HIV AIDS month
Last Friday about 7pm I was contacted by phone and invited to attend a performance to launch HIV AIDS month in Vietnam. The invite came from the Ministry of Health and the concert was 7.30 on Sunday. 7.30 in the morning that is! At first I thought about how to get out of it, but eventually my sense of duty to colleagues in the Ministry and the project over-ruled my common sense and I decided to go.
A party on Saturday night was not really the best preparation for the performance, but I duly dragged myself out of bed and headed off on my bicycle to the Friendship Palace - a concrete monolith built by the Russians as a present to the Vietnamese people and one of those structures which has 1960s communist design written all over it. People were arriving in large numbers but the guards on the entrances were not impressed by my bike. I was directed round the back to find a parking space at the tradesman's entrance. I paid my parking fee of 500 dong - 2p at today's exchange rate and walked in the back door. This confused my minder who was waiting for me out the front. I was given a badge, tee shirt and promotional literature and ushered into the concert hall where I had a seat on the second row just behind the really important people. We waited. A few minutes after the official start time a load of Vietnamese government officials arrived including the Vice Prime Minister responsible for AIDS - not the best of titles. We all shook hands and sat down.
I have to say the performance was the best live show I've seen in Vietnam. The performers were from the National Centre for Dance and Music, a sort of performing arts university and they were as professional as anything I have ever seen. The culmination of the music and dance was a piece of drumming which was started by the Vice Minister for Sport and Tourism - who had clearly been a drummer in his younger days - and concluded with no less than 45 drummers with drums the size of oil barrels thumping the hell out of their instruments enough to make pacemakers give up and leave it to the reverberation off the walls to keep anyone's pulse active.
Then came the speeches, one after another until it was the Vice Prime Ministers turn. None of us saw him speak as he was behind a high lecturn surmounted by an enormous display of flowers and he was surrounded by the Vietnamese press all trying to get the best shot for their paper.
The end of the event required us to go outside and stand at the top of the steps with the Vietnamese dignatories whilst a cavalcade of motorbikes, cars and lorries did a fly past as they set out to spend the day polluting the streets of Hanoi promoting the efforts of the fight against AIDS.
The party broke up and we went for coffee in a nearby bar. It was not yet 10 am on Sunday and I had spent over 2 hours at a concert - before I even had my breakfast!
A party on Saturday night was not really the best preparation for the performance, but I duly dragged myself out of bed and headed off on my bicycle to the Friendship Palace - a concrete monolith built by the Russians as a present to the Vietnamese people and one of those structures which has 1960s communist design written all over it. People were arriving in large numbers but the guards on the entrances were not impressed by my bike. I was directed round the back to find a parking space at the tradesman's entrance. I paid my parking fee of 500 dong - 2p at today's exchange rate and walked in the back door. This confused my minder who was waiting for me out the front. I was given a badge, tee shirt and promotional literature and ushered into the concert hall where I had a seat on the second row just behind the really important people. We waited. A few minutes after the official start time a load of Vietnamese government officials arrived including the Vice Prime Minister responsible for AIDS - not the best of titles. We all shook hands and sat down.
I have to say the performance was the best live show I've seen in Vietnam. The performers were from the National Centre for Dance and Music, a sort of performing arts university and they were as professional as anything I have ever seen. The culmination of the music and dance was a piece of drumming which was started by the Vice Minister for Sport and Tourism - who had clearly been a drummer in his younger days - and concluded with no less than 45 drummers with drums the size of oil barrels thumping the hell out of their instruments enough to make pacemakers give up and leave it to the reverberation off the walls to keep anyone's pulse active.
Then came the speeches, one after another until it was the Vice Prime Ministers turn. None of us saw him speak as he was behind a high lecturn surmounted by an enormous display of flowers and he was surrounded by the Vietnamese press all trying to get the best shot for their paper.
The end of the event required us to go outside and stand at the top of the steps with the Vietnamese dignatories whilst a cavalcade of motorbikes, cars and lorries did a fly past as they set out to spend the day polluting the streets of Hanoi promoting the efforts of the fight against AIDS.
The party broke up and we went for coffee in a nearby bar. It was not yet 10 am on Sunday and I had spent over 2 hours at a concert - before I even had my breakfast!
posted by Marvin.. at Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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