Monday 16 March 2009

A day of surprises

I had a lovely and completely unexpected surprise when I went to work this morning. Within about half an hour of arriving on site, the illusive site foreman appeared in the office to show me the order schedule he was producing on the white board in the factory. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I’m not often lost for words but after some of the resistance I had experienced from him last week I just couldn’t believe that he had actually listened to some of my advice and was taking what I had recommended, during the training session, and putting it into action. I also found out that Mr Dung has been practising on his computer over the weekend! Working on a Sunday is pretty unusual in Vietnam, I’ve discovered, as they usually work a 6 day week (Monday – Saturday) so there must be something in the water as I don’t think I’ve worked with a client who has been quite so responsive.

We had another delicious lunch of spicy bbq style pork ribs, rice and spring rolls. It seems the fact that I devour the plate every time we have this dish (subtle, I know), has not gone unnoticed by Mrs Dung, as this is the third time we have had it for lunch. She made the amusing comment that the Vietnamese weather and food (!) suits me as my complexion is glowing apparently.

News from my daily Vietnamese language lessons is that I’ve branched into reading and managed to stun myself, my interpreter and my accountant friend, by correctly reading out loud something she had written. The phrase was tôi có môt em gái (sounds like toy kaw moat em guy) which means I have one younger sister. Today, I learned how to say something that sounds like tee-ung (tone going up) Viet (tone going down) kooa (tone going up) toy ghum tot lam(tone going up), which means I do not speak very much Vietnamese. I am trying though and I think that is appreciated ;-)

3 comments:

  1. Hello Jo,

    After i'm finished reading Arjan's blog i look evry time at the blog's of his team members. I find it very intresting to see what the other members of his team are doing.I had to laugh when i read your experience whit the karaoke, arjan told me yesterday that he is going to a karaoke on wednesday, i'm sad that i'm not with him at the moment because that's a experience i want to see!!


    Greetings Tineke Vegter

    ReplyDelete
  2. We'll make sure we video it for you! Maybe we can get him to sing 'She thinks my tractor's sexy' :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. tee-ung (tone going up) Viet (tone going down) kooa (tone going up) toy ghum tot lam(tone going up).I don't understand .What are u talk about??

    ReplyDelete