Mamma mia the time is coming closer and closer. The weeks go by, the nights draw in, the excitement and the anxiety builds (and the spending too..). Our little baby will be a girl. Maybe she’ll get her mother’s good looks, or her father’s horrendous nose. No matter what Chi says, I am sure we could not see Louisa’s nose on the ultra-sound scan. Definitely not. November the 27th is the precise date we are expecting. In preparation for her arrival my wife has proved to be as useful wielding a credit card as a Charlies Angel with a knife caught in a tight spot (once again if you are reading honey just joking). So far we only have the baby bath, 6 bodysuits, some pjs, a tiny hat and tiny gloves, a fistful of T-shirts, some nappies, a pushchair (complete with car seat travel system), a moses basket (with stand), a ‘baby gym’, a changing mat, a changing bag, oils and lotions, a small tub for splashing baby, some pink flannel sized things for putting on your shoulder when baby is puking, and on and on….

I have yet to buy the earplugs and the Valium. Ahh what the hell, I’ll only have to get up in the mornings and go to Britain’s finest state schools to learn my trade. Just what you want after a night of green liquid poo, a classroom full of adolescent British males.

One things for sure, it’ll all be worth it.

This was the moment it all happened…

 

Chi’s brother, Jean-Baptiste, wasn’t shy or awkward at this emotional moment, rather dignified and mature. He held Chi as she greeted him. I am in the background, choking on the local pollution or something. Not sure. After the meeting it was five days of French style hospitality with Chi’s brother’s large family, meeting various Aunts and Uncles, culminating in an 18 person luncheon at the family home. We ate sumptuously, we (or at least I) drank copiously, with lunch blending into dinner, after meal spirits blending into aperitifs. We spent three nights in a chalet overlooking Geneva and Mount Blanc. A far cry from the dusty highways and manic streets of Saigon.

 

We even managed to sneak in a trip to Switzerland to wander around Lake Geneva and gawp at ridiculously expensive watches, suits and cars.

Thanks to the local knowledge of our hosts, Chi was smuggled into this exclusive corner of Europe over the border via a back road, no visa. Despite our attempts to attract the attention of the Swiss gendarmes , she returned to France successfully.

Previously, we had enjoyed several enjoyable but expensive nights in Paris.

 

In the Louvre, here’s what you face if you want to get close to the Mona Lisa. 

Through an arrangement with a friend, Dai was adopted by a French family. Here they are, in HCMC, visiting Chi’s house. Right is Chi’s mother, left her Aunt who cared for Dai through the first year.

Chi’s mother insisted that no money was involved, the only condition was that the families stay in touch, which they have done without fail over the years, sending photos, letters, cards and emails. The pain of such a decision was tempered by the knowledge that Dai was being bought up in a happy family, getting a good education and enjoying all the things he wouldn’t have had in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Chi and her mother lived together. Chi revealed to me only yesterday that her mother had seriously considered a similar fate for her, but in the end decided against it. By Grade 6, Chi was shopping at the market and preparing basic meals for herself and her mother. By the middle of Grade 8, she was working at the Saigon Horse Racing track selling tickets at weekends.

Over in France Jean-Baptiste (Dai) was continuing his growth and education.

First day at school…

Today Jean-B is a strapping 15 years old and doing well at school. Chi is so immensely proud she is fit to burst.

A week today, Chi and I will fly to Paris. After three nights wandering the streets and savouring the atmosphere we will catch a train three hours south east to the town of Besancon. Here Chi will be reunited with her brother for the first time since he left Vietnam as a one year old baby. Discussion of this event is already banned in our house for fear of the waterworks starting. It will be an emotional few days for us when we drive to stay in Gex, the hometown of JB and family, up in the mountains of the Jura region just a few kilometers from Geneva.

For Chi especially, I hope this is the start of a great relationship with her brother and his wonderful family — the heartbreak she feels from what happened will I hope in some way be forgotten as they meet for the first time as adults. . The events 15 years ago shaped Chi’s entire life and personality — and all she wants most of all is a happy family. It’s something she has missed out on for so long.

What I really wanted to talk about was our trip to the hospital. I thought I was required to have a medical, but it seems to depend on where your spouse is from.

Hospitals - nasty

Since Chi is from HCMC, I only had to have the ‘mental’ health check. This was just one of those ‘experiences’ which will stick in my mind. The only other time I’ve been to a Vietnamese hospital was when I got a health check for work permit requirements last year.

I had to sneak this photo as to my left were two more desks, one with the nurse processing documents, and one old guy who was reading a newspaper. His desk was exactly as bland as the one above - “What the hell does he do all day?”I was thinking. It looked like the office had been deserted for 30 years and they’d just come back to work. Once the nurse cleared our paperwork we were waved to the guy at the desk. He took my passport and had a good look at it. He began…”Are you, errrr, hmmm, from Northern Ireland?”. “No”, I replied sincerely, “I am from England”. “Hmm”. More scanning of my passport. “Errrr, are you, umm, still living in London?”. Once again I replied nicely, “No, I am working in Ho Chi Minh City”. This intense physcological profiling continued until he was satisfied that I wasn’t off my rocker. Safe to say, me and the misses both passed with flying colors.

So, we had the dossier of mindless red tape,otherwise known as the marrige application, all ready to hand in. Chi organised everything herself bless her and left me to simply drive around, pick things up, and smile when neccessary. She has been ‘overly generous’ (if you catch my drift) to certian members of officialdom. At the office where all types of registration takes place (births, deaths, marriages etc),located on Pasteur, we once again came face to face with our nemisis desk sucker, name unknown. We’ve been seperated by perspex with this man three times and not once has he made eye contact. He seemed very content with his level of malice which wasn’t just reserved for us but other happy soon-to-be married couples. After shuffling through our well prepared paperwork he throws the folder back at us and writes a list of what we still need to do. I tell him he’s not very helpful, he says “don’t understand”, at which Chi later quipped “doesn’t understand without any money”. Chi beavered for the rest of the day and furnished the folder with its required nonsense, we were then ready for a return to see Mr Happy. This time he had simply run out of things that were missing…..Chi had back-up copies of pretty much anything he could ask for all stamped and translated and notorized ready to shove down his throat if the chance arrived. Reluctantly he processed the application.

I’ve gotten distracted here - what I really wanted to talk about was the interview. As we’re leaving the office Chi says we have an interview scheduled for next week. We both laugh. An interview? To get married! WHAT! OK, whatever, lets play along…then I came across this article today: Vietnam Tightens Regulations On International Marriges

Extract:

Under the decree, within 20 days of the date of the receipt of marriage registration dossiers and fees, the Judicial Department of a city or province must conduct a person-to-person interview with both applicants.
The interview is designed to check whether the two applicants agree to the marriage of their own accord and how much they can communicate

So, hopefully, like the mental health check, we can get through this one as well (ow! that was my tounge in my cheek).

I recently discovered that most people use a company to organise all the documentation for their wedding applications for them. Not Chi, she organised everything herself. Apparently it’s quite tricky…..

We dropped into our favourite public office for our interview yesterday afternoon. The new rules. Firstly, again without eye contact, we were told that we needed to have a translator for me. Would have been nice if Mr Happy had told us that last time, but Mrs Happy informed us through what I can only describe as a forced scowl. So Chi calls up her friend from work and he comes down to the office to help us out. We sit and wait and eventually Chi gets called in. She had a 30 minute grilling - the only thing missing was the bright lamp and windowless room. I won’t go into the details of what he asked but it was all highly personal, and some of it, in my opinion, highly inappropriate. Stopping short of what color my grandfather’s living room is painted, Chi was asked if the people she had invited to her house and travlled to Phu Quoc with over Christmas and New Year in 2005 were really my family - she described her incredulousness to me. Is he serious? I can speak English. I saw them talking together for 2 weeks. I went to Phu Quoc Island with them for 3 days. I saw their passports. He looks exactly like his Dad for GOD SAKE! He then went on to describe to her what would happen if we failed the interview; once again Chi related her feelings to me and it requires some brain-racking to find synonyms for incredulous which I have already used…..ah yes, here we go, flabbergasted, dumbfounded, astonished and thunderstruck. How could we fail? We can communicate. We have no age gap to speak of. We have lots of evidence of our relationship. “Just for example….I have to tell you” he says.

My interview was much more humane, although that may only have been because the office was due to close at 5.00 and I sat down at about 4.30 (we arrived at 2.15). It may also be the norm, and the officials are much more interested in what she knows about me than vice versa. All I know is that this whole process has drilled my better half into the ground and she came out of it a little frazzled and definitely stressed out; it’s a little too premature to be relieved, we find out if the interview was successful on the 7th September.

Here it is in all it’s bureaucratic glory. We’ve finally burst free from the assemblge of red tape which has bound us since April. Although we’ll be celebrating tonight, in our minds it’s not done until the wedding party later in October. However, we are of course very happy to have gotten this over and done with! I feel I had to blank out some personal details because I am petrified of lonely Internet cyberloonies who will stalk me, yes, I’m talking to YOU. It was strange coming out of the office as a legally married man and then heading off back to work as did the misses. We did manage to squeeze in a matrimonial bowl of pho of which I took a picture in a bid to emulate those countless images on drool-worthy food blogs such as Sticky Rice.

Yes, one of the most popular posts from my old blog the final word (in Saigon).

Getting married in a communist country that is still developing is just as much fun as you are probably thinking it is.

I had five post altogether, so it is kind of a series. Here is the link to the links. Yes, I had to do it like this, back in my old school blogger days.

Whilst not quite my reaction, Chi is pregnant (3 months) and before Christmas (last week of November) we’ll have a baby added to the family. As the weeks go by, my anticipation builds. Brief flashes of what awaits come vividly on occasion, leaving a feeling of disbelief mixed with pure adrenalin. What an adventure this will be…

Out back, a couple of huge pigs. Uncle rears and sells them, along with brewing wine and selling that too.

Grandma’s land : Tropical. You can just make out her house in the background.

The family : Grandma sits with five of her eleven children (two different husbands). Four of her daughters stand in a line behind her, and one son standing behind Chi. Chi’s mother is second from Grandma in the line, although it could be any of those aunts considering the resemblance!

I asked Chi what her family did during the war. Were they troubled by it or involved, especially considering where her mother’s family lived in Cu Chi? She explained that her grandmother and family lived in the residential areas of Cu Chi which were away from the fighting. She casually mentioned that she suspected her grandmother and friends sold heroin to US soldiers. Many sources claim that up to 15% of servicemen were hooked on heroin by the end of their service. For anyone who hasn’t, pick up the story of Frank Lucas, the movie ‘American Gangster’.

Chi’s father is from countryside near Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, where he has a fish farm. His father, Chi’s grandfather, was Chinese and boasted four wives. Being south of Saigon I guess they were largely unaffected by the war. I’d be interested in learning more of her family tree, but I’m not sure this is a well known concept or if local authorities keep the kind of records you’d need to go beyond the living relatives and their knowledge. But I’d be interested to hear of the heritage of some of the reader’s families out there…

I gather most of the people who visit this site are overseas Vietnamese in the States and other parts of the world. So for those who have a proficiency in the Vietnamese language, why not check out my wife’s blog…..it’s a Yahoo 360 jobby, of course.

She has written a lot and seems to be fairly reflective in her subject matter. I struggle to understand the entries (no ****, sherlock). Recently I have this nagging, gloating voice in my head that says learning a new language beyond the age of about seven is impossible….in fact it is scientifically proven (read The Language Instinct by Pinker). In terms of language acquisition, my brain is 1920’s classic car that has been sat in a Hampshire barn for the last eighty years, rusting peacefully. To try and start it up now is just offensive. However, I still have the strength to push the mantra out of my head, ignore the futility of my efforts, and crack on.

How was that for a total deviation……once again, read the lovely Minh Chi’s Blog to find out more about my better half/trouble and strife/ball & chain etc etc.

Can’t read what she’s thinking? Click here.

I noticed the boxes we were using had once held something entirely different…was it a bad omen?

So, a five minute journey down to the end of Tran Khac Chan, over the small bridge, and we’re home — Mieu Noi apartments.

The thing I love about this place is the view. From our place, up on the 16th floor, we have an unobstructed view over District 1, District 3, and other areas of the city.. Here’s my map of the D1 skyline as seen from chez moi (or check the larger size here).

and here

And finally, the sunset over the city.

So, we leave the house and still the paparazzi wouldn’t leave us alone.

We drive to the Majestic Hotel, where we check into our complementary, windowless room secreted in the arse of the hotel, next to the staircase that leads to the health club. Call down the parents to join us in guzzling a bottle of champagne, and then head up to the restaurant in time for 6.00.

We stand by the doors and welcome the guests as they arrive.

Now it’s time for a caption competition: Am I thinking 1) ‘Who are these people?!’ or 2) ‘That looks like about 200,000 in that envelope, ok, you can come in.’

Here we try and copy our wedding picture. Not too bad, although my head is way off.

So I’m bouncing around the room when Chi says me - “Come on, the ceremony’s about to start”. I’m like - ‘huh?’. I put down my 12th ice cold glass of Tiger on the nearest table just as I get yanked by the wrist and the lights go out — a lady’s voice announces us and to my horror, on comes the intro to ‘Eye of the Tiger’. Duh k duk k duk k duk k DUK, DUK DUK DUK, DUK DUK DUK, DUK DUK DEEERRRRRR……..immediately I motion to the guy at the CD player that I will hang him if he doesn’t cut the music. Much amuesment, especially it seemed at the table where my family were sat. Funny that. Anyway, the M.C’s proceeded with a diatribe that would have made Cupid himself snap his arrows and clip his wings, whilst I did my best to ignore them and look cool on the stage. Then, we toast.

And then, we get smoked out by the dry ice. So romantic!

I hope you got the general idea, plenty more pics of the 150 guests who eventually turned out, but they slot into the ‘Nobody cares what you had for lunch’ category as easily as a warm knife slides through flesh…no, sorry,…..I mean butter.

Today is my new wifes birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY! Here is a picture of you doing what you do best, smiling!

The car brought me and my parents to the alley that leads to Chi’s house, my helpers for the day followed up in a wagon behind. Traditionally, the groom brings eight trays laden with gifts for the brides family. Here’s me and my guys lining up in the correct order - my parents first, then me, then the rest. The trays also had to arrive at the house in a certain order, so the most important two went to my brother and sister, stood behind me.

The procession got going once a delegation from the bride’s house had straightened our lapels. Does this look like a sight that would halt half of Binh Thanh district in its tracks, cause it did.

Next we turn the corner and are greeted by Chi’s helpers for the day — here my sister and friends arriving.

Inside the arrangements are simple. I stand in the corner. My parents sit at the table with her parents. My boys line the wall sat on plastic stalls. The other half of the room is taken up with Chi’s relatives and friends. All in all around 30 people in a very small room on a hot day — number of fans avaliable : 1. Everybody is ready, and Chi comes from upstairs to join me. First I present her with the manly bouquet I had carried across town.

Next the trays were uncovered to reveal their sumptuous contents — fruit, wine, cake, more cake and some cakes.

Next, if memory serves correctly, we handed out symbolic cups of wine to the folks. My memory is only hazy due to heat exhaustion. It was the hottest wedding ceremony on record. 30 people in a brightly lit room in the middle of the day in Vietnam with no aircon — not a good idea — and of course there’s nothing like being the center of attention to add an extra bead of sweat to your brow. I was continually being handed small paper tissues to stem the flow, but even a 5 star bath towel would’ve struggled with that job.

Next, the rings went on

And then the old man was called on to make a speech. Fully unprepared, he did a good job, despite the cause of my amusement in this picture, heckling from my brother.

So that’s about it. Here’s what it looked like from above.

And here’s my boys tucking into the wedding cake — from right to left — Bernard and Richard from the Raiders, Gabe who is a teaching colleague, my brother Jamie, my old school friend and best mate who somehow managed to make it to Vietnam James, and finally captain of the Raiders Pierre.

Cheers boys!

Part 6 & 7 to follow this week.