Monday Blogcrawl

Oh I am missing Vietnam.
I was there about 7 weeks ago, and now the longing has set in. It doesn't help that this week  three friends from Saigon spontaneously sent me messages, leaving me even more desperate to get back.
Here is some Vietnam-related stuff from the net this week:

• The costs of international education in Vietnam
• Why Vietnam doesn't like to call it China Beach any more
• A review of G. B. Tran's wonderful graphic novel Vietnamerica - and an interview with him here. Yes, he is gorgeous.
• Buddhist temples in Vietnam teach foreign languages for free to local poor kids
• Vietnam and Cambodia celebrate an official border being established at last. My guess is on-one's happy. 
• Gordon Ramsay visits Vietnam

Tonight at Leichhardt Library

The windows of the Actor's Pagoda in Saigon's Go Vap district.

Tonight (June 28) I will be telling some of the stories behind Destination Saigon, showing some lovely pictures and having a whole lot of fun - it would be woderful if you could join me!
I will be introducing some new material, so if you have heard me before, never fear - there will be something novel for you to experience tonight.
This is a free event, starting at 6.30 pm. Details:

Author Talk : Walter Mason @ Leichhardt Library

28 Jun 2012
6:30pm - 8:00pm
28 June - Join Walter - writer, spiritual tourist and a lifelong dilettante - for an evening of conversation and armchair travel. Bookings essential - 9367 9266

 Conversations with...Walter Mason

 

Come and join Walter, raconteur extraordinaire, for our June author talk at the library. 

Walter's first book, Destination Saigon, offers the reader a taste of the real Vietnam and its people on a sometimes funny, always fascinating journey from the bustling cities to out of the way villages, into Buddhist monasteries and along the Mekong - a real delight for armchair travellers and those contemplating their own adventure.

Destination Saigon was named one of the ten best travel books of 2010 by The Sydney Morning Herald.

Thursday 28 June

6:30pm - 8:00pm 

Leichhardt Library

Bookings essential - 9367 9266

Free event - All welcome

Light refreshments served

 

Thich Quang Duc

Though these days people in the West view him as a figure of bizarre fascination and even horror, Thich Quang Duc remains a hero to Vietnamese Buddhists, and is even called Thich Quang Duc Bo Tat - the Bodhisattva Thich Quang Duc.





He is the monk famous for burning himself alive in protest at the continued Vietnam-American war, and the image of his burning body sitting upright in the lotus position became a worldwide symbol of the anti-war protest movement.
Though he hailed from Hue, Thich Quang Duc was normally resident at Saigon, at the Quan Am Pagoda in Phu Nhuan District.





This temple is still there, on the re-named Thich Quang Duc street, and upstairs it has a small and rarely visited museum to the Bodhisattva. Normally closed to visitors, it contains various relics of Thich Quang Duc - his pillows, his clothes, his books and other everyday items. The temple also has his most sacred relic, the small charred heart that was left after his body had been consumed by petrol-fuelled flames. This heart will be housed in a large tower being constructed at the top of the temple. It may well be finished by now (I'd love to hear from anyone in Saigon who is aware of its progress), and it is already a striking landmark in that part of the district. At the very top of the tower is a large sculpture of two hands clasped together in prayer. It is really quite beautiful.
Though Thich Quang Duc was the first of the Buddhist martyrs, many were to follow, both monastic and lay people.

For many years a small monmument to Thich Quang Duc stood at the corner of Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street and Cach Mang Thang Tam Street in Saigon, but recently a brand new one has been opened by the City authorities just across the road, as part of a memorial park.

States of Rebirth

Today I was wandering through the streets of Cabramatta when I spied, in a big pile on a shelf of free Buddhist literature outside a vegetarian supermarket, this laminated leaflet:

It transported me instantly back to Vietnam, where this particular poster is very commonly encountered, particularly in the guest rooms at temples and on the walls of vegetarian restaurants.
It is a chart of the various states of rebirth we might hope to attain.
Now of course, some of those staes of rebirth are in hell, where the wicked must pay for their torments.
This used to be a decorative motif much beloved of Buddhist temples, though it seems to have become unfashionable in recent years, and many temples have painted over their vivid wall murals depicting the various torments of hell.
I found some intact, however, at the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Phnom Penh.




And while in Siem Reap I visited the truly ghastly Cambodian Culture Village, where the only thing even mildly amusing was the "Tunnel of Judgement" featuring 3D renderings of the punishments infliced on the evil in the hell realms.
These dioramas were a kind of torture porn, and of all the photos I took this is the ony one I can show safely on a PG rated blog:

Salon Kien Nguyen

Readers of Destination Saigon will know that much of the action there takes place in or around a hairdressing salon in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City.



So many people have asked me where the salon is and what it looks like, so I thought I'd put up all the details here and some very recent pics.  

Saigon hair stylist Kien Nguyen and his wife Cham

If you are interested in visiting, Salon Kien Nguyen is open from 9 am till about 9 pm.

Kien Nguyen and senior stylist Duy

It is situated in Tan Binh District, about a 20 minute taxi ride from downtown Saigon.

Head stylist Nghi puts the finishing touches on Kien Nguyen's hair

It's worth visiting during the day because it is directly across the road from Vien Giac Pagoda, one of the most interesting and beautiful Buddhist temples in Ho Chi Minh City, though it is rarely visited by western tourists.

Even the motorcycle attendants are hunks!

My nephew Kien Nguyen is the maestro, and he heads a team of fabulous, chatty and fun stylists who can do absolutely anything you need to make you more beautiful!




Details:

Beauty Salon Kien Nguyen
152C Bui Thi Xuan, Phuong 3
Q. Tan Binh
Ho Chi Minh City

Important note: make sure you tell the taxi driver or xe om that it is Bui Thi Xuan Tan Binh - there is another, more famous, Bui Thi Xuan street in District 1.   

Saigon hair stylist Kien Nguyen with Walter Mason, author of "Destination Saigon"

A Vietnamese Temple in Phnom Penh

There was once a large Vietnamese population in Phnom Penh.
When I first visited in 1996 I heard Vietnamese spoken often on the streets. Restaurant owners, cafe proprietors, market-stall holders - all were frequently Vietnamese. The city boasted several Vietnamese Mahayana temples with resident monks, as did outlying areas.
This has been gradually changing. More and more Vietnamese return home, despite having lived in Cambodia for a generation. The Vietnamese temple close to Olympic Market is the last one I know of in the inner-city area, and that seems to be on its last legs. Of course, no-one knows where it is, and most Tuk-tuk and moto drivers will tell you that there is no Vietnamese Wat in Phnom Penh. The only one they know of is in a fishing village about 15 kilometres outside of the city. I knew it was there somewhere, though, and eventually I went out to the Vietnamese restaurant next to the Mai Linh bus stop that sells tickets to Ho Chi Minh City. The kindly owner affirmed there was a Vietnamese temple nearby, and the waiter drove me there on the back of his bike, having stopped to ask directions several times.


When I visited last year there was still a resident monk, albeit a very grumpy and not particularly outgoing one. But even he has left, leaving the temple more or less deserted. The temple-keeper seems to be an 18 year-old boy, helped by some of the surrounding families and kept company by a shifting cast of ne'er-do-wells that sleep in hammocks in the prayer hall.
It's a shame, because it is a beautiful little place, displaying a unique amalgamation of the two religious styles. The usual wall murals common in Theravadin temples across Southeast Asia are here, but with the addendum of murals depicting Mahayana concepts of hell and the cultivation of merit that one might see at a Chinese or Vietnamese temple.
The main shrine contains the usual Vietnamese mix of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but also a Khmer-style image of the Buddha that you would never encounter in Vietnam.








Outside the temple are a number of small shrines, including one devoted to a local Goddess from Ca Mau in Southern Vietnam - I have never encountered her before.



The temple is well worth a visit, though prepare for a struggle to find it. It is actually centrally located - it's just that no-one knows about it.

Ask the driver to take you to Wat S'nyay (Wat Vietnam).
He may not know where it is, in which case ask him to take you to Street #134 and ask directions from there.

Bitexco Tower, Ho Chi Minh City

I have a confession to make. I am not particularly enamoured of big towers.
My Freudian readers can make of it what they will, but I am largely uninterested in the enormous concrete and steel erections that seem to be springing up all over Asia.
But I couldn't resist a trip up Saigon's new-ish Bitexco Tower, a quite beautiful building that is the tallest in Ho Chi Minh City and is said to symbolise a lotus bud.

Saigon hair stylist Kien Nguyen and a pictorial representation of Bitexco Tower inside Bitexco Tower. Very po-mo.

I don't quite see the bud myself, but it is nonetheless a striking-looking building that stands out in a reasonably low-rise city.
Getting up costs around $10, which is a bargain by big tower standards (you need to mortgage your house to take a trip up Sydney's sad old Centerpoint Tower).
Once up there it is cool and slick and almost empty. My Vietnamese companions loved the outing, though they were perplexed by what they saw - the Vietnamese inability to read maps (it doesn't seem to be taught in schools) meant that viewing the city from this elevation seemed to confuse them.

The view over Saigon from the Bitexco Tower

There is also a monster telescope which is meant to be amazing at night, but apparently is useless doing the day.

Kien Nguyen checking out the big telescope

The standard telescopes arranged around the viewing tower are free to use and excellent.
It's actually quite fascinating to view this constantly developing city from above, and I think it was money well spent.

Cute tattooed Japanese guy we flirted with

The boys pose for a shot outside the tower inside the tower. I love this stuff.

The Bitexco Tower (centre) viewed from a ferry on the Saigon River

My friend Hai looking out over Saigon from the Bitexco Tower observation deck

Go now before the locals discover it and it becomes insanely crowded.