Life in the Village

[KenW]

Ken. .. thank you. I also am enjoying your village life.

And I want you to know how much I appreciate the history & cultural lessons you keep supplying us with. Too much information is never enough in my book. And your amusing little tales where your stream of consciousness wanders off down side sois... good stuff, no chance of being bored reading one of your posts.

And Ava? She must have been quite a gal. Not as stunning as Rita Hayworth IMO but more available... if you know what I mean.

Thank you pacman.

Yes, Ava was quite a gal, dark & steamy as many of us like them. Why on Earth she ever got tangled up with an arsehole like Sinatra is beyond me.

[williethepimp]

Thank you pacman.

Yes, Ava was quite a gal, dark & steamy as many of us like them. Why on Earth she ever got tangled up with an arsehole like Sinatra is beyond me.

Apparently,she was asked by a former boyfriend wha on earth she saw in the "skinny little 100 lb runt" she replied ..."well,10lb of it is cock!"

[KenW]

Apparently,she was asked by a former boyfriend wha on earth she saw in the "skinny little 100 lb runt" she replied ..."well,10lb of it is cock!"

She was certainly a highly sexed individual. One of her capers was to go meet with whores on one of the famous boulevards, perhaps Santa Monica B, chat with them on their beats, or take them for coffee at a nearby diner. Apparently she really got off on the tales she got the whores to tell of who they fucked, what they did, all the other gory bits.

Another tale I read was at that time there was a boutique brothel in Hollywood somewhere that employed lookalike girls for many of the celebrities. So punters could go there and fuck a Jayne Mansfield lookalike, or an Audrey Hepburn lookalike, etc. She went there and did a deal with the Ava lookalike to take her shift for the night. So the punters who thought they were fucking an Ava lookalike actually got to fuck Ava. We weren't told whether any of them twigged, of if she told them.

What a woman.

[Kahuna]

Another tale I read was at that time there was a boutique brothel in Hollywood somewhere that employed lookalike girls for many of the celebrities.

L.A. Confidential...Off the Record, On the QT & Very Hush-Hush...

[KenW]

I took the day off yeterday and spent it in one of my local beer bars.

Getting pleasantly stunk while flirting with the young GG waitgirls. Nice way to pass a day. I arrived about 10:30 in the morning when it's always quiet; the setting up of tables, the early morning bar sounds, a manager quietly issuing instructions. I was, at first, the only customer. Needless to say I had plenty of attention.

I tip well in this joint, for the girls look after me, ensuring my Heinekens are cold, that there are enough of them in the ice box, that my beer is poured exactly as I like it (glass half full at most, big frothy white head atop the gleaming working booze). Heinekens by the way, 17,000 VND per bottle, around USD 0.75.

So I never want for little ones around me, like bears at a honey pot. Most of the girls are pretty, the oldest probably topping 25, youngest maybe 17. They wear colour coded tops (all white this morning, all yellow for evening shift, etc., and black or denim crotch length skirts or skin tight long pants you'd reckon they were poured into).

It is looking inevitable that I will return to the fold of GGs over one or two of them. Well, not exactly return to any fold, but make a foray, shall we say. I asked one them yesterday, when I was well gone, if she would like to go to the beach with me. She was up for it. Now this beach resort is sufficiently far away to warrant an overnight stay at minimum. So she has to figure: no guy asks one to go to the beach then books into a hotel with separate rooms. This aint the nineteenth century. Following from that is: this seedy old guy is then going to want to fuck me.

She was up for it, obviously aware of the above.

The fun will be to see, no matter how I get turned on by the flirting, if in the privacy of a mini hotel room a hundred metres from the waves, can I get it up? Or will the absence of cock determine a pathetic flacid performance.

[SiamSam]

This sounds very, very exciting Mr. Ken. A trip to the beach with a young lass. If you don't get it up give me a call and I'll rush over to pitch hit. When is the event planned? Can't wait to here about it.

[KenW]

In 50-odd years of sentience I would never have given a thankyou for boiled chicken.

The VNese changed all that. I grew up on the old English colonial - Aussie roasting tradition. Bent slightly over time as modern food courts and delicatessens installed rotiseries and one purchased a fowl there and devoured it as one would a home cooked meal before. Gravy, roast spuds, the lot. In the meantime the Americans, busy conquering the world, brought us the ups/downs of Kentucky, Red Rooster, etc.

I hasten to add: chicken is one of my lifelong main and favourite comestibles. In all its forms tried thus far.

But boiled chicken? That was something scorned. As if the only people who ever put a bird in a pot of water were those too poor or culturally ignorant to be able to do otherwise.

Then I moved to VN.

That chicken is delicious, became one of my regular and most common compliments to hosts and chefs. How do you cook it? Answer: boil... [add other ingredients, sauces, etc., here].

Boiled?

Correct.

Without knowing it I had become a totally converted fan of boiled chicken. You see, it's what they put in it, when boiling, or even more importanly, what they serve it with. Across the range of recipes I am familar with, cooks add ingredients in various mixes from the set of green onions, various herb leaves, mushrooms, lotus seeds, pepper, chilli, and who knows what else. At table the bird is served either with a rice gruel [called chow, see my brekkie post], or with wheat noodles akin to 2 minute noodles all Westerners are familiar with. The chicken meat is then, after being taken to individual bowl, dipped in various cham [pronounced chum, a dipping sauce], the main ones of which are salt + pepper + chilli; salt + pepper + lime juice; salt + chilli.

The bird is not carved like father used to carve the Sunday roast. The host, or a waitstaff if at an eatery, breaks the thing up by hand (often using modern kitchen plastic gloves - yes, they have come a long way in the village). Cuts are not placed on your plate as father used to do. Rather the broken bits are piled up on a central plate (if the party or family is large enough there will be multiple birds), and it's help yourself thereafter.

Today as I write it's Sunday. On Friday, some folks I know - from outside my village, including one overseas VNese lady from Canada - went back to their countryside to visit her mother's grave and go to significant temples. This in the far south of VN where Indian influence and Khmer presence remain strong. The temples are as elaborate as anything on the subcontinent. And important.

Anyway, the upshot is, they returned, as pilgrims always do, with loads of bounty. Including live chickens. Would I like to buy one? You betcha. Half the current Saigon price. Yesterday my cleaning lady/cook prepared it for me. A bird boiled, served with chow and dipping sauce.

Last night I sat down with red wine and the Collingwood - West Coast game on cable, and ate this thing in my bedroom in front of the TV. My goodness, what decadence.

There is about half of it left, which I will warm up and eat for my Sunday evening meal.

This is Life! With a capital L. In my village. With boiled chicken.

In another thread about living in Thailand various FMs have stated the familiar no place like home theme. Amen.

From where I sit there is definitely no place like home.

[BigTel]

Last night I sat down with red wine and the Collingwood - West Coast game on cable, and ate this thing in my bedroom in front of the TV. My goodness, what decadence.

From where I sit there is definitely no place like home.

The simple things in life really are the best. Loving this Life in the Village, Ken.

[pacman]

Last night I sat down with red wine and the Collingwood - West Coast game on cable, and ate this thing in my bedroom in front of the TV. My goodness, what decadence.

Decadence? Is that what you call it? The Eagles lost, I call it bloody disgraceful...

It was a damn good game though, the Pies are a dogged side. We love to beat them, hate to lose.

And boiled chicken sounds so bland. In the hands of a skilled cook, it can be wonderful. I have Soy Chicken Rice every weekend. And it is always good. And there is always a queue of people waiting to order it. What the Asian cooks can do with chicken & their noodle dishes is a wonder.

[KenW]

The simple things in life really are the best. Loving this Life in the Village, Ken.

Thank you Tel.

And boiled chicken sounds so bland. In the hands of a skilled cook, it can be wonderful... What the Asian cooks can do with chicken & their noodle dishes is a wonder.

Yes pacman, it is a wonder. It never ceases to amaze me how healthy these people eat. And the nosh is invariably flavoursome in ways our Western tastes are often surprised by.

[KenW]

There is a VNese saying: moi mot ngay o nha an com. chan. di ngoai duong an mi.

It translates literally as: every day at home eat rice. bored. go down the road eat noodle.

Symbolically it is a standard male joke. Having the wife at home every day gets boring. Go out and sample something else.

Hence one sees many groups of men eating and drinking together in the big beer bars, perhaps taking some girls away, or afterwards going to a karaoke parlour to sing and play.

A few weeks ago I got invited to lunch by a friend of mine. He is a single guy of early 30s, without a word of English beyond perhaps hello. He runs a small mobile phone shop for his day job. We met years ago at a party and kind of bonded despite our age difference. He loves a drink and a girl, knows I share the former interest and thinks I do the latter also. (He's straight.)

Anyway, the lunch. Only a few blocks away from my house, in yet another big beer bar, one I did not know existed until that day. We enter the forecourt to park his motorbike (he picked me up at home). There isn't a soul in the bar, so I figure we're first here. Wrong. He takes a right turn away from the main bar to where they have 3 or 4 private rooms for hire, the so-called VIP rooms. Two alluringly clad girls lounge on chairs by the door of one room. He ignores them and enters. Waiting for us are two other guys I know, one in his 40s who I have drunk with many a time (married with kids), and the other a gent about my own age, an overseas VNese from Melbourne, Australia (a grandfather). The party is in this last man's honour, as he has been over here visiting and is about to return to Oz.

We sit down. They sit separated by 3 girls, the table littered with half eaten foodstuffs and beers in front of them (cold Tiger bottles). I am handed a menu and invited to order more, then asked if I want a girl. (presumably one of the pair lounging outside). I order a dish and decline the girl.

Why? They don't know I'm a faggot. It's not that reason. It's because they reveal that they were up to their ears in this lunch when one or more of them must have had a reason to mention my name. My young mate said O, I thought he had gone back to Australia. No, replied his friend, he's still here in VN. Let's go get him then.

So here I am. I decline the girl because it's obvious they are nearly finished. Drunk a little, they all fondle and whisper sweet everythings in ears. I begin to eat and drink. They peripatetically join in.

The 3 girls are sweet, aged 20, 19 and 24 respectively. They drink toasts with us from their paired men's glasses. The afternoon wends on till about 3.

My host tells his girl we are heading off to karaoke, then asks if she'll go with him. To my amazement she declines. I didn't hear all that was said, so I shouldn't leap to conclusions. Pehaps they are not allowed to leave so early in the day. I don't know. But they were all dressed as whores, presented as whores willing to be fondled a bit in a VIP room. Anyway, we pay the bill and head off a km or so to a big karaoke place.

Again we are the only clientele. One song gets sung, one beer drunk, my mate is bored. Outa here.

We go another km, near the village's big market. It's about 4 pm. We dismount at the front door of a small private house. My spirits sink, thinking we are going to someone's place, that the chances of any action are over. A 50-something woman greets us, guiding us through a parlour where an ancient man sleeps on a couch in his shorts. Down a small hallway, where we are ushered into a room the size of a broom cupboard, with just enough space around a coffee table for 4 of us to sit spaced on vinyl covered couches. A monitor on the wall in the corner; a karaoke mike lays on the table.

Then the girls some in, just like the troopers in Waltzing Matilda: one two three - and yes, four. This time I don't get asked. It is merely assumed. We sit MFMFMFMF.

Within minutes beers are being drunk and one song is sung. No-one pays any interest to karaoke thereafter.

Several more minutes and all four girls have tops and bras off. One of the guys had suggested we view their wherewithall. They complied as if on a parade ground.

The mamasan who had greeted us initially re-appeared to inform us if we wanted to go with our girls, the bedroom was upstairs.

A fun evening if that's your go. We had about 2 hours in that tiny space. Right there in the village with a bit of noodle for variety.

[SiamSam]

Great story Ken. The events sounds like a lot of fun. Would have loved to have shared with you. Perhaps someday I'll visit and we can sing and fondle up a storm with 'dem gals. They sound lovely.

[pacman]

Ken, I am quite conversant with Sam's taste in music. I recommend you take him to some Opera. Then you can watch his eyes light up in delight as the tenor belts out some Rossini or Puccini.

If karaoke, I am sure he's up for a rousing chorus of Nessun Dorma. It may take a little trouble on your part to organise it but if his reaction is anything like the one I received, the effort will be more than worth it.

Would I lie to you...

[SiamSam]

Ken, I am quite conversant with Sam's taste in music. I recommend you take him to some Opera. Then you can watch his eyes light up in delight as the tenor belts out some Rossini or Puccini.

If karaoke, I am sure he's up for a rousing chorus of Nessun Dorma. It may take a little trouble on your part to organise it but if his reaction is anything like the one I received, the effort will be more than worth it.

Would I lie to you...

Ahhhhh yes that night at the opera. The one I will always remember that I wanna forget.

[KenW]

Great story Ken. The events sounds like a lot of fun. Would have loved to have shared with you. Perhaps someday I'll visit and we can sing and fondle up a storm with 'dem gals. They sound lovely.

OK Sam, visit anytime you're most welcome.

Ken, I am quite conversant with Sam's taste in music. I recommend you take him to some Opera. Then you can watch his eyes light up in delight as the tenor belts out some Rossini or Puccini.

If karaoke, I am sure he's up for a rousing chorus of Nessun Dorma. It may take a little trouble on your part to organise it but if his reaction is anything like the one I received, the effort will be more than worth it.

Well pacman, joke or no joke, Puccini and Rossini are 2 of my favourites. So we'll see how it goes from there.

Ahhhhh yes that night at the opera. The one I will always remember that I wanna forget.

OK you 2, I'll leave it there, be it jokes or whatever.

[SiamSam]

It's a joke Mr. Ken.

Pacman and I went to dinner one night at some eatery on Beach road and they had this live opera singer. Pacman was delighted. I was horrified and couldn't stand it. It was loud and intrusive. Couldn't have a conversation. I ended up leaving.

[pacman]

Well pacman, joke or no joke, Puccini and Rossini are 2 of my favourites.

I love opera & these two are favourites of mine as well. Excuse my little joke with Sam, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Pacman and I went to dinner one night at some eatery on Beach road and they had this live opera singer. Pacman was delighted. I was horrified and couldn't stand it. It was loud and intrusive. Couldn't have a conversation. I ended up leaving.

The restaurant is the Hof Brau Haus & the singer is a formally trained tenor from Italy. Enzo is his name & he sang many roles on the circuit back home in Europe. He had a falling out with the opera hierarchy & finished up managing this place in Pattaya. He plays drums in the house band during the evening but always gets up to sing some of the great arias.

On the night I took Sam there, it was his birthday & his wife handles the mixing desk. It was a packed house & she took it on herself to raise the volume level. Sam was right to leave, the noise level was ridiculous. In many visits before & after that night, it was never as loud again.

I do recommend you visit the place Ken the next time you are in Pattaya. The Italian food is good, they brew their own beer & the opera starts sometime around 9.30pm. Introduce yourself to Enzo & tell him we know each other. He's a lovely guy.

[KenW]

The restaurant is the Hof Brau Haus & the singer is a formally trained tenor from Italy. Enzo is his name

I do recommend you visit the place Ken the next time you are in Pattaya. The Italian food is good, they brew their own beer & the opera starts sometime around 9.30pm. Introduce yourself to Enzo & tell him we know each other. He's a lovely guy.

OK, I will try to do just that, thanks. Italian food is in my Top 5. A few arias would be parmesan atop the spag.

[pdogg]

Enzo is his name & he sang many roles on the circuit back home in Europe. He had a falling out with the opera hierarchy & finished up managing this place in Pattaya.

There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them; not same same.

[KenW]

The village tosses up some interesting lessons in speech acts.

Last week I had a meal and few beers at the Englishman's (known among expats as Angry) cafe near my house (remember: 200 metres away, same street). While we were chatting his girlfriend was sort of joining in, along with their 2+ year old little boy. Something something Ba Chris, she was saying - that's all I caught. Ba is VNese for father.

The Englishman is in his early 50s, and even though he bears all the hallmarks of an uneducated working kind of background, he pouts a very British conservatism he is proud of. Nhi, he admonished his girlfriend, how many times have I told you I don't want him calling me Chris. (He wants respect.)

I'll use their real names with impunity, for he will never read a forum like this, hating as he does "fucking poofters." Given to physical violence, it scares the shit out of me that he might one day find out my darker self. O well, if he does, while recuperating in my hospital ward I will email Big Tel and offer him a return airfare and a few days accommodation in my spare room if he will be kind enough to take some reciprocal restorative action.

Anyway, I laughed out loud, suggesting I thought it nice that a little boy would address his dad that way. He snarled.

I also wanted to add, but was not game, that for decades and probably more, enlightened parents in civilised contexts have done just that. Furthermore, I wanted to explain to him that mother and son were being perfectly normal VNese, but as he hates "fucking nogs" as much as he loathes "fucking poofters" - despite girlfriend and half a son falling in that former category - I restrained myself. Being derided as a "fucking wanker" is a tad less dangerous than "fucking poofter", but I let it ride. Cowardly Ken.

VNese kinship relating to father is contexted in a neat form of address. Let's say there are 3 brothers X, Y & Z. The wife of X, let's call her P, addresses the three men as anh X, anh Y and anh Z. Polite. Anh (pronounced un) means both husband and older brother. In this case she is referring to X obviously, as husband X - extreme politeness and deference - and his brothers as husband/older brother Y or Z. This is seen as appropriate in terms of politeness but it also has a practical implication, for Y & Z are possibilities for husbands of P should X cark it. We don't see this much nowadays, but in olden times if X died, Y would have first call on her as his wife (perhaps by then his second wife).

P then, when teaching her children, refers to the men as ba X, ba Y and ba Z (father X, father Y & father Z). So to distinguish, politely, the men are, as you see, named. See how this differs so much from the uncle type nomenclature we use in English language kinship.

What the girlfriend was teaching her little boy was simply VNese kinship niceties: daddy was father Chris.

But grumpy old Angry wasn't having any of this shit, even it was fucking nog culture.

O well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make Angry tolerant.

[pacman]

Chris sounds like a charmer. Good move to not challenge him, some of these guys you don't know how they will react.

As long as he is spending money & not abusing the locals, they will tolerate him. If he starts upsetting the locals & makes any of them lose face, they won't put up with him. I doubt he would have any idea of what problems he could face if he gets too angry.

Leave him be Ken, he can be responsible for his own destiny. Asians can be very tolerant of idiots but they won't accept bullshit. I would hope his wife would be his warning system but is he smart enough to listen to her? Doesn't sound like it going by your description.

Would he really physically attack you if he caught you holding hands with a femboy? What a dickhead!!

[KenW]

Good move to not challenge him, some of these guys you don't know how they will react.

Leave him be Ken,

Would he really physically attack you if he caught you holding hands with a femboy? What a dickhead!!

No challenge from me. We've known each other a few years now, him and I, so I doubt he would physically attack me. I have been told he's all hot air, but I have no intention of finding out. I would however, be persona non grata to say the least, with blab going all around the expat network. I try to be careful.

[KenW]

Sometimes life in the village takes a turn for the worst.

In the embarrassment stakes at least. Yesterday said Englishman came round to my house and asked (invited) me down for the evening as a guy has begun doing a muso turn there on Wed evenings. I know this bloke, another Englishman who teaches school for a living, but aspires - even though gone 40 - to be a professional musician.

So ya goes. So ya sings along - even given drunken state, flat voice, etcetera, so bad it are.

Ah, life in the village is so good, but can be so embarrassing the next morning.

[KenW]

About 20% of VNese are christians, mostly concentrated in the south.

There is only one church in my village, but they are scattered all over the city and the southern coast of VN, especially from Saigon north for about 200 km.

It provides a lovely example of syncretism of interest to a certain breed of anthropologists: christianity troweled on over the top of ancient animism and maybe even bits of buddhism. So you see these folk wearing crosses around their necks, dutifully going to mass every Sunday, yet all their houses feature the red lights and graven images of buddhist shrines, together with photos of ancestors and gifts to them that mark animist worship.

Christmas is a particularly nice time, even for a non-believer like me. All the families go out to let the kids enjoy the brightly decorated shop windows in the CBD, the fairy lights that the local councils string up along and across the streets, and the de rigeur Coco Cola red & white santa suits all the tiny tots get to wear.

The VNese don't celebrate xmas as the west does, nor is it a public holiday. But they still have lots of fun, mainly for children. The village is always at its most friendly, and that's no bad thing.

I enjoy xmas here as a pleasant happy rather than festive and commercial time.

When you see the VNese like this, on their very best behaviour, showing good will to men, it brings a gulp to the throat to think of the damage to their collective psyches as well as the carnage in the streets done by Nixon's xmas bombing program (admittedly against targets in the north, not down here) back in the later war years.

[pdogg]

syncretism

Although the word is new to me, I've always called it mix and match, it describes my belief.

Secular humanism, ethical culture, the power of positive thinking, the truth within me, all combined with a Buddhist string around my wrist, my Christian upbringing, yogic principles, the wisdom of philosophers, some inspirational scripture stories, and scientific truth sums it up for me.