For most of the expat population that don't have jobs with a work-permit and residency permit attached to them, everyone is in "limbo" as far as the legality of their presence in this country is concerned. I currently do not have a legal visa and am technically breaking the law by being here as are many other people that I know. Some people have left to abide by the rules, others are still here and overstaying their visas just like I am. We have been assured by the agents and property owners that the government has never come to look for people who overstay and it is just a question of paying a fine when you do decide to leave.
I certainly hope that these people are correct because while I am not afraid of a fine - one that is really low in the grand scheme of things - I would prefer to not have a run in with the law in any country including this one.
Anyway, this is a post about our bowling league and how despite the fact that people are leaving left and right, continues to not just have great attendance, but is actually growing in popularity with the local expat population.
As we have in the past we basically took over the entire bowling alley this past Thursday and were the only people in the lanes. Pre-Covid, the lanes would actually reserve the entire bowling alley for us starting at 11 am on Thursday and wouldn't even allow other people to use the lanes because we needed all 12 lanes in order to accommodate all of our members. We haven't reached those levels just yet, but we did at one point and since word is spreading about how much fun this group is, I think we are just a few weeks away from achieving that again.
It's tough to tell from my blurry, quickly-taken photos that I took without much concern about whether or not they were going to be any good or not, but we occupied all the lanes except for the ones against the walls, which most people don't enjoy playing on because the wall being there is a distraction. It's likely all psychological and we are just looking for an excuse for why we are not better at bowling and it is easier to blame it on your surroundings than your own lack of ability.
During the past year when the lanes were closed due to Covid, a lot of our awards ended up getting lost, thrown out, or taken out of the country by the people that held them. We had to start over but none of these things are actually worth anything so it doesn't really matter. It was just a question of how long it takes to get a WWE replica belt mailed over from China.
In the photo you can see we have a men and women's championship belt. The all time highest men's score medal - which currently sits at a rather untouchable 215, the all-time highest women's score medal - which currently sits at 143, the tag team championship medals, and in the bottom left corner you can see the award which is called "The Gobbler."
The Gobbler is a fun award because you get it for getting 3 strikes in a row which is known as a "turkey" in the sport. This is the only award that can change hands during an event and it did exactly that, twice, during last week's meetup.
Now for my own performance: Despite the fact that I was a rather dominant champion pre-Covid, something happened during the near 1-year break when the lanes were closed and I lost my mojo so to speak. I haven't been able to truly find my form since then and have even had games where I embarrassingly failed to break 100 points per game.
This past week, I seem to have found my slot again and I managed to bowl a 168 and a 139 in my two games. I am happy with both of these scores. Unfortunately, I was not bowling for the championship because I might have had a chance at winning if I had been. Our current champion has experienced the opposite of me during the Covid break because he was a good player pre-Covid, but after the break has been absolutely unstoppable. He just defended his championship for the 9th consecutive week and did so very easily. In the first game he was already ahead by nearly 100 points, which makes it nearly impossible for his opponent to come back from that.
We are pretty convinced that there is nobody in the league at the moment that can defeat him and there are only a few people left for him to play. He already defeated me quite handily about 4 weeks ago but like I said, I am seriously out of form and probably need to go practice on non league days.
I think the lanes here really look forward to our arrival because I don't think that bowling is really all that popular in Da Nang and the lanes don't ever really seem to be very busy on days that we don't bring out crew. They regularly feature us on their social media pages although I haven't ever seen it because I don't use social media. It's an honor being recognized I suppose.
There's an ongoing joke in the expat community that there is "nothing to do here except drink" which of course is not true but it IS what we all end up going but now we have bowling as well - which of course we follow with copious amounts of drinking at the after-party and award ceremony.