Le Van Ahn and three members of his staff presided over a conference table in their very stifling hot offices. The windows were flung wide open to try to make up for the lack of A/C, but even with the overhead fans, the tropical heat & humidity was overwhelming. Tea and biscuits were already prepared and on the table and we sat down to formally discuss our relationship. Ahn went first and spoke in Vietnamese language using Uyen as the translator. He outlined all the reasons it makes sense for our cities to be connected and all our commonalities - the city of Hue as a center for education, arts & culture, health care, business, the fact that we're both ports and significant in our individual regions of the country. Then it was my turn. I agreed with all of his conclusions as fitting of both cities and concurred that it was advantageous to identify issues and opportunities of mutual concern - internships and student exchanges, tourism, trade, medicine and research. We both agreed that we would work to identify projects and exchanges that would be mutually beneficial and pull our cities and respective countries closer. I expressed my deep gratitude for the opportunity to visit Vietnam and most particularly to learn more about Hue. This festival has provided a great opportunity for my visit and I vowed to work with the leadership of New Haven's festival to identify a way to include a representative performance of a Hue artist or group in our celebration. Ahn also expressed that the Mayor of Hue is now more keenly interested in being involved in this relationship and that they would like to be kept in the loop on our planning and progress.

After all the formalities were over I distributed little gifts I'd brought for Ahn and his staff - some New Haven pins, and a bronze medallion from New Haven's 350th Anniversary. We shook hands and a lot of photos were taken on numerous cameras.


By 9:30 the Mayor's staff, the ever-efficient Ms Thu, had arrived to transport Kelly and I the few blocks to City Hall. Kelly really has no purpose in these meetings but no one seems to mind and she's providing me great moral support and courage to withstand these scrutinies, to say nothing of serving as a great photo-taker. This meeting room was bigger, grander and even had microphones. No tea but cold bottles of water. Mayor (chairman, really) had a much larger delegation with him, mostly all representatives from his Center for International Cooperation, including Mr. Nhien with whom I'd had breakfast on Sunday morning, Thu the young woman who's been quite diligently taking us around and explaining everything to us, and (Nguyen Sinh) Vien another young fellow in charge of NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Most of the other men in the entourage were all very stern looking, like this was very serious business at hand.

The "conversation" went pretty much the same as the prior meeting except that Chairman Vinh's grasp of English is not quite as good as Anh's so the interpreter had a lot more work to keep up. It was all very cordial and he expressed his sincere appreciation for my visit. I extended an invitation for him to come to the United States to visit New Haven. We identified areas of mutual concern/interests and he asked that his office be kept advised and involved in any further discussions that might be held with Anh's office.

Then the formal reaffirmation agreement documents I'd brought with me as signed by Mayor DeStefano back in New Haven were brought out, now with multiple copies translated into Vietnamese as well. The ceremonial signing by Chairman Vien occurred, followed by lots of handshakes, gift exchange and yet more photos. Then as suddenly as the entourage appeared, they disappeared with slight bows and barely a crack of a smile amongst them (except for Mr. Nhien who's always smiling, looking slightly like the Cheshire cat in search of the next social gathering).


It was a very interesting experience and Kelly said from an outsider's perspective all seemed to go rather well and that I looked like I knew what I was doing, although I must confess to being a novice at all this international diplomacy stuff. The Peace Corps might prepare one for being culturally sensitive but didn't do a lot to prepare me for meetings with Asian Communist leaders.

Then back in the car with Thu as our guide, along with her co-worker Vien. They suggested they'd like to show us a traditional Vietnamese market and suggested a rural one just 6km out of town specifically organized to celebrate this week's big Festival. We jumped at the chance.

To be continued...

Source: http://www.traveljournals.net