Cultural faux-pas

We're now in Phu Quoc, an island off the coast of Cambodia and Vietnam, claimed by both but currently governed by Vietnam.  We're staying just behind a palm fringed white beach in a hut wih mosquito nets and no aircon but the breakfasts are good.  We were the first to eat this morning, along with families with small children who’d probably been up at the crack of dawn.  It then began to rain and we waited a couple of hours while a thunderstorm engulfed us.  It fairly poured down and there was no possibility of going anywhere.  But by 11 it had cleared and we walked all the way into town, the temperature quickly getting hotter and steamier.  We walked by the docks where the river opens into the sea and made our way back along the river into the town's market which runs beside the river.  We were unable to find any street food until we saw some women cooking on one side of the street and some men sitting, eating and drinking spirits, on the other side of the road.  I assumed this to be a café of sorts though did note several men and women in unusual white clothes with odd hats which I took to be a religious sect (I could see a shrine in the building next to where the men were eating).  So we rather sheepishly stood around waiting for someone to ask us to sit until one of the men at the table instructed us to do just this. I walked across the road and looked at what the women were cooking and began tentatively pointing.  They set about preparing a huge meal for us – delicious pork dish, another pork stir-fry with vegetables and some bitter-tasting veg that looked a cross between a courgette and a cucumber, stuffed with, I think, more (ground) pork.  As soon as we were seated again a man at the next table produced a shot glass of the spirit they were drinking which I sipped politely till instructed to knock the whole thing back in one go.  I did this, whereupon another glass appeared which I successfully drank in one draft.  Rather like sake so presumably a rice wine; potent though.  Delicious food.  Very humid weather.  Another glass appeared and then the oldest man at the table stood before me and appeared to drink my health by knocking back another glassful before passing me yet another.  I stood and drank his health and consumed the glassful, wondering where this was going and beginning to feel just a bit tipsy. 

Soon we were finished our meal and I gesticulated to the chap I assumed to be the waiter for the bill but he indicated that there was nothing to pay. I must have looked perplexed because he then took me to the shrine next door where I saw the face of an old lady behind the incense. It then dawned on me that we had gate-crashed a funeral wake and that probably the old man was this woman’s widower.  I knew that people in the orient wear white at times of death and sadness but it hadn’t occurred to me.   I was given some joss sticks to place in front of her photo and I bowed a few times before insisting they take some money. It turned out they were keeping a book of donations so mine was gratefully received and duly recorded so I didn’t feel quite so bad. I blushingly returned to the table, saying ‘sinloi’ (sorry) a load of times. But there was no bad feeling at all, just amusement at our folly. The old man stood up smiling and shook my hand, thanking me, as some of the other men did and the old chap asked for his photo to be taken with me which Kate duly did. Culturally interesting at so many levels but I did feel a bit of a chump!