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Daily Life, Laos

Farewell from friends makes my heart sing

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Our school’s end-of-year party generally features a buffet dinner, a little entertainment and formal farewells to the departing staff. As one of the those departing staff members this year, I was dreading a sappy send-off. Usually I love being the center of attention, but not when the situation turns me into a blithering idiot. (The potential is always there, I know, but good-byes are particularly tricky.)

So when the farewells got under way at our party Saturday night, I tried to keep my mind otherwise occupied with catty remarks to my table mates, snuggles with a friend’s baby, and a trip to the bathroom. Another departing teacher, Terese, had a teary moment with the microphone that nearly broke my own emotional dam, but I held it together. Soon my picture popped up on the screen, and I knew there was no avoiding it. However, instead of the usual videotaped comments from friends and colleagues, my special GFs Carol and Nikki took the mics and announced they had a live farewell for Tony and me.

I quickly dashed back to my seat for the surprise performance. As the first notes of “Hotel California” floated from the speakers, I clapped with anticipation. That’s one of my signature karaoke numbers, which I have sung (badly) at many local restaurants and parties. I thought it would be a fitting final tribute, but no, it was even better than that. With the help of accomplished songstress Candice Broom, they had written new lyrics full of references to life here in Laos, special moments we’ve shared in Vientiane and plenty of inside jokes. They knew exactly what I needed: love and laughs, free of sob-inducing gushiness.

I was too thrilled and stunned to think of picking up my camera, but Tony took this photo. If I find out someone filmed it, I’ll post the video later.

Here are the lyrics:
Pinky Beef Pot (sung to the tune of Hotel California)
On a small lonely campus, humid breeze in my hair,
Warm smell of shrimp paste, rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering Wat.
My head grew sweaty and my clothes grew wet,
Thanks god I got my shot.
The students entered the doorway, I heard the late bell.
Then I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell.
While I sipped on a Diet Coke, and tried to show them the way,
There were voices throughout the town; I thought I heard them say,
“Saibaidee to the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot
Such a lovely place
(Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely taste
Living it up at the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot
Organ meats and beer
(Organ meats and beer)
You can find it here.”
Her mind is PYP twisted, he’s got the DP bends.
They’re praying that India puts them on the financial mend.
Oh the noise in the courtyard, hide under the ‘squito net.
Some things you want to remember, some you have to forget.
So I called to the mei baan, “Please bring me my wine.”
The students make me so tired I go to sleep before 9.
And still mortgages are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say,
“Lar con to the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot
Such a lovely place
(Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely taste
No more family nights at Pinky Beef Pot
What a nice surprise
(What a nice surprise)
Just wish they had French fries.”

Now, here it is again with explanatory notes and shameless plugs for old blog posts.
Pinky Beef Pot (sung to the tune of Hotel California)
On a small lonely campus (Vientiane International School), humid breeze in my hair.
Warm smell of shrimp paste (Southeast Asian staple ingredient), rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering Wat (that’s Lao for “temple,” and there’s one on every corner – see my Wat ‘O’ the Week posts).
My head grew sweaty (reference to the scorching heat) and my clothes grew wet (reference to the Pii Mai holiday, when the monks doused me with a hose – see the blog post Wat Watnak – or should I say “Wet” Watnak?),
Thanks god (we picked up the extra “s” from the Turks when we lived in Istanbul) I got my shot.
The students entered the doorway, I heard the late bell.
Then I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell.
While I sipped on a Diet Coke (Tony’s cocktail of choice), and tried to show them the way,
There were voices throughout the town; I thought I heard them say,
“Saibaidee (“hello” in Lao) to the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot (one of our favorite Family Night destinations – see the blog post, Family Night – Pinky Beef Pot)
Such a lovely place
(Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely taste
Living it up at the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot
Organ meats and beer (self-explanatory, no?)
(Organ meats and beer)
You can find it here.”
Her mind is PYP twisted (Primary Years Programme – the convoluted elementary school curriculum framework of the International Baccalaureate Organization), he’s got the DP bends (Diploma Programme – the International Baccalaureate’s curriculum for grades 11 and 12).
They’re praying that India puts them on the financial mend (our new jobs at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India, come with a big pay raise! Wahoo!).
Oh the noise in the courtyard, hide under the ‘squito net (don’t mess with Dengue Fever).
Some things you want to remember, some you have to forget.
So I called to the mei baan (Lao for “housekeeper,” although ours has never actually brought me a drink of any kind), “Please bring me my wine.”
The students make me so tired I go to sleep before 9 (true dat).
And still mortgages are calling from far away (investing in one of the most oppressed cities in the U.S. might not have been our most fiscally responsible decision … just sayin’),
Wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say,
“Lar con (“good-bye” in Lao) to the restaurant Pinky Beef Pot
Such a lovely place
(Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely taste
No more family nights at Pinky Beef Pot
What a nice surprise
(What a nice surprise)
Just wish they had French fries. (I loves me some French fries!)“

Daily Life, Laos

Welcome to Khouvieng Country

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This week’s Family Night began with its usual trepidation and ended with us wearing the restaurant’s promotional polo shirts, jumping up and down in our own little mosh pit and singing “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi with the karaoke microphones.

In our ongoing quest to find a neighborhood joint we can call “our place,” we once again strayed from the familiar, safe comfort food of Vientiane’s western-style restaurants. A few other friends (whom we refer to as the out-of-town cousins à la the Griswolds and Cousin Eddie) joined us for the evening. Carol wouldn’t tell us where we were going, so we all met at our house and car-pooled. Well, there was just one car, so some of us crammed in the car; the others followed on motorbikes.

Carol’s eatery du jour was just off Khouvieng Road, a main artery that runs from our neck of the woods all the way to downtown. We pulled in to Khouvieng Country’s parking area, and the owner immediately came running out. He enthusiastically pumped Carol’s hand, saying, “Hello! I remember you!” She gently pointed out that they’d never met.
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Our attention swiftly turned to the karaoke system, which was belting out “I Can’t Live” by Mariah Carey. Before we could set down our bags, Nikki was already at the front, mic in hand with a small but adoring Lao audience singing along. Her biggest fan, a tipsy Lao man who was friends with the owner, hovered at our table for much of the night, buying us beers and cheering for us to take the stage.
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The restaurant’s décor was typical – lots of wood, garish fake flowers, twinkly lights, murals of traditional Lao landscapes, shiny colorful knick-knacks, etc. Unique features included battery-operated tea lights on the tables and a thatched roof overhanging the stage to create the illusion of a “sala,” the open-air little huts that dot the countryside. The staff was friendly and attentive, clearly amused by us.
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Extended family, clockwise from front left: Courtney, Carol, Tony, Nikki, lovely waitress, Olivier, Jon
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Deterred only momentarily by the all-Lao menu (none of us could read Lao script well enough to decipher it), Carol gave her usual instructions to the friendly owner: Bring us your five best dishes, preferably with no faces, bones or organs. Those turned out to be a green salad, spicy papaya salad, fried rice, barbecued chicken, and tom yam soup. The fried rice was some of the best I’ve had, with shrimp and chunks of some other savory meat I couldn’t identify. The chicken was also tasty, although the “no bones” request was blatantly ignored.

We were all a bit disappointed in the papaya salad, a local specialty that inspires a brutal sense of competition among Lao women, who all think they make it better than anyone else. Once you’ve tried homemade papaya salad prepared by a lady with something to prove, you’re bound to be let down by restaurant fare.

Anyway, it was hard to focus on the food when the guy running the karaoke system was clearly creating a song list tailor-made for the crazy expat crowd. We sounded terrible, but the Lao restaurant patrons wore huge smiles, waved their arms in the air, clapped and sang, sometimes actually getting up from their tables to deliver a microphone and push us toward the stage.

What could be more fun than eating and singing with your friends? Eating and singing in matching shirts! The restaurant owner brought out a pile of promotional polo shirts and passed them around. “Free! Free!” he said, handing out extras. “For your friends!” Tony’s first shirt was skin tight, which was awesome, but the kind owner heard our laughter and brought out a larger size.
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The shirts were like superhero costumes. Suddenly, we all thought we were rock stars, and there was no getting us off the stage. Looking at the photos, I realize now we looked like the Partridge Family.
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At one point, Carol and I pulled an older Lao lady away from her table and made her dance with us. She was a good sport and moved her mouth randomly to suggest she knew the words. There weren’t many people at the restaurant, but everyone seemed to enjoy our ridiculous display of misplaced confidence.

When we wrapped up our Bon Jovi finale, we filed out the door, waving and thanking everyone as if they had paid to see us. Best Family Night ever! Nikki says it was even the most fun she’s had in Laos so far. Khouvieng Country will be hard to top.

Here are a few more shots from our Khouvieng Country concert.

Daily Life, Laos

Kooky Karaoke

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When we lived in China, one of the Filipina teaching assistants sold me a karaoke system. She had heard me wishing for one, and she said, “All Filipinos have karaoke! I have two.”
It’s so fantastic and so simple. There’s a microphone and a book with thousands of song titles. You just plug the mic into the TV, flip through the book, pick a song, and punch the song code into the microphone keypad. Voila! Magic!
The music is a little tinny, the lyrics on the TV are sometimes just a wee bit wrong, and the background graphics can be strange (a bright-eyed lemur, Big Ben, a canal in the Netherlands…). But it’s still heaps of fun.
On Friday, I invited some Lao girlfriends over to play. They did not mess around.

They brought a ridiculous amount of yummy treats, and then they got down to business. Huddled over the songbook, they made a list of their choices and then took turns in the spotlight. Mai was a bit of a mic hog, but with good reason. She had a gorgeous singing voice. Actually, most of them did. I was concerned that they wouldn’t like the song selections, but they knew more of the titles than I did.

Ton had brought a boy named Phu. He didn’t speak English, and he just sat in a chair clutching a pillow and taking pictures on command for the whole evening. He was so courteous and sweet. After he drank some Pepsi, he self-consciously slipped into the kitchen to wash his glass. As usual, Tony greeted the first arrivals and then bolted.

Carbo-loading for the songfest. Ton, Not, Lae and Nang chow down on the snacks.
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Keo, Addie and Ton pick songs.
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My mic is a prop. It’s not even plugged in. That’s Keo and Nang in the back; Ton, Lae, Mai and moi in the front.
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YMCA!!!
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At one point, I noticed the songstress crowd had thinned. That’s when I realized they were using my camera and staging a fashion shoot on my Chinese daybed. Such lovely ladies!

Here, the gang sings “Every Time You Go Away” by Paul Young.