From July 17, 2007
Contradictions abound at the Buddhist Temple; Thien Mu Pagoda, about a 6-mile round trip bike ride from our hotel. Biking, either on a moped or bike, is not for the faint of heart. “It’s like skiing,” Bri observed. “The responsibility is on the person behind you.” This is true, but those entering intersections don’t even look behind them and no one ever looks in their side mirrors or over their shoulders, they simply MERGE.
There has only been one minor accident and that was on the day we arrived, and no one witnessed it, so it’s like it never happened. Michelle’s Uncle Sam (Sum) and the three older boys, Anh Hai (On High), Em and Ba were escorting us to Grandma’s house when Anh Hai realized his dad, Sam, had the key to the second moped and he was with Bri and I in the minivan with all the luggage.
“He got into an accident trying to catch up to you guys,” Michelle explained why they were so late getting to the house. “But the official story is he got a flat, because they’ll worry if they found out he broke the sideview mirror. He’s off getting it fixed.” I don’t know why, no one ever uses them anyway. Yet, since all damage was taken care of this accident never really happened.
Yet another contradiction, which is where this train left off.
Monks and their Vices???
“We don’t kill,” Manny said, after I smooched a mosquito, smearing its guts, in his notebook.
“Oh,” I said dumbfoundedly, during our first session last Friday night (July 13, 2007). But thinking, ‘Malaria 0, Carson 1. Yellow Fever 0, Hepatitis 0, Carson won!’ From then on we brushed them away or waved about till they went to gnaw the others’ ankles. They had some interesting questions that night, all loaded.
“What do you like to eat?” another partially shaved boy asked.
“I like noodles,” I started, thinking pizza was inconceivable, let alone lasagna. “With shrimp, beef, chicken, fish and pork.” I said knowing I could translate all of these words relatively well.
“Chicken,” they cried, apparently the only word they recognized after “noodles”. “We don’t eat animals.”
O.K., you don’t eat animals because if you couldn’t or won’t kill a bug to possibly save your life, you sure as hell wouldn’t kill a defenseless bovine with a metal or plastic retractable bullet or choke a chicken for food.
“We are vegetables.”
“Vegetarians,” I helped them out. “You are vegetarians.”
“You are vegetarians.” Close enough.
These are a few of the don’ts, for you see it was our first day and Quang Minh didn’t really give us any guidance as to where to begin except, “Talk with them,” so we were asking them questions we thought they might be confronted with by the hundreds of tourists that pass through here everyday. So what if only a fraction speak English.
But when you ask them about their jobs, “What do you do here at the Pagoda? What was your job today?”
“I am doctor.”
“Huh? Your friend down there said he swept the floors today. Did you wash the dishes, cook or clean clothing?” We pantomimed sweeping which incidentally is similar to choking the chicken, bicycling and nearly every other word we didn’t know. It’s like trying to teach Hellen Keller when their point of reference and our perspective vocabulary pools are so shallow.
“I am doctor,” a couple of these yewts repeated, straight-faced and without shame. Now, either some asshole has told them ‘doctor’ meant cook or clothing washer, or they were just yanking chains here.
“So they don’t kill or eat anything living,” Brianna struggled with these concepts, “but they lie and fight.”
“They’re kids,” I said. Kids being kids. And with the kid in me, tomorrow, perhaps when they say, “We are vegetables.” I’ll teach them to say, “We eat vegetarians.”
Did I mention since they’re in training, these “Novices” have one patch of hair sprouting long and thick right from the center front or right-front of their foreheads? The rest is shave to the quick. At first we thought it had to do with age, and to an extent, it does. But all the younger novices have this partially shaved head to also symbolize the amount of time they’ve been in the Pagoda.
Eye of the Tiger
Ho, or “Tiger,” as he likes to be called is one of the quicker teens who, after only a year here, has either had more English or just retains and verbalizes better than many. He’s got this black pigmentation/mole thing on his left eyelid and the skin directly below. This was the only way I was able to remember him from the others. Usually in a formal classroom, you memorize the kids because of their physical position in each classroom. However, these kids, who all assemble at the long dinner table, are constantly moving and that makes it even harder to get their names even after three days with them.
Then there’s Hung, 13, one of the shorter more michevious little Novices. On our first full day of tutoring, he began playing Thumbwars with Michele. But he also has problems staying put, avoiding lessons and general playfighting. I give him the stink-eye and he usually gets back on track, or he disappears to the other end of the room.
Linh, this shorter quiet little man always seems to be one step and a page behind the rest. There’s at least one in every class and Linh tries to hide or slip through the cracks. “Keep an eye on him,” I told Michele. “He always sits at the end and tries to avoid participating. I don’t wanna lose him.” From then on we have all been getting on him more and he’s excelling nicely.
Goo, a ten-year-old, mellon-headed little guy is one of Michele’s and Bri’s favorites. He’s only been there for three-weeks and he has this infectious tell of scratching his head when he’s confused or confronted with questions he can’t remember.
Another favorite is Tan, or “Smiley,” as Bri nicknamed him after the first day. Tan, 15, is one of the senior novices. He’s been there for five years already. “Are you married?” is one of his catch phrases and I think it was he who put the others up to, “Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?” because he’d usually duck or run away after the question was asked.
“No, right now, I don’t.”
“We no marry,” one who’d asked that first night said.
“Right, you’re devoted to being a Monk,” I said, and they repeated.
Teaching them High-5s is something else. No one here does any of that stuff, as I quickly learned with Michele’s cousins, but it’s especially strange to these monks as they are accostumed to taking your hand in both of theirs.
They have four different colors of tunics or “tops” as they are called. The gray and the brown ones are for everyday wear and “they can choose whichever color they want” from day to day. They apparently can also mix with a brown top and gray pants as we later learned. “We wear yellow or orange for chanting in the temple,” they told us. “My favorite job is ringing the gong,” many of them said, after a little practice. “The brighter the color the longer they’ve been here,” Michelle explained. But only Quang Minh and other much older monks have that high yellow-golden robe.
Play Day #1
I arrived a little late, 2:10, as I stopped to pick up two kites and two soccer balls since Monk Minh said they could go out and play, “if that’s what you want.” Apparently they are only allowed two hours of “free time” every Tuesday from 2-3:30 sometimes until four. These kids get up at 3:30 every morning, study, pray and work until 9:30 or 10 p.m. That’s more than I can devote to anything in one day and they’re doing this every single day. Michele, Hin or ChiMi , and Bri had already begun the “Head, Knees, Shoulders, Toes,” song and I jumped right in with “Simon Says,” to reinforce these words, followed by “Old MacDonald”. The song that stole the show, however, was “The Hokie Pokie,” which Bri had brought up the night before. Their smiles were priceless, watching them imitating us doing “the Hokie Pokie and you turn yourself around…” But that’s what it’s all about!
Afterward we played a PC version of Hangman, putting it less violent terms, we called in “In Jail”, drawing the body in a building with bars on the windows. They used words we’d taught them and then some, like “Tiger”, stumped the others with “community”, “lovely” and “educate”. “Tiger, put that word into a sentence,” I had Michele translate, and stumped the stumper. But surprisingly, it was another who called out, “My mother education me everyday.” “Not education,” Michele pointed to the board, “educates”, she rapidly flipped languages to explain the difference. “My mother educates me everyday.”
They invited us to stay for dinner, delaying their normal math classes (5:30-7 p.m.) so we could play football and fly kites. “I don’t know how to put these together,” Michelle said. Not to worry. No sooner had we’d gotten to the field, these little guys had the kites assembled and airborne, while the others were heading, kicking and passing the balls in circles of 10 or 12. “These kids have done this before,” she said as they ran off, our little kite runners. (If I ever figure how to attach these videos you’ll get to see them for yourself)
Manny is another hard-working “yewt”. But he isn’t there on Tuesdays because he does the Lighttower watch on these days. Still I kept calling Hai (High) Manny, confusing the two until Bri and Michele corrected me. It’s no wonder Hai never responded. Many days, like today (7-17) we started with 30 or more monks but sometimes the head monk, “Bright Light,” comes in points out five or eight kids and they disappear to do more chores. I feel bad for these others that are pulled out, especially on Play Day. Manny seems to have it the worst because after doing the Watch Tower gig he stands outside the Pagoda and watches to make sure tourists don’t block the three buddhas between the incense and straightening the mats set out for worshipers. His co-monks are behind him in yellow chanting and clanging that gong for the entire hour. “If he’s not praying with the rest does he have to make it up later?” I wondered. Because, in fact there are quite a few who are cooking during prayers, cleaning and doing several other jobs during this particular devotional time. “During the summer we pray three times a day,” one of the older teens explained. “From 4-5 in the morning, 4-5 at night and we add another 8-9 in the morning. The rest of the year it’s 4-5 a.m. and 4-5 p.m.”
Manny joined us later for the kites and football, but he missed a lot of the other singing and dancing and being a kid thing. The next day he showed up with glasses, so now I never confuse him with Hai. Before dinner I sat for about 20 minutes outside their amazing alter, which every Buddhist household has, but nothing like theirs. It’s smaller and cramped since their main alter, which will fit 2,000, is undergoing renovations. The soothing chants and prayers made me wonder how they can all sustain. I mean, they are so young and, at the same time, so very grounded. They don’t swat at flies on their food, mosquitoes and ants biting their ankles, legs and arms and they remain impervious to intruders taking their pictures and even touching them like this one Vietnamese guy who actually pushed Hai’s hair behind his ear like he was at a “zoo exhibition”. Hai became really uncomfortable, moving away as this guy insensitively tucked his hair again. These kids deny all wants and desires that seem to go against nature not in accordance with it. Yet, at the drop of a hat, or kite, they are off running till they’re sweating through their robes.
I don’t know how to feel about all this. Sure, life for some of these kids outside these walls would’ve been tough, perhaps unbearable, but perhaps life within is something to be questioned too??? I mean they are only allowed to visit their homes once every three years, and only for one day. Families are allowed to visit twice a year, but even that seems like it’s to reduce temptations or to limit distractions. It works the other way, too. Minh, himself, came here 14 years ago to visit his older brother, fell in love with the lifestyle and returned. He was 12 when he made that choice. “I decided to stay when I saw how the temple was,” Minh said. He’s one of four boys and two girls in his family. Bri is probably right when she says, “Why Americanize everything?” I guess I’m always looking at life through those ideals, especially when I see things that I don’t fully understand or agree with. Do I impose my ideals on others? If so, tutoring these kids, while giving them further English knowledge, will it hurt them in their dedication or hinder their ideals?
“When you come, it’s like when their mothers visit,” Minh told Michele the other day. “They light up and smile, they look forward to you coming.” If so, why can’t their relatives visit more often and the other way around? As Bri observed later on that week: “What happens to those boys at the Pagoda that choose to leave?”
“They are re-introduced into the society.”
“I was wondering about that,” Bri said, “because most of the ones we’ve been teaching have been there for a year, some even less. There are many that quit after a couple of years.”
“That’s what I was wondering, because the first day we were there, I was amazed that all these young teens ‘found their calling’ as you two both said at such a young age.“ I said a bit skeptically. "Most 14-year-old teens can’t even decide what to wear each day let alone devoting themselves to that kind of intense and (solitary life). I mean, kids are constantly ‘dedicating’ themselves to tennis this year and the piano next year.”
We all agree that this exemplary lifestyle is unique and something to behold, but it’s not for everyone.
“I think the temple life may be good for certain kids, loners or outcasts, but they are going through all these changes….” But being around other focused like-minded young men may be the absolute best thing for them. How many times have we heard of bright aspiring young people getting derailed or sidetracked during these difficult teen years?
Dinner and a Show
That first night they invited us to dinner, “Bright Light” patted Michele on the head as we walked to the leaders’ dinning table next to the kitchen.
He’s a trip, with a few day’s growth of white stubble on his mellon, a huge smile and a laugh that almost always accompanies it. Like a Maitre’d, he walks the campus and addresses Novices and visitors alike.
“These two are so healthy,” he laughed squeezing my shoulders after roughly tapping Bri on the shoulder.
“That’s just a polite way of saying, ‘Boy, you Americans are fat!” Bri commented, rubbing her shoulder.
The man has something, though. “He’s so cute,” Bri said as we ate Tufo this, and stir-fried veggie that and a veggie-filled type of Kim Chi; all very good all very spicy. “He’s always smiling and laughing.”
“Why are you always smiling?” Michelle translated.
“The more you smile, the longer you live,” Bright Light said. He quickly disappeared as is his nature. “I’ve been here for 46 years, since 1961,” Bright Light said, returning suddenly, a smile from ear to ear. But before I could ask him about that monk, Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself alive in Saigon in 1963 to protest the Ngo Dinh Diem Communist regime, he was gone again.
http://www.google.com.vn/search?hl=vi&q=Thich+Quang+Duc&meta=
for sites in Spanish and other languages (para espanol y otras idiomas)
http://members.porchlight.ca/blackdog/duc.htm
This actual car this monk burned in front of is at the Thien Mu Pagoda.
Bright Light possesses It, like Tan and many of these other young people. They possess a sort of tranquility and sense of self that many adults have yet to grasp or even attempt to comprehend. Sure they are children, but whose to say what works and what doesn’t. There are still so many questions and for now, I guess they’ll have to be put on hold. I’ll take with me Bright Light’s own words….
“Live to enjoy life.”
Do Epic Shit 