Thanksgiving and More

Whoa did I get busy. It seems that between a steady flow of visitors and two newly acquired jobs I haven’t had much time to update my blog. But so as to not get even further behind, and to not miss anything, let me re-cap!

Job #1. I’ve been hired by the proprietors of a local restaurant / bar called Sloppy Joe’s to be a manager. My principal duties include planning and hosting evens as well as marketing and promotion. Here’s a picture of me hard at work drinking a yard of ale during one of the regular’s Birthday party.


Since I’ve been working at Sloppy’s I’ve organized a weekly “Dinner and a Movie” night, an evening with a DJ, a couple of parties, and most recently an art exhibit of a local Vietnamese artist who I’ve been friends with since I moved here in August. His name is Do Tuan Anh and we’re having an opening for his artwork this Friday. (More on that later.) I’ve also worked hard at changing the decor of the place. I had painters change the color of a couple of mint green walls that I just couldn’t stand to look at anymore and I removed a few ugly “trophy cases” that were taking up too much wall space. Here’s a picture of the bar from the outside (pre-paintjob) but you get the idea.


I have several more ideas planned for the bar including live music, but for now I’m still trying to feel out the identity of the place. It verges on hipster art-house but still sits somewhere between ex-pat sports bar and Hanoi-chic.

Job #2. I’m working for a state-owned multi-media company as a creative consultant and graphic designer. This is an interesting job because they’re more interested in my ideas as a foreigner than anything else. They’re thinking long-term and how Vietnam will be positioned when entering the wider global market, so they want new ideas. I’ve been working on a logo and site design for a new website that will be out sometime in February. The people I work with are wonderful people and the pay is good. However, I’m not only working for “The Man”, but the “Vietnamese Man”! So I have to be a little careful with just how creative I get.

Thanksgiving was a blast! Bina and I made pies, mashed potatoes, and pasta salad for 20-some-odd people! We did it in collaboration with a few of our other friends and hosted it at their apartment because it was bigger than ours. Of course, all birds have been outlawed in Hanoi so there was no turkey to be found, but we had Sloppy Joe’s make up a few tins of pork chops and we all pigged out. (No pun intended)

We invited several of our friends and were able to share the Thanksgiving spirit with a few people who had never celebrated the holiday. There were Vietnamese, Americans, French, Canadians, Spanish, German, and even an Indian guy from Malaysia at the meal. It was a truly family-like, feel good dinner, complete with an eloquently theatrical rendition of the history of Thanksgiving narrated by Bina herself. I could tell she was recalling most of it from early Ohio elementary school versions she’d had ingrained in her head, but she changed a few things toward the end and had to mention the eventual genocide of the Native American people. But that didn’t discourage the Vietnamese guests too much. They’ve been through equally tough times with pilgrim-like colonialists. Of course at one point someone yelled, “You bombed my country!” just to be funny.





But the most exciting news is our new visitors! We have some great guests with us now and more coming. I’ll be posting that soon!