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[NQV] SF visit: 8/31/96 (1)
Saturday 8/31/96
Since the conference was scheduled to start at 9 AM (yeah right!),
Brian had set the alarm for 8 AM. I got up promptly and went in for
a quick wake-up shower. We got out of the apartment at 9 AM and had
to attend to our stomach first, so we went across the street to the
noodle shop Ha?i Ky' Mi` Gia. I kept talking too much -- about my
pet topics of Vietnamese literature and history -- and didn't get to
finish my "Mi` Vi.t Ti`m" (and it was a bit salty too). No wonder I
could never succeed in gaining weight: just imagine, if only I could
eat as heartily as I talk then I'd be in much much better shape. :-)
Brian took us to the UCB Extension Campus at the corner of Laguna
and Market streets in SF. On the way there, somehow the conversation
turned to Vietnamese music, and Brian told of a funny annecdote about
a singing lesson with Nguyen Thanh Van in which he mauled the words
of the opening line of the song "Mo^.ng Chie^`u Xua^n" (Spring Eve's
Reverie) in a twisted attempt to mimic Northern diction which went
out of control to turn "Chu+a ga(.p em" ("I have yet to meet you")
into "Chu+a 'gia(.p' em" ("I have yet to 'meat' you")! :-)
Even though it was well past 9:30 AM, we were apparently still early
by Vietnamese standards! I saw Linh and Viet at the registration
desk; Linh seemed somewhat more alert and smiling than the previous
night, and Viet promptly gave me a copy of his thesis as promised. :-)
Lee was already there, chewing on a bagel as he greeted me with a hug,
I also bumped into anh LQTuan, chi Trang-Anh, and chi Vuong, and it
was so nice to see them again after 2 years. A little while later,
Alex and the So Cal GVA group arrived (directly from their stopover
in San Jose raher than SF), and I was overwhelmed once more by many
new faces/names (except anh LTTuan whom I had met, along with Alex,
2 years ago in the Bay Area): there were Clayton Long Chau, co-chair
of GVA, who cut a tall and handsome figure; Clayton's boyfriend Chien;
Hiep, the talented leader/choreographer of the ITAC dance troupe, who
sported a radiantly boyish smile (imagine my utter SHOCK to find out
that Hiep is actually oder than I, and there he was addressing me as
"anh Vinh" :-)). And then Phuc dragged me out to a corner and pointed
rather excitedly to a bunch of So Cal groupies hanging out at the door,
among whom were the drag divas Khanh Ha and My Linh whose uproarious
comic act we had seen from the video (courtesy of Lee) of the first
Golden Summer Night fund-raiser in 1993.
(to be continued)
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