April Fools and Real Updates

These following stories actually did happen.


Sometime around the beginning of March I was invited to attend a local film making workshop, held primarily for Vietnamese film students. Since I studied film in college, a co-worker thought that this would be something I would be interested in. When I showed up, I was surprised to find out that everyone there knew that my area of expertise was sound design. I had told this to my co-worker but was surprised that everyone at the workshop knew this about me. I also found out that I was to be one of the three speakers. Granted the audience was only about twenty students or so, but I was still very much unprepared and felt very under qualified to speak. However, when answering their questions, I realised that I did know enough about sound design and movies to answer broad topics such as what are the processes in sound design and when should music be used? However, when I was asked to comment on things Vietnamese film could improve upon, I made a comment saying that Vietnamese productions seemed less rigid and structured than Hollywood films. The director sitting next to me seemed to take offense to this statement and said that he disagreed with me. I realized as soon as I made this comment that I probably didn't know enough about Vietnamese film to make this statement. However, the director shook my hand after the workshop and afterwards I talked with organizors and got some phone numbers.  The whole experience encapsulated many different experiences I have had here in Vietnam: 1. Going somewhere expecting to be the audience member and becoming a part of the attraction. 2.  Having to think about whether or not I know enough about a certain cultural aspect to comment on it.  3. And making friends and acquaintances without expecting to.


Last week I went on another MCC trip to Phu Tho province and visited two preschools there. I wrote an article on the lunch programs there which I thought about posting, but it's basically the same article I posted earlier.


The other day, my boss Mr. Lam invited me to go to a guitar concert. The concert was more like a recital for members of a guitar club. There were around eighty or so members there. When the guy in charge found out that I could play the guitar he invited me to play some songs. While I was little hesitant, I knew that I would later regret not accepting his offer. So I went up and played two of my compositions. I think the audience liked it or maybe they were just intrigued because the style of music wasn't something they were used to.


On April 1, I wrote a post stating that I had become a Vietnamese soap opera star. This article was written on April 1.  In Vietnam, this day is known as "Cá tháng Tư" roughly translated as "April Fish." This probably comes from France's own "poisson d’avril," a day in France when people try to put paper fish on people's backs without being noticed. Luckily, here in Vietnam they just tell lies and try to fool each other.  Except in the South, where they try to put actual fish on people's backs.  (OK, that last part isn't true)