Within minutes ...

... the apartment was filled with the smell of cheap perfume and duty free cigarettes.

As per usual, I was late to pick her up from airport so rushed into the main waiting area. She wasn't there but I knew she wouldn't be far. Within minutes I spotted her outside, tucked behind a No Exit door.

First Hanoi sighting of the blue baboon - in camouflage

After a cursory check of her travel insurance (date and conditions) she will be helmeted and plonked onto the back of the bike, then dumped in the old town so that I can get to my meeting at work.

The Potato Harvest (Part 2)

Here is the transcript from a recent "chat session" I had with our HR Leader:

Quyen: Hi Anthony, i want to talk to you about the stretch assignment

Anthony: hi. ok. i'm at the airpor t about to board my flight but i'm ok to chat for for a few minutes though

Quyen: thanks, it is about the stretch assignment on marketing. i need you to supervise our emerging leaders to work on it

Anthony: what do you need me to do? are there guidelines?

Quyen: i sent a note to you all on 11 Dec

Anthony: yes I read this. but are there specific guidelines?

Quyen: you could appoint a team leader

Anthony: do we have a ppt presentation or something which outlines what the initiative is all about? what are the desired outcomes?

Quyen: yes, the outcomes would be marketing activities to promote services

Quyen: there is no specific guidelines

Anthony: what are the goals of this assignment? How will we know if we have achieved it or not?

Quyen: marketing activities to promote services.

Anthony: is there more info than this?

Quyen: it is like a small project

Anthony: so in terms of a goal ... you know the SMART principle to goals right? a goal needs to to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable etc ...? what are the specifics of this assignment and how would we measure (or even know) if it was achieved?

Quyen: let me know if you could manage your time to supervise the team

Anthony: yes. i can manage my time. the only thing missing is the guidelines. is this a global initiative?

Quyen: yes. just treat it like a small project. about marketing.

Anthony: ok. thanks for clarifying it.

Quyen: you're welcome [smiley face]

Anthony: we can talk more tomorrow as i'm about to board a flight

Quyen: thanks anthony. this sounds great. [smiley face]

I'm fucked.

Word of the Day

Today's was particularly good.

Word: "Tiger's Wife Mad'

The act of being so angry at someone that you find the item they cherish most and beat them with it.

Chris was so Tiger's Wife Mad at Joe that he grabbed Joe's Wii remote and beat him with it.

It doesn't even bother using her name. She's just (and only) Tiger's Wife. And Mad.

There's No R In Hanoi

Socially speaking, R is a very open person. He will unblinkingly recount stories or situations that would put most of us to shame. He doesn't mind people knowing anything, really. It extends well beyond A-said-B-to-E and into vignettes of personal grooming, sexual pecadillos or belittling awkwardness.

I don't even like people knowing that I went to the shop ... "I saw you up the road yesterday getting some milk, I think it was milk." will fill me with dread.

Not R, though. He can be told: "I saw this girl keep rejecting you last night when you were really drunk and tried to talk to her like 4 or 5 times until she hit you across the face." ... and he will be all like: "Oh yeah - that was really embarrassing, wasn't it? Great night though."

On the flip side, this trait is not so good for him in a corporate world where loose lips sink ships.

That’s why I couldn’t tell R about this blog. I was busting to share it with him because he’s been living here and knows the people and the culture. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any risks.

There is a risk that he would accidentally mention the blog when he was pissed. Something simple like "Oh yeah- that was on your blog" ... or leave the page open on his desk in the office. Granted, these are very small risks for me, but they are not ones I can take in this culture. Some of my opinions could have me fired or deported. At best, I would be marginalized. Although I think I'm already living the best.

So rather than take tiny risks with big consequences, I couldn't tell him.

This also means that all my visitors to Hanoi get a briefing: don't mention the blog. I may as well be living in Brazil with a German surname.

In the interest of full transparency – or at least translucency – I told R that until he had “tackled” the issue of his open mouth (no, Ben, not in that way), there were a few things I was unable to tell him about myself. I'm sure he was expecting something salacious, much like the things he left me to discover when I cleaned out his apartment, so this will probably come as a disappointment.

But yesterday R finished his contract and left Vietnam: probably for good. We had a final meeting to reflect on his performance and experience over the past 8 months. It was also an excuse for me to get some one-on-one time and give him a few gifts during the final frenzied departure actions.

The first present I gave R was a wincing ceramic doll on all fours. It's an inside joke. A kind of inside joke befitting of toddlers. Toddlers with bad parents. The second was a few books which have either changed my life, or my mood, or both. The third was the address of this blog.

This last presentation went something like this:

Me: "So what are you going to do in the next few months?"

R: "A few things. I’d really like to take some time out to maybe write down some memories of this trip. It’s been hard work but really memorable and there are many things I don’t want to forget about Vietnam."

Me: "Well on that subject, I’ve actually got one more gift for you."

R: "I think you’ve given me enough, Anthony. I'm not going to help you with your shirt."

Me: "No. Remember when I told you there was something I couldn’t trust you with because you were a bit of a loose cannon?"

R: "Yeah. Of course I do."

Me: "Well I’ve been keeping a blog. Just writing about the occasional thing that happens here. You have the occasional mention in it as well. I didn't want you to know because I've written things about work that could get me in trouble."

R: "Are you kidding? Really?"

Me: "Yes. I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t risk some of the things come out that I say about work people. But you are mentioned only as 'R'. So my final gift to you is to tell you what the web address is, and to hope that you read and enjoy it."

R: "Wow. Thanks. Does that mean you trust me now?"

Me: "No. I just means that you’re leaving Hanoi and no longer pose a risk. You’re still untrustworthy."

R: [laughs] "Oh. OK. Thanks."

Me: "I mean it though."

R: "Yes. Yes I know."

He was pretty touched. So I asked where my gifts were. I had already scanned the room, discretely searching for swatches of wrapping paper hidden behind columns or under tables.

"So where's my present then?" I finally asked him. R stopped feeling touched and started being awkward, which as good as a gift to me.

The second gift I procured from him was permission to write about a couple of things he’s been up to whilst in Vietnam. He complied readily, not out of willingness but out of empty handed guilt.

So now R has gone. I’m glad I kept this secret, though. But he has been a significant part of my Hanoi trip to date and can hopefully relate to the stories on his own level. It would be fun to read them in restrospect. I’m also a bit sad though; but that will pass. Like an ill wind. Bad R. Bad everyone.

The Potato Harvest

This email just landed in my Inbox. It's from the head of HR.

"Dear Huong, Kien, Hung, and Thanh

"As anh Tam say, the next one year ahead of you will not only be excitement, pride and joy, but will aslo be hard work, going extra miles, and very strong will power. I am sure though your sweat will harvest you great crop.

She's certainly strong out of the blocks; I'll give her that. But I have my reservations. This quote is clearly a fake. anh Tam is our CEO and he does not use such stirring words. Never. He also does not even have any farming experience. Piracy is rampant in Vietnam and emails from HR Leaders are no exception.

"The next step in our LIV programme is working in teams on stretch assignments. These stretch assignments are real business challenges we are facing in our company. Your task is to analyse the problem, identify the issues, develop an actionable execution plan and follow up on the actions.

The next step? The next step after what? You haven't told us the first step. What was the first step? Are you talking about the harvest? Is the harvest the first step? What does all this mean?

And what is an LIV programme?

Look at the difference in grammar, structure, style and pace between the first paragraph and the second.

It's a completely different author.

This paragraph was obviously air-lifted out of some PowerPoint presentation during some emergency operation.

Things start to crystallise in my head. It's starting to make sense. The LIV Programme is part of some global initiative, mandated by HQ in the US. Hang on though. American's spell it like "program" and in our company most of the Australians have given up. All of the non-English countries write Program. It's a very common word in my company. Only the English have remained stubborn enough to use the "correct" spelling, unless they have lived in the US for a while and it's beaten out of them. I think the email has still been issued out of the US, but it was by a recently-arrived English person. This is her first initiative since being posted to HQ in a Global role. This was written by an English person. It's a woman because it's HR. Also because English men don't get as many global roles in our company as women; probably because they are more stubborn about adjusting to new cultures.

I start to get distracted. "I wonder if she's going back home for Xmas?", I ask myself. I wonder whether anyone invited her to a Thanksgiving dinner. I'll bet her hair is really dry, maybe because she has not found the right conditioner in the US but probably because she just doesn't care enough. She takes shortcuts in the shower and doesn't leave it in.

She must have told Vietnam months ago on a conference call that it needed to initiate a local version of her LIV Initiative. It's a but like the Idol franchise, except that every judge is mean.

Our HR Leader still doesn't know what the LIV programme is, though. No one does. She does know that it the English woman has started putting it into her fortnightly Status Report and she needs to demonstrate that Vietnam is making progress.

The final warning from HQ would have come via a machine generated email. Our HR Leader would have still read it with alarm and called an emergency meeting with her team to walk them through the Global LIV Initiative Presentation Deck.

Her team would have sat around a large table. No one would be paying any attention to the presentation, except for the secretary assigned to take minutes. The others would be doing emails on their laptops or sending sms's on Blackberries. This is completely acceptable behaviour in Vietnam. I once a presentation in our boardroom to about 25 people around the table, and all of them were typing on their laptop. No one even bothered wasting time to feign interest.

I'm sure the above sentence is the intro to some very important and relevant Global HR initiative which aims to develop talented people within our organisation. Taken out of context, as it is in this email, it makes no fucking sense at all.

"I am happy to advise you that your team: Huong of Marketing, Kien of Technology, Hung of Sales, and Thanh of MIS, is assigned the following project, which is really a very practical issue for us to solve:

Given the nature of these loose instructions, I feel sorry for Huong, et al. Not too sorry because I don't know these people. On the whole though, I am relieved that I'm not part of the team and hoping it stays that way.

Anyway though ... what is this "practical issue" she speaks of?

"Marketing strategy/programmes to effectively promote services in Vietnam market"

This of course makes no sense. It's English, sure, but not as I know it.

It is not a practical issue. It is a broad, sweeping statement. It could pretty much describe the challenges of any current (or potential) company in Vietnam.

"This challenge is raised by Khue. You might want to ask her for further clarification if needed.

Ahh. Got it. Here's what happened.

At the end of the emergency meeting, our Leader asked some questions to the group about possible next steps. No one said anything for a while. The silence became a bit awkward, so Khue said "What about marketing? We always need marketing.". This would have been followed by a mexican wave of relieved nodding.

There is no way that Khue has any idea about this. If she did, she would have helped write the email. Khue knows nothing.

By now I am 100% very fucking glad that I'm not on this poor team with their ill-described, pointless assignment.

Then this.

Anthony, our BD Manager will supervise you on this assignment. Please note that the assignment shall be completed by March 2010 and the presentation of assignment outcomes to the Country Leadershhip Team will be in mid March.

He ... who ... I ... wh ... umm ... WA WHA WHAT????

You-I-You-I-You're-fucking-kidding-what-the-fucking-WHAT??

"Anthony: thank you.

Many responses come to mind. "You're welcome" is not one of them.

"Anthony please help schedule the first meeting with your team and work out the plan.

Anthony Anthony Anthony ... sure sure sure.

I am now sure how their emergency meeting ended. Once Khue had trotted out the fantastic platitude about Marketing, the next issue was to decide who should be responsible for it. To put it bluntly: who are we going to blame?

More blank stares into the laptop screens. This time they are feigning interest ... in their emails ... in their shoes ... anything to not be noticed.

Then the penny would have dropped. I mean really. It's obvious.

Who do you call when there is a silly, impossible task that no one understands? Who do you call when failure is looming? When the job is doomed, who is the best man for it?

"The Potato"

I'm sure this part of the meeting was unanimous. Possibly even in unison.

So now I get to start calling some meetings. Firstly, a few questions. What is my meeting about? What am I supposed to be saying? Will anyone tell me what I am supposed to do? Who can give me some direction? Will I be sent any background material?

My questions are of course rhetorical.

I hold out absolutely no hope for any positive experience from this little hospital pass I've been given. I will not make new friends or learn new things. I will not be invigorated by teaming or personal growth or professional development. We will not achieve any tangible results. I'll bet the Status Report starts looking pretty healthy, while the rest of us still struggle to work our what LIV stands for. These are not statements of pessimism, these are statements based on experience and probability.

My charges are not idiots. They know it's doomed and they're just relieved that my name is on the top of the pile. I can already see them roll their eyes as they read our final report in March. But they won't have turned up to any of my meetings. When I say that "we" will complete this project, I mean that "I" will complete it. This is going to be the worst harvest ever.

Tree Houses

R: "Have you noticed that there don't seem to be any homeless people in Hanoi?"

-- "Yeah. What's with that?"

R: "I wonder if they ship them away from tourist areas. Like in Beijing before the Olympics?"

-- "I wouldn't be surprised ...

-- "But you do still see a lot of very poor people hanging around ...

-- "You just never see them sleeping out."

R: "Hey - Olive! Can we ask you a question?"

O: "Yes kiwi. Yes daddy. What?"

R: "Are there any homeless people in Hanoi?"

O: [Wide eyed interest] "People?"

R: "Homeless. You know? No house. Have to sleep outside."

O: "Yes. Homeless. Yes there are many homeless."

[She couldn't have looked less interested if she tried. Complete unconcern.]

R: "But we don't see any? Where are they?"

O: "They go to the park." [Smiles]

R: "All of them?"

O: "Yes." [Smiles and nods, somewhat dismissively.]

R: "Really? Are you sure?"

O: "Yes kiwi. Yes daddy." [Smiles ethereally and returns to her work.]

The Whole Set Of Permanent

Today I registered for our company health and life insurance program.

Even though the marketing material is in Vietnamese, it is littered with photos of goofy- joyous potatoes.

Case in point:

This is a very cheery family portrait. So I figured it must have something to do with dental benefits. Or pregnancy. But I still wanted to know more. Exactly why were these potatoes were so happy? So I asked Google Translate to help me and the results were somewhat unexpected.

"Tử vong" MEANS Death

"Thương tật toàn bộ vĩnh viễn" AKA"Injury the whole set of permanent"

What is Injury the whole set of permanent? Google Translate couldn't offer alternatives so I asked one of the secretaries.

"The Whole Set of Permanent" took some explaining. It demanded quite an insensitive reenactment of a severely disabled person. Think zombies; lots of grunts; more than a little gurning.

THEREFORE "Injury the whole set of permanent" MEANS Complete and permanent incapacitation, often mental disability.

So this is the part of the discussion where we talk about worst case scenarios.

$5,000/ người MEANS I will get $5,000 if I die or if I become a zombie.

This is the type decision that can only be made lightly. It's not every day that you get to put a price on your life. I headed straight to the dotted line and signed.

So now my life is insured for $5,000.

Then I realised why that goofy potato family in the picture are so happy. There were probably 3 ugly children in that photo the week before. Now there are 2 ugly children and a $5,000 windfall. Hence the smiling. Greedy potatoes.

"Horray! You're sick."

"Ha ha! Our kids are well but yours are sick!"

Perhaps these images capture the mood after all. Vietnamese people love being sick. I called my Travel Agent today and said "Hi Hana - how are you?" to which she replied "Not good. Tired. And a little Sick." I could hear through the phone that she was gently smiling as she told me.

By this stage I had given up on Google Translate and asked someone to walk through the rest with me.

Turns out I can also claim up to $400 per year on dental. $400! That should net me 2 cleans and a filling. The thought of what I could get for $400 turns me off sugar.

And if I am admitted to hospital I will be paid a stipend of $5/day. I wouldn't know what to buy. (I really wouldn't know what to buy.)

So much pain. So little gain. Who would be bothered with suicide nowadays? Especially with the US dollar being so weak. You can forget about wearing couture in your open coffin. These numbers say "get a tracksuit, deady".

The reason for including this next image was becoming clearer and clearer:

"Don't think you will avoid using this if you get sick - we're not a charity."

There is also up to $500 per year in medical. Hence this doctor, below.

"Heart surgery is expensive. Luckily, our surgeons are not fully trained, so they are quite cheap. "

This is a cheerily ill man:

"I'm off to present my Insurance Card and Id Card at the Hospital"

That's really what it says. He doesn't seem too sick to me.

"I'm going to collect all necessary documentation."

That's really what it says. I'd seen enough. If he was charging around with his briefcase like that, I would be asking him for a lot of evidence, too.

I started to speculate: what if Marsh Insurance is using these happy potatoes to incite racism? What if it is implying that the potatoes are still mocking dead or sick Vietnamese people, a generation after the Saigon had fallen? I wouldn't be surprised.

I can imagine the Marsh Insurance marketing workshop in Ho Chi Minh City ... "Let's shove some healthy smiling potatoes alongside tales of medical woe. Show how the potatoes don't care ... that they even think it's funny when we get sick."

By the time got to the part about claiming, I was certain this was the case.

"We're going to get 2 gay guys to laugh at your claim before we reject it."

"It wasn't us that rejected your claim, it was the fucking potatoes."

It's great to know that someone's got my back. I hope they don't have a knife. Insurance is so reassuring.

Oh! First Kiss

... is the name of my new favourite somewhat dated Vietnamese pop song.

The first scene of this video is the best. Just seeing the frenzied excitement of the young folk attending a pop concert. Vietnam's finest. I guess you'd have to be in the audience to really feel the mood.

Why would the editor decide to use that particular audience shot to kick-off this concert video?

All My Fault

1. Fallen heroes are all my fault

One of my Vietnamese colleagues walked past my desk yesterday afternoon and casually said:

"Hey Anthony. I heard you didn't catch someone in the training session last week and he fell off the table."

That translates to:

"Stupid fat potato didn't pay attention and the nice man got hurt."

I felt like an exhibit at the War Museum - my potato actions reported back with a heavy bias to a willing audience.

I thought to myself "Is this how it's being retold?" ... while saying to him "Umm ... that's really not the way it happened."

But he was already walking away smiling. I was too late.

He didn't need to stop for an explanation from me. He didn't need one. A new truth had ridden into town, and he had hitched his wagon to it.

As he left me I heard him muttering (over his breath)"Wow That must have hurt a lot ..." and then giggle slightly as he shook his head.

I just sat there with a stunned look on my face. I knew this look. It was the look of one who has just fallen backwards off a table and onto the floor without being caught.

2. Spiders are all my fault

Last week I was talking with Huong, who works in HR. We were talking about geckos (as you do) and I mentioned that I'd never seen a spider here in Hanoi.

Turns out, says Huong, that the only spiders here are small and harmless but people are still scared of them. I talked about how big and ugly the Huntsmen spiders are in Australia and showed her a photo on Google images.

At this point Huong looked up at me with an admonishing look on her face:

H: "Why do you let them get so big?"

Me: "What do you mean?"

H: "In Vietnam we would never let spiders become so big. We would kill it when it is small."

Me: "This is a different type of spider. Some spiders in Australia are big."

H: [ignoring me] "So why you don't kill it when it's small?"

I felt like I was being accused of being lazy; or careless.

Me: [defensively] "It's not my fault." [And then after regaining my composure.] "Are you really saying it's my fault that the spiders are so big? They are in the trees when they are small."

Even I realised how silly I was sounding. But I wanted to see how this would play out.

H: "Trees? Hmm ... yes maybe ... but still ... this would never happen in Vietnam. "

[She stopped a while. I tough she was reflecting but later realised she was just summoning back the admonishment.]

H: "We would never let it happen are little people and we don't let things grow big. But you are western. So big. So potato ..."

It's all my fault that Huntsmen spiders are so big and ugly.

Sorry everyone.

It's Only a Matter of Time

"Earlier this year, Vietnam's government tightened restrictions on blogging, banning political discussion and restricting postings to personal matters. Police have arrested several bloggers for writing about politically sensitive subjects."

Anything To Save Face

After months of speculation, the government has finally blocked Facebook in Vietnam.

This is our own little Kristallnacht ... and I approve of it ... as I do with most genocides.

Everyone knew it was coming. Even the potatoes were forewarned. It's been the talk of the town since yesterday, when it was starting to be blocked. The blocking seems to be happening one internet provider at a time.

It is only really hurting the potatoes. You can hear their background music in many bars and cafes: "I can't get Facebook any more".

Most Vietnamese people already have a workaround. It's just the stupid potatoes who can't work it out. The only group the government doesn't care about.

Yes while the locals are continuing to post updates on their profile, the potatoes are dropping crocodile tears into their burgers.

But it's about time the government did something. Vietnamese Facebook users are infidels. Here are some recent examples of postings from my own Facebook wall.

1. From Olive

"daddy, i wanna tittle-tattle Kiwi, he misleaded me to say bad words to big sis..."

R is the kiwi she is referring to. I wonder if to tittle-tattle someone involves unwanted sexual advances?

2. Also from Olive

"I think we can be animals family. daddy = dinosaur, big sis = lion, kiwi = wolf, n... babybee ^^"

I have absolutely no idea what this all means. But I guess I'm a dinosaur. I don't know what to do with this new menagerie but I expect to soon be told.

3. From Tung, the waiter at a local bar.

"hey bro,how're u,i miss u.will u be free this friday.friday is my birthday.u're hopeful to join my party.hope i can see u in my party.will u join"

Yes, I will join. Why are you calling me bro?

4. Back to Olive:

"daddy, Kiwi is bad, he's bullying me. I learnt new English from big sis last day, when that clumpsy Kiwi nearly drop his money: "Finder keeper, loser wiper" ^^"

I love the word clumpsy. It's an improvement to the originaly Of course there is this old staple:

5. Olive again:

"Mizzu, daddy! Where r u? Where's my gift? :-P"

And so on and so forth. This seems to be how Vietnamese people use Facebook.

R accidentally overstayed his work visa (forgot to renew). This is a communist country (the type of country that bans Facebook) so he needed to tread very carefully when exploring his options. He went to the HR department of the agency he works at. Within 2 hoursthe following was posted to his Facebook wall:

6. From his friend and colleague, L:

"Hey dude! I heard your visa is expired? Haha!!!! What you gonna do? Bummer man. You could be in trouble."

There are no secrets in Vietnam.

7. This from L's Facebook wall:

"Working at [Client name] site today. It really sucks there."

There were replies from the client, saying "Hope you're not referring to me man."

To which L replied "No man. Just your internet is so slow and bad."

L's company is responsible for providing the internet services and most of his friends in Facebook are either from his company, with many from the client.

8. Also from L's Facebook:

"Back to work today. I fucked up all the deadlines but no one knows! Hehe"

9. L also used his Facebook profile to celebrate his new love, then to openly wage war with the cuckold, and then later to wallow over the split-up:

"L is trying to do what he's best at - be a man, stay cool, calm and collected. But it's still so hard getting some sleeps, the stupid mind just doesnt rest at all."

"What goes around comes around. I broke 2 hearts and now it's time to payback. "khi qua bao den, toi chap nhan trung phat ma ko keu than""

"Lạy tạ lá khô rơi. Chết vui cho cành nẩy lộc". Sometimes you have to say goodbye for a glorious come back. Sometimes, it takes a broken heart to heal a broken heart. I'll be there honey. Goodbye

Followed by this:

It's all Red and Yellow here. But the heart is blue. Damn, I miss you

His friend replied with: "Bro... You can do it :).. There's no mistake to love with all ur heart and soul :)"

And then this:

"You touched my heart you touched my soul. You changed my life and all my goals. And love is blind and that I knew when, My heart was blinded by you. "

And this:

"That last kiss, I'll cherish Until we meet again. And time makes It harder. I wish I could remember. But I keep Your memory. You visit me in my sleep. My darling. Who knew..."

L was seeing his girlfriend for 2 months. Maybe 6 weeks. Very soon he will have been lamenting on Facebook for longer than the relationship lastered.

I've said it before and will say it again: this whole country is in Year 10.

I don't think that the Vietnamese Communist Party banned Facebook due to fear of social networking being a tool for group political action or dissent. I think the reasons were that it was just ... too ... embarrassed about what its people have been doing with it. This ban is not in the interests of public safety, but dignity.

The Cover Version

Bought today from a DVD store in the Old Quarter:

I guess that explains the look on her face.

Teamwork and Trust in Vietnam

The course is called Mandatory Leader Training Workshop.

I tried to wriggle out of it the day before but was told very bluntly by HR: "Cannot Anthony - it's mandatory."

Fast forward to 8am this morning at the Hanoi International.

I find my misspelt name on a card on a round table in the Ho Chi Minh conference room on the third floor. 

It is 8.30 when our instructor introduces himself as Larry. He is a lovely American guy who has worked in the company for 25 years and is from Rhode Island and is happy to be in Vietnam. His shoes are old and scuffed, a sure sign that we only use him for in-house courses these days.

I was thrilled at the prospect of a decent morning tea, a lavish lunch buffet and little else.

Larry outlined the day's agenda and I realised that I’d attended this (exact same) course about 5 years ago. It was going to be a long day.

Exercise 1: The ice breaker

The opening ice-breaker exercise was exactly the same as 5 years ago.

Larry: “Write down the name of a leader you admire on a piece of paper and which qualities ..."

[…]

Exercises 2 and 3, on the other hand, were less familiar.

Exercise 2: Team work

Larry forced us to stand in a circle and count from 1 to 18.

Odd numbers were sent to one side and evens on the other, forming 2 teams.

4 foreigners had wound up in Team A. I was the only potato on Team B and looked enormous as I stood there there next to my peers.

I'm starting to get used to this feeling of being that conspicuous white guy ...  like when I'm squashed into a lift with 24 people at shoulder height ... or when I bang my head on umbrellas covering street stands and their owners laugh openly at my misfortune.

Larry marched us to the back of the room and marshalled each team under a of A4 paper already hanging from the ceiling.

I stood there towering over my peers while we received our instructions.

He started explaining the rules and I stopped listening, distracted by the ugly vertical blinds handing over the windows and wondering if their twin was still hanging in my childhood bedroom.

This daydream was interrupted by my team poking me and handing me a pen. One of them smiled as she said to me "We write our names on it so you help us with the paper!".

I reached up and pulled down the paper from the ceiling in a single, fluid motion. I handed it to her. and my team groaned. Her smile had turned into an icy scowl as she withdrew her hand quicky, as if I was riddled with Ebola. 

Larry turned around and also frowned at me holding the A4 page.

It turns out the game requires one to keep the paper up there and use team work to get each person to write their name on a square. The first team to finish, without tearing the paper, would win.

The game was suspended and everyone had to wait a few minutes, glaring at the stupid white person who had ruined the game as he hunted for more A4, reholed it, restrung it and rehung it.

"Three ... two ... one ... go."

It was Team A vs Team B.

I quickly reached up and wrote my name in the top box, carefully handing my pen to the guy next to me. He couldn't reach. He handed it to a girl in jeans. She jumped up but couldn't quite manage it, either. A couple of others tried and failed and the clock was against us.

This time I was so focused on the paper that I didn't realise my team slowly gathering around me with hungry eyes, like cannibals at Christmas.

Within seconds I was forced down onto all fours as my team mates climbed up onto me in quick succession and I felt like a mistreated horse.

Arms and elbows pressed into my back and I groaned as palms pressed hard into my hips, no doubt for leverage as they hoisted up one of their more nervous team mates.

Our final competitor jumped on me and stood on tippy toes as she wrote. I felt a disc being slowly dislodged and realized that by now they had now forgotten I was an animal at all, much less human. I had become a fully functioning bridge. 

Her team eased her back down and her knees dug into my shoulder blades and they bounced her off to cheers and high-fives.

Our team rushed to the front of the room with the paper abandoning me there on all fours without explanation. I figured out that it must now be over and I sprang up as quickly as possible, lest they should return to mount me for a victory lap.

Lesson learned: Get the most out of your potato when you can. Once he drops, leave him there. There are plenty more potatoes in the patch.

Exercise 3: Building Trust in the Workplace

After lunch we were divided into the same 2 teams.

For this exercise I was listening carefully for the instructions (fool me once).

There were 2 tables set up at the back of the room and we were told they were our makeshift cliffs. This was the one where you fall back and trust your team to catch you.

The 3 biggest potatoes (me included) were singled out and told we were not allowed to fully participate.

A girl in my group who hadn't been paying attention until that point suddenly cottoned onto this and automatically pointed at me with a "We're not catching him! Not possible!" and cackled loudly.

"I'm right here," I thought to myself as I looked down and said "No. I am not allowed to jump", like that pale child on sports day who is allergic to everything and carries a note from his parents.

So off we marched to the tables.

Larry hadn't given us any guidance and told us we had to work out the system for ourselves. Our team formed a disorganised kerfuffle as we debated the safest way to catch someone.

Most in our team were relatively small so it wasn't going to be a huge challenge. However, they still looked nervous as they nominated me to be one of the primary catchers. (Vietnamese people don't seem to like putting their fate in the hands of foreigners - funny that.)

After a bit of argy-bargy one of the guys in our group who had been very reluctant to climb up onto Old Clover in the previous exercise was suddenly full of stream. He volunteered to go first, obviously pumped from our victory this morning.

He was also one of the smallest in our group and we were happy to start with him. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nodded his head sharply, like a nerd pumping himself up before a date with a whore.

The rest formed a loose huddle as we debated the logistics (palms up? wrist grabs? lattice?).

Team A was a bit more organized (and competitive). We were still getting into position and discussing our process when we noticed their first member dropping back into safe hands, to cheers and congratulations.

We stopped to work out at how they had done it. Ahhh - palms up! OK good! ... that looks to be the safest way! ... and we turned to each other and lock in that approach.

Then it happened.

I heard a brief WHOOSH and a GASP. Then a THUD.

During the earlier debate and discussion, our first candidate had climbed up on the table and gotten himself into position. This is the nervous guy who never usually goes first and I imagine him biting his bottom lip as he worked up the courage to raise his arms up in a commitment to team and trust. He must have been a bit apprehensive and inside his own head until - prompted by hurrahs of the other team's first dropper – decided it was now time.

No one in our team - no one - had broken his fall.

We looked down at him in shock.

He looked up at us in shock. He lay on the ground, shaking, with his arms still above his head in a now-ironic symbol of trust.

We tried to pick him off the floor to help him stand, but his legs gave way and it seemed like he needed to sit a while longer.

He eventually found his land legs and we hoisted him out to the muffin room.

Our trust exercise was abandoned and a doctor was called.

I had mixed emotions as I sat with him on the sofa ("If only I had jumped first ... it could have been me out here asking for painkillers and muffins.")

About 10 minutes later the doctor arrived and a stunned Larry returned to the room to robotically launch into his wrap up.

Larry: "So. Umm. Team 1. Who went first in your team?"

-- "I did."

Larry: "How did you feel at that point Minh?"

--"It felt fantastic actually."

Larry: "That's great. It really demonstrates the importance of teaming and trust."

Larry, on autopilot: "And team 2? How did ... oh ... That's right. Didn't go so well."

Throughout the afternoon this scene replayed itself in my mind and I spontaneously giggled until, like a kid in church, trying to hide it by forcing my face into a look of squinting concentration.

Lesson learned: Look before you leap.