Operation Hanh…..

October 6, 2005

A califragalistically good thing is possibly going to happen - I may not have ended up getting together with Hanh when I left Nam last year and I may not be able to solve her current crisis with the whole arranged marriage army-colonel-having-his-baby-while-dealing-with-wicked-bitchy-sister-in-laws & -a-mother-in-law-who-is-also-very-ill thing either - but I am 75% of the way to organising a decent job with my company for her.

Before our company was not officially represented in Vietnam - we worked with an agent - now we are setting up shop good and proper and hiring a group of people - so I’m doing my level best to make sure she gets a good job with decent pay and benefits etc

Then I’ll be able to make sure she gets a passport on the basis of need for foreign travel to meet clients etc etc - you see the problem at the moment is that her current shitty company would have to approve any passport she gets (it’s a Nam thing) - and her mental case boss is super friendly with the whole arranged marriage family thing - so in the end, if she got a passport arranged-marriage-army-colonel-man would want to know “why you have passport? you want go where?”

So as well as making sure she has a career, job she loves, a fair wage and medical benefits - once she gets a passport I can safely bust her outta there if she ever needs me to.....

Bugger - as I write I find that the only thing standing in the way of this master plan is her maternity leave which may mean they need to hire someone else initially - it seems 3-4 months without her during the beginning of next year is not really possible, as this is when they set up the office - however, the tea season doesn’t really start until late May/early June and this is when she would be most needed to handle all the shipments etc - also Duong, who is setting up the office for us, is a very good friend and I hope he does me this big favour - he has always come up with the golden goods in the past.

Anyways, I’ll keep up the good fight and see if I can blag it - surely the gods of karma have got to watching over this and can shove a helpful signpost of destiny in front of the eyes of the relevant decision makers?

If only so I can imitate Hannibal from the A-team chomping on a cigar saying “I love it when a plan comes together....”

In other news last night Yuni and I went to funky Japanese restaurant lounge bar loafing haven (for future reference I learned:don’t order raw Squid or eat the little brown yellowy egg stuff) and they had a live band playing - Yuni was getting requests sent up and when she felt they weren’t doing a good enough job, she asked if she could sing instead - she then proceeded to bring the fucking house down god damn it! it was an Indonesian song, but it sounded funky and she seemed to sing it very well - the bar crowd loved it - I was as proud as a mongoose who’d outwitted a bag full of rattle snakes.

I’d write more but quite honestly I’ve had about 4 hours sleep due to the willingness of the Hyatt hotel bar to stay open into the small hours to accommodate our never ending thirst for Long Island Ice Tea’s.