on the work Lunar New Year party

There are a number of interesting things that come with being the only foreigner in a Vietnamese organisation.


One is rarely knowing what is going on; meaning that getting on a bus to a restaurant on a lake an hour outside of Hanoi to be with ostriches and a fatted calf on the spit roast come as little surprise.


Another is not really understanding what is going on; meaning that despite learning passable Vietnamese, the 2 hours of speeches outlining the organisational plans (which I may well have written) are completely over my head and I spend the time reading news on the smartphone.


It gets interesting when we play a 'couples' game which involves dancing with a piece of spaghetti in the mouth, and that piece inserted into a straw in the mouth of another. Much hilarity ensued.


But the real joy comes in the 'khoai thai' turn to perform. (Khoai tay is the vietnamese for potato and is used as a slang for westerner; the word 'Tay' meaning west depending on the tone used.) I guess this is reasonably appropriate for someone from Belfast. So Farewell to Ireland was played on the tin whistle, and says I to myself that will do and went to sit down. But no a request came in for the vietnamese folk song Tron Com, that I learnt for a reproductive health gala last year. That done a karaoke request was put in for Neu Anh Noi, which a colleague kindly got up and sang with me.


Then came the kicker; 'say something in Chinese for us, it being close to 'Chinese New Year''. Now fans of cultural diversity might be keen to hear that the 'Lunar New Year' is celebrated in a number of countries including Korea, but this matters little when is comes to the relationship between Vietnam and China. The Vietnamese think the Chinese dump inferior goods on their markets and are attempting to control islands that belong to Vietnam. That said they do share a lot in terms of culture so the request was not out of place.


I began by saying in Vietnamese - 'we all know how much the Vietnamese love the Chinese'. I thought this was not so diplomatic, so I changed it to 'we all know how much the Vietnamese love the Chinese government'. Incendiary stuff, but it was met with laughter all round. I guess then that I have neither improved nor worsened relationships.


What followed was the usual drinking, eating, toasting and backslapping that is part and paracel of Vietnamese and Chinese meals. Most slept on the bus on the way back. I regaled the rest with pounding pounding traditional music on the tin whistle. They loved it, honest.