State Funeral

I had the unexpected opportunity to attend a state funeral tonight.

I have a standing appointment with my friend Chi on Saturdays at 5; when we got to her house she asked me if I knew who Vo Van Kiet was. I do—he was a former prime minister who died in Singapore a few days ago after a long illness. He was born in HCM City, and is credited with launching Viet Nam’s doi moi economic reforms in the 1990s. his body has been brought to the Reunification Palace, on the other end of the park next to our hotel, to lie in state for two days. She said she wanted to go and asked me if I wanted to join her. Sure, I said. Let’s go.

But I can’t go like this, can I? I asked, looking down at my shorts. Chi’s mother and great aunt laughed. No, no, no, he was the prime minister—long sleeves and pants. They try to get Chi to put on an ao dai without success; she agrees to a jacket and pants. We drop by the hotel and I find a skirt and shirt with ¾ sleeves that passes muster.

The reunification palace is draped with banners and tents are set up outside where visitors can sign in. The first policeman Chi rolls up to says foreigners can’t go in. We go around the block and ask another one right at the gate. Yes, I can come in, but I have to stick with Chi. No wandering off.

Getting there took longer than the event itself. We signed in, brought our slip of paper up the long circular drive past The Tank (#843) [in his book Shadows and Wind, Robert Templer, a former reporter for the Agence France-Presse points out that tank #843 is also on display in Ha Noi] and delivered it to a desk at the entrance to the main hall on the first floor. The traffic wasn’t heavy, maybe a hundred members of the public on the grounds at that moment. They queued us into groups of six, and we stepped across the carpeted hall to the first line of tape, got the go ahead and slowly advanced to the second line, close enough to see the altar with Kiet’s picture on it, and the insense sticks burning. Another go-ahead signal and we went single file next to the coffin, took a step up, and got a glimpse of his face under glass. We filed out past members of the family and into an adjoining hall with guest books to sign. Lots of TV cameras, but all Vietnamese media as far as I could tell from the trucks outside.

In abysmal Vietnamese—I was nervous, and I couldn’t remember in that moment some key tone and accent marks—I wrote that I was a tourist in Viet Nam and my friend had brought me today, and I knew Kiet was known for creating doi moi in Viet Nam. I asked Chi what she had written, and she said she was upset enough that she didn’t know what to write, so she didn’t write anything. I kidded her about this a little bit—so you let me write something in terrible Vietnamese instead?

It rained earlier today, replacing the super-hot humid air with a cool breeze, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I hate riding side saddle on motorbikes (necessary in a skirt).

-Ilene

Transitioning

We've done little that's very interesting the last several day except for just living and working here, but Ilene just got back from a once-a-lifetime experience that she'll share next time she's online, so check back for that.

After two weeks of hard work, I'm starting to transition from spending so much time at the hotel to seeing more of the country, I hope. Some of you may know that I intended to turn this time into a writer's retreat for myself, and I'm happy to report that yesterday I finished the first rewrite of my book, which I had been toiling at for the last nine months. I was able to tune out the construction noise and the tight quarters and made more progress in the last two weeks than I had in about the last four months. I'll be starting the next rewrite with any spare time I have left here.

With that transition in mind, I bought my tickets today for a sleeping berth on the Reunification Express to Hanoi and back. It's about 32 hours each way, and I plan to stay in Hanoi two nights. That starts next Friday night, so I'll have lots to report the week after next.

I also expect to start doing some volunteer work in a couple weeks with an organization that works with street children. It's a little up-in-the-air, but we had a nice visit at the office today. Ilene did an amazing job translating, by the way. She can speak a ton of Vietnamese by now.

Communication note: I think my email account is on the fritz. If you've been trying to reach me and haven't heard back, try another account: the-same-prefix-as-my-primary-account@gmail.com

-Robert

Temple visit

We met Ti again at Chua Tam Le today, about a ten minute walk from our hotel. He said he'd already been back to Long Khanh for a quick visit yesterday, returning in time for 4am prayers this morning. He also returned with another durian for me, double-bagged. It's resting comfortably in the fridge downstairs in the Khach San Hoang Trang's restaurant, awaiting Tuan's arrival tomorrow--someone experienced in durian excavation will break it open and share it amongst interested staff.

Slideshow of Chua Tam Le included--click on right. The temple is new, about 10 years old, build with donations solicited throughout Vietnam and overseas. Ti's brothers are monks, too--he joined the temple and began his dharma study when he was 15. (He's 38, a year older than me). There are two public spaces--a study hall on the ground floor and a prayer hall on the second floor. About 50 people a day come to public prayers at 6pm everyday, and about 20 come to dharma classes--mostly older folkds, but a few more young people these days.

Ti knows Mandarin Chinese--he studied in Taiwan for 2 years before going to the US. Most Vietnamese don't read Mandarin, so the monks need to translate the placards and signposts in the temple. Ti actually uses his Chinese more in the US than he does at this temple. HCM City has a large ethnic Chinese population in district 5. We're in district 1. He uses his Chinese at his temple in New Orleans. He's also hoping to improve his English and he's going to start taking college classes in New Orleans in the fall.

Ilene

Our park

One unanticipated advantage on this trip has been our proximity to Cong Vien Van Hoa Park--the largest, quietest green space in Saigon that we know of. We weren't really aware of the park before, and now it's turning out that we spend a lot of time there. We're 1/2 a block away, and the gym we go to is directly on the other side so we pass through every morning. Whenever we walk downtown, we cut through the park to grab a few extra steps away from the motor scooter noise and smog. There is a patio cafe where each of us goes at least once a day to sit with coffee and tea and a book for awhile. And we usually stroll around it in the evening after dinner.

When we do stroll around it, we are joining throngs. It's in heavy use every hour of the day. (See my previous post on jetlag.) By common consent, there's one roughly circular path around it that is reserved for walking and jogging, and the interior paths are taken up with every imaginable sport and amusement--baby karaoke and the high jump for instance, as you can see here. Badminton and necking are more common.

In the mornings and evenings one large open space is filled with a women's aerobics group and just out of range several other women lurk behind trees following along in the exercises, apparently unable to pay the class fee. On Sundays, the park is filled with boy scouts and girl scouts and during the day the rest of the week groups of high school-age children sit in study groups or doing the kind of ice-breaker, team-building games you might see a church youth group doing. There's a flower garden on one side where girls in ao dai pose for boyfriends practicing their photography. At another end is a children's playground which in the evening is certainly the most concentrated space filled with ecstatic children that I have ever seen. Ice cream vendors, who carry the merchandise in large coolers on bicycles, park in the street nearby. At dusk, the sky starts to fill with bats.

-Robert

Practicing English and eating jackfruit

If I stand still long enough someone will eventually approach me and try to strike up a conversation, presumably to practice their English. They ask where I'm from etc. and they've almost never heard of Connecticut. At the gym there is a college-age kid who told me he has been to Chinatown in New York City. At the supermarket today while I was trying to figure out which was the laundry detergent and not accidentally buy fabric softener, it was a guy who gave me his card and told me about the company he works for that is headquartered in Arizona.

Yesterday in the park I was reading a paperback and two kids passed by. The boy peeked at the cover and when they were a few steps past coaxed his girlfriend to come back and say hello. They had a jackfruit in a plastic bag with a kitchen knife. (It's common for couples to make a little picnic that way with fruit from a street vendor.) He asked if I would like to share some fruit with them, and when I accepted they sat down and cracked it open. The stem of the jackfruit runs through the middle of it kind of like a bell pepper, only strong like a vine. When you jerk the stem out, the fruits are attached. They're mushy in texture like bananas with a few seeds in each one.

We chatted about university for a few minutes before I had to run to meet Ilene. The girl seemed to understand what I was saying, but I could never get her to speak a word.

-Robert

Amazing coincidence

In the largest most economically bustling city in the country, there are very few stores selling any English-language books, and they are all government operated stores named Fahasa. In the downtown Fahasa there is one shelf selling books from academic presses. We were in there the other day and Ilene pulled off the shelf the book pictured--a recently published anthology that includes an article by her about her research in Vietnam.