nnngggggggggggggg

my visit to HCM this time, although for different purposes, is apparently taking me to the same spots as last time.  but this time, my camera is 4 megapixels stronger!  i really need to up the ante on this blog.  im losing creative growth, creative perspective in posts and pictures.  eesh.  however...for the purposes of this blog, i'm going to need a ton of readership support to fully pursue the notion of posting pictures of the hoards of hard working women looking to make an extra buck....so if that's the kind of entertainment that u wish to receive from ur daily infatuation with my life, then please, comment and lobby for change....until then....im gonna be shy about bringing my camera to the clubs....

so i just got home for the 2nd time, and being that i'm on 2 hours of sleep straining through the humidity over coffee's and beer, i'll try my best to recap not a crazy day, but quite a ridiculous chain of events in which even the most conservative business folk will find amusing.

we're staying at the palace hotel. a perfect business hotel in the center of town. which also is a hop skip and a jump away from the caravelle and sheraton, two places i stayed at 3 years ago. with 3 pho 24's "minesweeping" the hotel, wireless internet, and a club on the 1st floor, im happy with the accomodations regardless of the duo twin beds. so in my line of "work", meetings take place not in the office, but over coffee and nibbles on the ground floor starbucks, the hotel lobby, or the corner canteen, where business casual sweat stains are accepted and balding men feel confidently at home. the last meeting of today, which we were wary about to begin with, was arranged for the "lion" pub. we got there early, shrugged off a pushy waiter, and began classic beer banter while waiting for the star of the show.

mr le quang hiep, the five foot five balding viet male, came in a company logo polo and shoddy slacks completely off his rocker. he fumbled his glasses en route to squint for names on our name cards all while setting the stage for an hour long of incomprehensible caveman growling. tim allen's home improvement grunt has got nothing on him. he was unstoppable, constantly talking "ihaveonemilliondollarsfromchinaeveryyear"...which was more like "iaveonemirriondo'arrsshinnnaae'ry'ear"....and since kenn introduced himself as australian, mr le quang hiep went on saying "aodreylee'an i 'ave bankuh ok"....imagine vietnamese, which friggin sounds hilarious to me to begin with, all those NGG and LUK DUK BUK sounds.....combined with some mumbling....and voila, u have a drunken viet-growl. NOW imagine the viet-growl slurring the NG's and LUK DUK BUK sounds to phonetically piece together the slightest resemblence of enunciated engrish. impossible? apparently not after we, the audience downed 2 beers to hopefully catch up the sligthest to mr le quang hiep's inebriated levels. it was only then that we somewhat understood the words "beer crates, plastics and we are family" correctly. i of course could not hold in my laughter and immediately thought of him as my next blogging masterpiece simultaneously smirking, texting my coworkers, and taking candid pics/video of him.



the three of us fenagled a way to leave early, but only in exchange for an 8.30am sober meeting. we took the "get out of meeting early card" and pushed tomorrows reality behind us, and looked forward to dinner. out of the blue appeared these two. their background? no clue really. not important for this story cuz i know i'll see them tomorrow and the day after and the day after. but lets fast forward to the cab ride where her legs started swaying on mine, and lets fast forward to the part where she made me 2 spring rolls at dinner, and lets fast forward to the part where we get out of the cab after dinner and she edges towards the hotel entrance. we ditched them, cuz fabian ditched them. and we went to the club without baggage because fabian wanted to go to the club. i knew what to expect, he didn't.



let me fully support the stereotype of hard working vietnamese. no one is going to say they dont work hard, they're not ambitious, that they don't know how to make something out of nothing. cuz @ the clubs, the women work hard, very hard.  when u walk into the club, early or not, the girl:guy ratio is going to be estrogen biased. mini skirts, foundation, fake lashes and blow dried hair billow through the club like patches of mold on cultivated mushrooms. they pick up and scope out the scent of every male item that passes by their territory hoping to catch that eyecontact of nightly fate. really nothing different than anywhere else, but just shocking for fabian as i downed my johnnie walker digestif.