Today was my first real day in Bangkok so my Thai friends from Juniata and I met up. First I saw the Temple of the Golden Buddha, while many Thai temples have golden Buddha statues this is the most golden of the golden Buddhas. It is actually made of real cast gold, as opposed to being covered in gold leaf, and, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, has the highest intrinsic value of any religious object on Earth. It is defiantly a cool thing. While there, I saw two exhibits, one on the Buddha itself and one on the Thai of Chinese Dissent. The Buddha exhibit was actually kind of helpful. The Chinese Thai exhibit was also kind of interesting. While the Buddha kind of ended up in Bangkok's Chinatown I heard it is fitting since the Chinese are basically New York's Jews. They both left their homelands for a more prosperous nation because of political instability and have built reputations in the gold and jewelry industries. The Chinese seem to have been in Bangkok since before there was an America though. I then had lunch and checked out a small park with two train cars bring reused as libraries. Finally I went to Suan Lumphini, Bangkok's big urban park, to walk around and meet my friends. Just FYI, Bangkok has giant lizards just walking around the park. The picture of the giant lizard is one that was one of about 400 that is just in the park. My friends and I had dinner at a grilling type of place before having drinks at a trendy mall.
Even with some internet problems in the previous days that ment I couldn't post, I have made it to Bangkok, Thailand. I am now planning out my day and hope to uodate more regularly. I also would like to do a South East Asia Retrospective at some point, since the histories, cultures, modern political situation, and even languages of South East Asia are very intertwined.
The Walk of 100 Monks and the Cave of 4,000 Buddhas
I got an early start (5:00AM early) so I could see the famous Luang Prabang alms giving ceremony. In theory, the alms ceremony is a chance for the many monks of Luang Prabang to collect all their food for the day. What was really interesting was to see the different tourists’ reactions to the ceremony. Some participated and gave food to the monks, some stood in front of the monks and took pictures with professional DSLR cameras, and some (like me) stood to the side to watch & take photos. To be honest, the guys running out in front of the monks seemed a bit disrespectful. After the ceremony and breakfast at the hotel, I went to see the Pak Ou Buddha Caves by river boat on the Mekong. After a one broken down boat and a stop for gas I arrived at the fabric village… I think the village elder slipped my tour company a couple hundred thousand kip and a bottle of Lao Lao to have all their boat drivers take a starch break in his town. It was defiantly a worthwhile stop however. It is interesting to get out of Luang Prabang and I got to sample two varieties of the local whisky, Lao Lao. The clear version with 50% alcohol content tasted just like very drinkable moonshine while the purplish one with 15% alcohol content is the significantly more interesting drink. It is made out of the local black sticky rice and tastes very much like a sticky rice desert. I don’t know if I would drink it on a regular basis but it is very interesting drink none the less. After taking off for the second time, I arrived at the Pak Ou Caves. The Pak Ou caves are essentially two caves where the former kings paid the villagers to just pack with Buddha statues, according to the signage over 4,000 Buddha statues to be precise. While the lower cave was cool it had way too many tourists to be really enjoyable, which is why I far preferred the upper cave. The upper cave doesn’t feel too much different to what I imagine it felt like 100 years ago. There is very few people, no light, and a lot of Buddha statues. It is a bit hidden away but if, for whatever reason, you end up at the Pak Ou Caves you shouldn’t miss the upper cave. After I returned and had lunch I took a break until dinner because after dinner I had movie plans. The Victoria Xiengthong Palace Hotel in Luang Prabang shows the silent documentary, or what passed for a documentary at the time, Chang every night at 7:00PM. Chang tells the story of a family of “Lao Tribesmen” in the “Jungle of Norther Siam” (Laos) and their constant struggle against the unstoppable and unbeatable forces of the jungle. While some of the characters are named, it is really a movie about man vs. nature with nature as a whole playing the role of the antagonist. It was nominated in the First Academy Awards in 1929 for “Unique and Artistic Picture” and was directed by the guys who would go on to direct King Kong (because they apparently really like to make movies about man vs. nature). Chang felt a bit more like reality TV than anything we would describe as a documentary. Through clever editing, some preset scenes, and a whole lot of filming, the directors were able to tell a story that I don’t think ever actually happened. While it was technically free, you were strongly advised to buy a drink. While the drinks were a bit pricy, it still ended up being 6.50USD for a movie, chips, and a well-made cocktail. The Lao Lao returns in my cocktail, a Luang Prabang Sunrise (consisting of Lao Lao, lemon juice, and I think a drip of red food dye) and quite successfully I might add. I will enjoy getting more than 5 hours of sleep tonight. Like yesterday, today I basically walked around Luang Prabang seeing what I could see, an activity that took up basically my day. It started with the National Museum of Luang Prabang on the site of the former royal palace. As strange as it might seem from my pictures, Luang Prabang was once the capital of Laos, an independent, albeit weak, city state, and the capital of the powerful Kingdom of Lan Xang Hom Khao or the Kingdom of "Million Elephants and White Parasols". The Royal Palace was actually a very livable building, the King still had a gold throne in a room covered in mirrored mosaics depicting Lao life (that I couldn’t take a picture of) true, but most of the building while very comfortable was a place I could actually see raising a family. I then walked around and visited several different temples, or wats (hence the pun). While some were more impressive than others all were pretty cool. What is nice is that most were functional religious sites. They had real monks who did real rituals for real worshippers. While this is something most Americans take for granted, China in particular is famous for having tourist trap temples with fake (not ordained) monks preaching to people who don’t believe any of the theology but want to look cool. The smart people in Luang Prabang, tourists and locals, wear slip on sandals because Lao tradition dictates that you can’t wear shoes anywhere respectful, like wats or people’s homes. I spent a good bit of my day tying and uniting my shoes. I also didn’t relize how hard it is to walk barefoot until I had to do a lot. I basically hobbled around the temples thanks to my flat feet. Finally I crossed the bamboo bridge by my hotel (since Luang Prabang actually has two bamboo bridges). While there is really nothing on the other side of much interest crossing the bridge itself was a cool experience. I think across the bridge is where the actual Lao people live, the little bit I saw looked like a developing nation not a weird tourist destination. Consequently, the bridge is actually used by real Lao people during the six months a year it is standing (the current are too strong in the rainy season to support the bridge). While the Lao residents cross for free the tourists pay to support the bridge, though the toll is about 5,000 Lao Kip or about 0.61USD at time of writing. I also got to try more of the Lao food, curry for lunch and beef larb for dinner. I really like the curry, it was that kind of coconuty Thai curry taste but a bit more watery. Larb is a beef based meat salad, though it can be made with other meats or fish, which is considered the unofficial official national dish of Laos. Basically it is heavily spiced hamburger with bean sprouts and mint. I kind of like it but I don’t think it is a dish I would eat regularly. The Lao people apparently agree with me on because, according to the Official Lao Airlines Magazine, is eaten on mostly special occasions. If I was a body builder or a hard core believer in the Atkins diet I would love larb, it is basically all meat with just enough vegetables to stay healthy. The restraunts here continue to amaze me. They all serve basically the same massive Western/pan-Asian/Lao menu; in one of two locations, the main drag or by the Mekong River; with one of two price points, more expensive main drag and cheaper Mekong River; and one of two opening hours, main drag actually open hours or Mekong Lao almost never open. I like the ones by the River a bit more since I can watch the sun set over the Mekong with my dinner, which is nice.
I forgot, today is Christmas and the anniversary of my Torah portion (Vayeshev). The most Christmas here is some decorations at the super touristy places, and a “Marry Christmas” from a person I met in Vietnam, a Luxemburgish guy who I had a conversation with because my hat, and a friend from ECNU. There must be another Jew in this city but I would be surprised if there is more than that. While Chabad has gone far Luang Prabang, Laos is still a bit out of their reach. Just for the record, the year I am studying abroad in China is the first year in some time I haven’t had Chinese food on Christmas. I arrived at the temple, the young monk no older than 13 looked up from his sweeping briefly to acknowledge me before continuing his chores. The monk welcomed me in and I walked on.
Inside the temple, the local Lao women smiled at me and I returned the kindness. We both agreed that the peace of this place should be preserved and I walked on. Outside the temple, the old dog barely awoke from his sleep as I passed. I agreed to avoid disturbing him and I walked on. I am glad the empires fell before I was born. This is not because of any greater moral reason, but I know me well and I know I would sign up to serve the empire in a place like Luang Prabang, Laos and I 100% know I would end up going 100% Kurtz from Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now (take your choice) or 100% Albert Camus. Laos is an amazingly relaxed country, everyone on my flight (that was basically 100% foreigners) was admitted after giving the nice man from the government 30-40USD. Now I know you may think this is a bribe, but this is the actual legal procedure for entering Laos. You basically have to treat Luang Prabang like an ultra-spiritual beach vacation. No one is in any hurry to do anything so just sit back and nip at your Beer Lao. I basically spend the day walking around the city. I saw two wats, both of which don’t know the name of. The first one was, like most of the Buddhist monks, offensively serine. The only people in this relatively large complex were one novice monk, a local couple, and myself. It was lovely and I started philosophizing about life, not a good thing to do at three in the afternoon. The second wat was too touristy to properly philosophize in in alien environment. While some of the tourists seemed to want to at least pretend to be Buddhists, many of the tourists were actually very disrespectful to the actual Lao worshippers who still used this wat as a functional religious site. I think I may have accidentally promoted myself to comrade and ally of the proletariat (since Laos is one of four remaining Communist states) thanks to my new hat. Today alone three people shouted “Vietnam!” at me in a positive way and I talked a bit to the hotel staff about how I acquired what looks like a Vietnamese military hat. After all the hat business was kind of put behind me, I watched the sunset, chatted with some Lao kids trying to practice English, and ate a fish while drinking a Beer Lao on the Mekong River. A traveling-as-a-lifestyle couple played a bit of music for the dock pretending to be a sit down restaurant. I gave the 5,000 Lao kip (about 0.50USD) which can actually get you kind of far in this country. If at the end of this trip, I write a book, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Last night I went to see a Water Puppet show at the Lotus Water Puppet Theater in Hanoi. While the show was clearly meant for foreigners, they had English language narration explaining the Vietnamese songs, it was still fun and an interesting way to spend the night. It should be noted though that the narrator had a bad case of Engrish and was actually kind of hard to understand. The puppets, with the music, had a surprisingly large emotional range. While some puppets did the usual slap-stick puppet comedy thing, the phoenixes were able to tell a simple love story, the turtle was able to tell the sword story from day one, and the unicorns were able to be playful all while actually beaning painted hunks of wood in a shallow pool. The pool itself was used for simple special effects. If I was a young Vietnamese kid 100 years ago I would have been very impressed by the show. The whole show felt somewhat out of time, like little Vietnamese kids at some point in a history use to watch the same show and experience the same feelings. Overall I enjoyed the water puppet show.
Even though I was trying to get away from the communism I couldn’t help thinking of Milan Kundera’s The Joke (a book about the problems of communism) when Jaroslav talks about reviving traditional Moravian folk music. In the beginning of the novel he talks about righting new folk music about the joys and greatness of communism. By the end of the book, Jaroslav realizes how much of an oxymoron “new folk music” actually is. The book concludes that folk culture is folk culture because it is made over generations organically so is always old; any attempts to make new folk culture will fall flat because it can’t be created organically, some entity, in The Joke’s case the party, created it. While the theater is preserving water puppetry, water puppetry is not an evolving art form so no new water puppet shows will be created. Random Stuff on a Random Day in Hanoi
So I really didn’t have a theme today for why I did what I did, it all was just kind of around and sounded cool so that is what I did. I decided I wanted a lighter day since I have a water puppet show scheduled for later today so I just did two big things: the Military Museum and the Fine Art Museum of Vietnam. I liked the Military Museum but I generally like military museums so that is not a helpful statement. What I can say is that if I was French and I visited the Military Museum I would be pretty bummed. Most of the large artifacts were American made war trophies used ether by American or French forces. The only French made weapons in the place were small arms while the Vietnamese proudly displayed American planes, tanks, bombs, and guns they captured, they even displayed a pile of scrap from shot down American aircraft. It is nice to know that your military’s stuff is so valuable that even 50 years later even the literal junk gets displayed proudly to show the overwhelming odds a people fought against. The Military Museum also had weapons used by Communist Vietnamese forces: the regular NVA, VC, and various other Communist militia forces. They even had the first Communist tank that rolled into Saigon and a MIG fighter that shot down several American jets. Be warned though, the Military Museum does expect you to be at least somewhat familiar with Vietnamese history, for example the Museum spends a lot of time discussing the Battle of Dien Bien Phu without really telling you why the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was important (it was the last battle of the First Indochina war and a victory for the Vietnamese over French forces FYI). After so much Communism I kind of wanted to do something different so I went to the Fine Art Museum of Vietnam later that day. This did not help get me away from Uncle Ho and the ideas of Marx though. Had to first walk by the North Korean embassy in Hanoi which, while somewhat nondescript, was obviously the North Korean embassy because of the bulletin board with framed photos of Kim Jong-Un in it. The Museum itself was also very communistic. Only the first floor was devoted to art from before the rise of the Vietnamese Communist Party. The rest of the art was heavily influenced by communist ideas. Much of it was about the workers, the peasants, Ho Chi Minh, and the Communist military forces. Still, they had a nice collection of early Vietnamese Buddhist statuary and a fine collection of Vietnamese lacquer painting. Two of the museums other three exhibits, a special exhibit on ASIAN printing, a pottery exhibit, and the exhibit on Vietnamese folk art, were also beneficial to the Communist Party. While the pottery and the folk art exhibits were kind of weak the ASIAN printing exhibit had some cool works. I just wish the museum actually explained things a bit more, I have very little context for any of the works. Finally I took a short walk to Hanoi’s Opera House. It was a cool building I guess. It was also next to the actual Hanoi Hilton Hotel something I always wondered if they had. Note: I plan on doing a small update ether late today or early tomorrow on the Water Puppet show and dinner. Today I decided to do the Vietnam War, or the Resistance War Against America tour around Hanoi. First thing in the morning I decided to pay Uncle Ho himself a visit since like Kim, or Kim, or Mao, or Lenin Ho Chi Minh is still in a glass coffin. Photos were ban in the mausoleum so I was unable to take any pictures. I would describe the experience as almost pseudo-religious. You walk passed many nicely uniformed PAVN troops before being allowed into the mausoleum itself, there you are lead through several passageways with gradually dimming lights, finally you are brought into the room where Ho Chi Minh himself lays permanently in state, you shuffle past the body as you make your way back out into the light. Uncle Ho doesn’t look bad for a dead man, he is a bit waxy though. Afterword I went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum located on the same site. I don’t know how much I learned about Ho Chi Minh or the struggle for Vietnamese independence against the French then the Japanese then the French again than the Americans but it was a trip. The whole museum is several massive modern art pieces with some random stuff from Ho Chi Minh scattered about. While some of it is kind of weird, like a set of crystalware the czechoslovakian Government gave Ho, to the cool, like the actual pens used to end American involvement in the Vietnam war. It is the kind of place that would either be, in proper 1970s fashion, great or terrible place drop acid in.
After a lunch of chicken with mushrooms over rice, I went to the Hanoi Hilton, officially called the Hoa Lo Prison. The prison was actually built by the French colonial government in what was then French Indochina to house Vietnamese political prisoners. The museum spends most of the time focused on this period in Hao Lo’s history discussing at length the atrocities of the French imperialist regime in what is now Vietnam. The small section dedicated to American POWs unsurprisingly tells a different story of the Vietnamese Communists. The Vietnamese are depicted as being extremely charitable and gracious hosts to the American pilots who were illegally and aggressively invading Vietnam. In comparsion to what the French gave the Vietnamese, the clothing the Vietnamese claim they gave the Americans, while simple, looked acceptable. The American POWs were shown studying Communist thought, making art, and playing sports while being well cared for by Vietnamese doctors and guards. They also had trophies form the captured American piolets, like a flight suit that allegedly belonged to Sen. John McCain of Arizona before his capture. I finished my day with what is called an egg coffee, a Hanoi specialty. It tastes kind of like what would happen if Starbucks made creme brulee. It wasn’t bad but I couldn’t see drinking them often. |
AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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