The Adventures of Laura Drumm

Dear Friends and Family,

Rarely on this blog do I describe feelings, my feelings, while traveling. This is intentional, of course. Even before enrolling in graduate studies where our creative writing motto above our entry should read, “Show NOT tell,” my writer’s instinct insisted that I not write something like, “Visiting Malaysia made me happy.” A sentence that is flatter than a pancake, as bland as unflavored oatmeal. And yet, here I am with the urge to take a stab at describing some of my feelings from visiting Vietnam.

Surprise!

As our bus joined Friday morning rush hour on our first Friday in Vietnam, I felt a jolt of surprise: the streets of Saigon are filled, filled with motorcycles. Imagine for a moment, if you would, a creek with islands of rock flushed with water. If you were to zoom in and peer at the molecular level, you’d find that each molecule is shaped a bit like Mickey Mouse’s head with a glob of oxygen with two little hydrogens—or, turned upside down, like a large person on a two-wheeled motorbike. Imagine that creek and its rush of water in constant motion, without pause, flowing around rocks. Now take that imaginary creek, expand it to four lanes, change the rocks to cars and the occasional bus and water molecules into the motorbikes and that will result in a better picture of Saigon’s traffic.

Motorbikes are key to modern Vietnamese life. Even with smaller engines, motorcycles are more deft than cars, more affordable to purchase and drive, and thanks to Vietnam’s tropical climate, comfortable to ride all 12 months of the year. According to the World Bank, nearly 20 million people own motorbikes, approximately 22% of the population, which could seem low until you take your first rush hour drive in Saigon, look out a bus window and see a husband driving a motorbike with a child in front of him along with another child and wife behind him or a man driving with a woman in a gorgeous skirt riding side-saddle behind him or two male workers, one holding fast to a hammer and ladder zooming beside you. Just as often as not, motorbikes are ridden by two or more people, rendering them the equivalent to the family car in the States. The World Bank estimates also that 60% of all vehicular trips in Vietnam take place on a motorcycle, which goes a long way towards explaining the traffic in Saigon.

Every motorbike driver’s goal is to not stop, to go with the flow, in a literal sense. So packs of people on motorbikes ride through the streets of Saigon, dodging turning, honking and weaving. It is mad. It is a nightmare to be a pedestrian crossing the street. But once I recovered from the surprise, I decided that traffic in Saigon is a wonder to behold.

Familiarity.

I am ashamed to admit that little in Vietnam felt fresh, little—besides the notable histories of the French occupation and “The American War”—challenged me or took me aback. You see, I am accustomed to eating unidentifiable food with chopsticks, I am already acquainted with rituals of hierarchical societies and ancestor worship (derived from Confucianism), Buddha and his temples, I’m familiar with re-bar + concrete construction (indeed, I’ve even done some of this myself), and I’ve worked extensively with Asian children (and know that when they sing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in an elementary school, they use different words for “clucking” and “mooing”). Travel writers are instructed to see and write with a “fresh eye,” but Vietnam felt too familiar for me to separate it from the other Asian countries I’ve traveled. During my time in Vietnam, I scolded myself for my feelings of over-familiarity, which were rather a shame.

Home-sickness.

Much of the familiarity that I felt in Vietnam came from my two years of living in Daegu, South Korea. I taught wonderful students, worked with inspiring co-workers, had a few kindred friends, loved Korean food (troubles with turkey, mozzarella, and decent chocolate aside!) and was able to spring-board into other travels around Asia. Those two years in Korea were, in many ways, some of the best years of my life. And my ties to Koreans were the strongest connections that I’ve forged abroad. When we were flying to Asia, I eyed the flight map as we passed Vladivostok and Ulleung-do, I fervently wished that our airplane would land in Seoul. And I knew exactly what I would do: I would seat myself on a south-bound bus to Daegu, then take Line 1 + 2 to Kyungbuk University’s stop, and then walk up the hill to Daegu Foreign Language High School. After three and a half years, my head understands that I would be greeted with confusion, not the delight from my memories, and yet on that plane and during our travels through Vietnam, I physically ached to return to the home that I once enjoyed in Korea.

Maternal Love.

While we were in the central Vietnamese city of Hue, we visited the Duc Son Pagoda and Orphanage. We began the visit seated and listening Buddhist head-nun Minh Duc, who explained that they are raising approximately 180 children who range in age from infants to university students. Furthermore, she detailed that their goal is to prepare the children for life beyond the orphanage by educating and ensuring their health and that the orphanage both raises private funds to support the children as well as selling wood-carvings and running a vegetarian restaurant. The Headnun walked us through a central play area and up into the toddler bedroom and adjoining baby nursery, that just made me want to cry. Not because the babies were appeared unhappy (they were asleep) nor because they were not well-cared for (they appeared clean and healthy) but because each baby had lost his/her family irreparably. One of my co-workers lifted an awakened baby in her arms while my heart sank to my toes. I pivoted out and onto our bus waiting to take us to lunch.

After we dined at the Pagoda’s delicious vegetarian restaurant, we were given a choice: we could go back to our hotel or we could return to play with the orphanage’s children. My impulse was to return to the hotel (and its turquoise swimming pool) but my conscience reminded me that young children are best cared for with individual attention and caring physical touch. Plus experience had taught me that children love playing with “special” guests. I could easily give children a little love and attention. So with eleven of my peers, I returned to the orphanage and walked into the play area.

There were not yet kids to play with but three teenaged girls sat to one side so I put my hand out to each girl and asked, “My name is Lor – ra. What is your name?”

I’d share their names with you now but honestly, even after several attempts, I flubbed their names, very, very badly. They smiled anyway and we chatted until suddenly a toddler in a yellow dress threw her arms around me. I thanked the teenagers for talking to me, picked the little girl up, she smiled at me and I lost my heart. Honestly, here at 36 years old, I’m a funny one. If asked about my personal plans for the future, my answer is modern-day-woman, job-oriented (“perhaps I’ll work towards a PH.D. in English?”) while my heart screams (silently) for a family. When asked about kids, I feign horror and back away but if a little girl no more than three years old flings herself around me, I pick her up, spin her around and hold her as if I’d never let her go.

Which, in this case, turned out to be a good thing because once she had claimed me, she had no intention of letting me go. My peers gathered our group of toddlers into a circle and began singing “The Hokey-Pokey.” I tried to put the little girl in yellow down so that I, too, could entertain all of the children but her legs crumpled and her face scrunched like a raisin. So I perched her on my hip while I put my left foot in, my left foot in, and shook it all about while my little girl in yellow clung to me. She also held fast through performances of “I’m a Little Tea Pot,” “Old Macdonald,” and “The Itsy Bitsy-Spider.”

I lost a portion of my appeal when colored markers and sheets of paper were passed around. Groups of young children, perhaps two to four years of age, clustered around each of us visitors, gesturing for us to draw pictures for them, and happily drawing on their papers as children across the world do. We visitors obliged, drawing suns or flowers or even the children themselves, while the children themselves were mostly content on their bellies, spinning pens across paper. Later we were surprised at how well they behaved: each child had one pen but often obliged to share it with others, they generally drew on their papers (not on the floor), and they were fairly happy and quiet while they did so.

Eventually, when the children began to get up, walk around with paper and pens in hand, and search for a new visitor, the little girl in yellow reclaimed me by sitting down, hard, on my left knee. Other children continued to approach me on my right while my little girl in yellow waved her green marker and managed to mark her chubby legs and cheeks with enough slashes to remind me of Indian War paint. The headnun noticed her marks, smiled, wet a ready wash cloth and showed my little girl how to wipe the pen off. My little girl obeyed, carefully wiping herself for a matter of minutes, surprising me with her attention span and when she turned to wipe me down as well. Soon the children finished their drawings and began to laugh and fuss as tired children do. I picked my little girl up and bounced her chanting,

You can go to Boston,

You can go to Lynn.

But don’t fall iiiiinnnn!

As I chanted iiiiinnnn, I cupped the back of her head and tipped her down, her hair hung in spikes and she grinned in delight. I righted her but she flung her body against my arm so I tipped her again and again. She grinned each time. But soon the nuns gathered the children and the group bid us farewell. My little girl in yellow, still partially covered with green face streaks, clung to me so I walked over to the headnun and pointed. The nun nodded knowingly, reached for my little girl who went willingly to the head nun, but as she was handed to another lady caregiver, the little girl in yellow’s face crumpled and she hid in the lady’s shoulder as the caregiver bore her upstairs. I suspect my face crumpled too. Love, even one that lasts less than two hours, is hard to loose.

Delight.

Once, while listening to a radio playing Korean opera, I barely repressed a cringe while my guiding teacher said, “This is the soul of Korea, crying.” I’ve never forgotten those words; what a beautiful way to describe music.

Music emanates from the heart of Vietnamese culture. We first got a taste of idea from poet John Balaban, who visited Chatham University to discuss his memoir Remembering Heaven’s Face (an excellent read, by the way), his other works related to Vietnam, and Vietnam itself. While he served as a Conscientious Objector in Vietnam during the war, Balaban discovered ca dao, Vietnamese folk poetry. He was so taken by these songs that his first act upon returning to the States was to successfully apply for a grant so that he could return to Vietnam (still during the war) in order to tape farmers, fishermen, seamstresses and other country folk singing their favorite poems. No one had ever collected these and at the time, it was Balaban’s hope that his project would help end the war. I cannot say that it did but the resulting collection, now published under the title Ca Dao Vietnam: Vietnamese Folk Poetry provides a nuanced take on Vietnamese culture (less to war), and shows the importance of music in Vietnam.

Besides ca dao recordings that Balaban played during his visit, our first taste of Vietnamese music was one evening on a boat, with two dragon heads, big enough comfortably to seat our group of 26 in plastic chairs in the midst of the Perfume River. Musicians boarded after us, tuned and began playing a Vietnamese moon lute, a 16 string zither, and what came to be my personal favorite, another zither known as the dan bau. That night, although I have little affinity for Asian music, their Vietnamese music resonated my soul.

A few nights later brought out and out delight. We had flown as far north as we would travel on this trip, Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi. After a tour of the Old Town, we sat ourselves in the front row of a theatre to watch a traditional water puppet show. Although we had been told that the show would be “one of the highlights of the trip.” I was dubious until the lights dimmed and an announcer explained in English that this style of puppetry had been developed in the Red River Delta region when the rice fields flooded. Next, lights switched on above a raised platform on the left side of the stage, well above the water, where seven musicians paraded out, bowed to the audience, and seated themselves. With their drums, a bamboo flute, đàn nhị, guitar, hammered dulcimer, đàn bầu, they lilted a few numbers. Next stage lights above a deep pool of water were dominated by a Chinese-gate shaped backdrop were came on and seven lacquered wood puppets playing the drums popped up from under the water and began playing their drums and dancing. These puppets were being danced in a tank of water deep enough to wet an adult just below the waist. Prompting the question, how do the puppeteers do it? I was curious – and captivated.

Yes, I can hear skeptics asking, “Seriously? All it takes to delight you is puppets in water?”

And I must say, “OMG. They were amazing.”

During the water puppet show, I felt the urge to dance in my seat, clap, and laugh aloud, but I confined myself to a large smile as the first puppet scene ended and were followed by three red Chinese-style dragons with golden spiked spines who spun in synchronized circles. The eight approximate scenes that followed rarely contained dialog and were not driven by narrative but each scene had its own theme, style of music, and culminating event. There were two turkeys whose vertical necks folded like accordions that created a baby on stage, a man in pigtails danced uttered calls that stretched his tone high and low, there was a bullfight (awesome!), dancing umbrellas, a fisherman chasing a fish that turned into a snake, a fish that jumped over an obstacle and turned into a dragon, and my favorite was a serious of nine puppets with candles lit above their heads who danced until they disappeared behind a bamboo curtain, which appeared to turn them to stars. I was entranced.

Music and water puppetry must comprise part of the soul of Vietnam; I delighted in both.

All and all, while I cannot say that “Visiting Vietnam made me happy,” I can definitely write that visiting Vietnam alternately surprised me and inspired a plethora of feelings within me. In the end, traveling always makes me happy.

Fondly yours,

Laura