#8 The ballet dancers

During my first few months in Saigon, my original circle of friends was made up of 5 of the teachers which had graduated from the TESOL course previous to mine, with the addition of Ryan and I. This circle did not last long as we each found personalities more suitable to our own, for Ryan this was Tam Tam bar crowd and some workmates, for me the Saigon Raiders and some Apollo staff.

Tali, Eddie, Ryan and I went along to the Opera House one evening to take in the Vietnamese theatre and one moment turned out to be, without doubt, the single funniest moment of my ex-pat life. I won’t go into too much detail, as this will mean nothing to those who had not witnessed it and my words are insufficient to do the scene justice. Basically the show was opera in the first half and we had spent most of that falling asleep, or watching the bat circle the stalls. After considering at the intermission whether we should stay for the second half, we relented and were rewarded with two male ballet dancers prancing on from the sides in the most mincing manner imaginable. The hilarity ensued and while Tali managed to remain relatively composed, Eddie, Ryan and I fell into hysterics which fed off each other for about half an hour and drew attention from those opera going types surrounding us. Fortunately the theatre was only about 40% full, less so in the rear where we were sat, and our laughter was able to break free, until it became simply too painful.