dung:  [Wiping his eyes and struggling to keep from busting up again] "A girl, she give a man a birthday cake and a tiger and tell him to chose.  Then the tiger blow out the candles on the birthday cake!"  

Me:  [Quizzical look] "That's not a question...."  [pause]  "Wait... Why is that funny?"

Dung: [Shrugs shoulders]

*Yes, that's his real name.  But before you go all fifth grade on me, it's pronounced "yoong."  You see in Vietnamese normal D sounds like a Y.  If the vertical part of the D is crossed, then it sounds like normal D.  And it was Dung's birthday yesterday.  You are now free to feel like a dick.

The only other exchange in English occurred between me and the aforementioned Fifty-Something Hobbit Colleague, who is American.

Me:  So what did you think of the dancing girls? 

F-SHC: Pretty good.  You know, one of them would probably fuck your brains out if you go talk to them.  They're right over there.

Me: I'm good.  I'm not really down with the whole 'come to Vietnam and cheat on your wife/girlfriend' thing.

F-SHC:  It's hard not to, man, these girls are so goddamned horny.  It's like you have to fight them off!* [goes in for beer can "clink" with me before wandering away].

*Yes, yes, that's what it is, F-SHC.  The girls are just so darn horny.  I mean it's like you have to beat them back with sticks!  And how could they not get excited about a 5'-5" middle aged bald man who smokes two packs of menthol Dunhills a day?  How do they resist? They couldn't possibly be attracted to your money could they?  No, you're right.  They're HORNY.

The game show(s) went on for more than an hour -video is forthcoming, I promise.  Thank god they had beer.  Let me take a moment to remind you, that at one point in this party there were scantily clad girls dancing and jiggling on stage.  And to make matters worse, Dung told me that not a single game contestant answered a question right.  So no one got a prize.  The table with the prizes was left with a pile of gifts wrapped in silvery paper sitting there at the end of the party.

The party ended at 9:00.  Me and my beer tummy (there was no vegetarian food at the party so I drank my dinner) shuffled to the car to bounce the hour back to Vung Tao.  

I walked into my hotel room to find that neither of the bedside lamps worked.  I sat with the overhead light on and tried to describe to Reyna the scene I'd just witnessed.  Then got straight in bed and fell asleep.  At 3am, I woke up to find one of the bedside lamps on.

This place is weird...