Britney and the Queens

Don't worry, we're still alive and we just didn't report some things because we just didn't have the motivation yet.

So now a little insight into our experiences on the subject of celebrating and partying in Vietnam.

Just today I was talking to an intern about the fact that there were actually quite good techno clubs that were comparable to the scene in Berlin, but we initially wanted to go to completely different places.

On March 14th, a Thursday, we met up with a friend who is currently in HCMC with his Vietnamese girlfriend to eat ramen. Very delicious, but far too much, we soon discovered.

The idea of visiting the Bui Vien party street immediately afterwards also came from him and my cautious statement that I had work on Friday was commented on with “But only tomorrow!”

In retrospect, the comparison of a teacher from Bui Vien with the Ballermann seemed quite appropriate.

The way there already led past the strange-looking bars, in front of which a group of women, all in the same red, white or different colored clothes, were sitting and advertising massages for mostly only men with “happy endings”. Strange, but I was happy to just pass by without being noticed.

Although I thought I had finally gotten over the culture shock after the first 3 weeks, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a shockingly, fascinatingly loud, colorful and crazy street. One bar after the other, dancing provocative women and men, people were chatting up from every side to go into the bar, pay for food or drink, give money for fire artists and the like or buy other knick-knacks like brightly colored rabbit ears. I can hardly call it music because it was just so incredibly loud and so different everywhere that it was more like noise, because the most you could do was consume too much alcohol. That's why it was impossible to have a conversation and we ended up just sitting in a bar, drinking, testing the laughter balloons and watching the goings-on, except for one person who started trying to start a conversation again, screaming. So Jonas ultimately led us out again and we continued drinking together on a roof terrace far above the city and were able to talk to each other again. By the way, you can feel the alcohol here - and I suspect it's because of the weather - quite quickly... At 1 a.m. Alina and I said goodbye at some point and walked a lot of the alleys on foot, fooled around and finally took a drink on the highway Taxi to get back home.

Luckily, my Friday is always very relaxed and doesn't start until the third hour.

But thanks to a tip from a teacher, we had also planned an event for March 15th. Britney Spears and drag queens :)

At Club Observatory, the Genderfunk collective organized a queer party on the theme of The Cult of Britney Spears. Of course, this wasn't necessarily typical of Vietnamese culture, but it was kind of great to see that it still existed. Accordingly, the audience also consisted increasingly of international people. Between Britney Musical Bingo and the drag show, the three of us enjoyed a colorful evening with another intern Marie.

Even though it didn't last that long into the night because someone unfortunately stepped on Alina's injured foot, we rode back to District 2 on the mopeds at midnight.