A Dinner at the Museum

Sometimes it is strange what you can learn from other countries. Last night was the Official Farewell Dinner for ASEAN Minerals Ministers. It was held at the, believe it or not, the Manila Metropolitan Museum. In fact, we had to ask a few times just to make sure that the venue was correct and not a typo.

At 7 pm, we all headed to the museum and it was true, the dinner was held there. The dinner was in fact held at a special exhibition hall which last night was having an exhibition of a famous Filipino artist. When we had the reception, all the guests were not just talking to each other but also look at all the paintings that were on exhibit. Even during the dinner proper, we were all surrounded by very beautiful paintings.

This is probably something we can in Brunei. Either we use the Museums or any of the exhibition halls and the guests can look at the paintings or whatever we have on exhibitions. The other one would be to have dinner at a proper dinner place but have exhibitions brought to it so that the dinner guests can also look at the exhibitions. Though the latter, we have done on small scale so maybe expanding it would be good.

During dinner, we were entertained to a group of singers. The singers in their beautiful national dress hid one thing. The singers used to be children out on the streets of Manila. The city had a program where these children became wards of the city and given a training program to help them. Really, last night you could not have imagine that these kids used to be street kids.

We don't have street kids back home. But we do have unemployeds and even though we already have training practical programs, singing and performances are something we have not taken seriously. Perhaps these could be included especially for our tourism market.

Can't wait to get home....