Sen - The Lotus

The Trojan War hero Odysseus sailed his army home to Ithaca when vicious north winds sent by Poseidon blew his ship off course, out to sea, and far from home. The hapless ship floated for nine days, and may have drifted forever if they hadn't landed on an island off the coast of Northern Africa. On the island lived a people who ate a food made from the flowers of the lotus. These wave-weary warriors were welcomed by the peaceful people, and were fed the lotus that made them immediately forget all desire to return home. If it hadn't been for the integrity of Odysseus, who dragged his men to the ship, locked them to their oars, and led them back to the sea toward Greece, than Homer would've told a shorter, somewhat less-epic story.

Homer's seminal work is a double-edged trimming shears for the poor lotus. On one hand, the plant is praised for providing some sort of scrumptious sustenance--a real rib-sticker. On the other hand, the innocent flower is portrayed as a demon of apathy, lulling the eater into losing all sense of responsibility and desire. Not only does this portrayal give the lotus an unfair shake, we're not even sure which lotus these Greeks were munching on with their gyros and dolmas. There are many dozens of plants in the genus Lotus, a type of terrestrial legume. Some other plants with the name lotus aren't lotuses at all, but are actually waterlilies. Yet all are much maligned by their nominal association with the plant from Homer's epic yarn.

The Vietnamese word for lotus is sen.

There's a plant called lotus that perfectly fits the description for the story in one esteemed respect--tasty cuisine. The Indian lotus does more than just sit and look pretty. Its roots, seeds, flowers, and leaves are all delicious. Steep tea from the petals, leaves, and stamens. Eat the seeds raw, pop them in a pan like popcorn, boil them in a fruit tea, or mash them up and stuff the paste into mochi or pastry. Peel the roots, slice them thin, and boil them in chicken broth until tender; serve with rice. Or pickle them, then slice, toss with herbs, cooked shrimp, shredded pickled carrots and daikon, and dress with fish sauce, peanuts and fried shallots. Tie it all up in a lotus leaf for convenient packaging, then unwrap, and you have your own plate--environmentally friendly, too.

The Taipei Botanical Garden

Perhaps another grace that might save the Indian lotus from being implicated as the lotus in the Odyssey is the fact that the Indian lotus is not a lotus at all, technically. Real lotuses are legumes, a.k.a. bean plants. And it's not a waterlily either, but it's very similar. The lotus grows in the same kind of soil as the lily: mud. Please excuse the rather non-technical term. This mud, as messy as it sounds, contributes to one of the most important aspects of the lotus. Many cultures place deep symbolic meaning on the unspoiled splendor that rises from its inauspicious bed of muck. The Hindus associate the lotus with their most divine gods. The Buddhists equate the elegant lotus with Buddha, who himself became enlightened beneath a tree on the muddy shores of a river. From mud, the lotus blooms. Out of the crude, perfection.

Our lotus pond

On our patio, we have a lotus plant. It lives in a five gallon clay pot brimming with mud, water, and flecks of floating yellow-green duckweed. Eight rigid stalks, the color of emerald, rise above the water to chest height. Each stalk terminates in a single broad leaf like an elephant's ear. All stalks begin underwater, all curled up like a rolled tongue. They pierce the surface of the water and rise at a rate of nearly half a foot a day. So too does the teardrop shaped bud, which unfolds into a bloom with a canary yellow seed cup tucked away among the petals. From the time they emerge from the water, the lotus flowers grow to full height of five feet, blossom, and drop all their petals within 10 days, leaving only the stem and iconic seed cup. The petals are so heavy and full of body that you can hear them hit the ground when they drop from the flower.

Our lotus bears white flowers. The pure white lotus is the national flower of India; for Vietnam, it's the pink. The pink ones can be found in gardens and fountains all over the place in Saigon. Lữ says it's hard to find a white lotus plant here. The person who sold it to her must have thought it was pink--otherwise it would have cost much more. Of course, expense is a relative term. A bouquet of ten lotuses, cut in 30-inch long stems and wrapped in its own leaf, costs less than two dollars. Taken home, trimmed, and placed in a vase with water, they bloom overnight. And if you nuzzle your nose between the petals for a sniff, you'll find a spicy-sweet, tropical flavor. To me, it's faintly reminiscent of anise, which Mike confirmed in a blind sniff test. Lữ is not sold on the comparison, and prefers to describe them as having a fresh, green scent, which I also find to be true.

Our bouquet is already falling apart. With every pass of the oscillating fan, another white petal drops to the ground with a heavy tap. Like so many things in life, lotus blossoms do not last long. Soon after they bloom, they are gone, leaving you with a lovely memory and all of its trappings, like appreciation, wonder, and loss. Perhaps that's the reason why the lotus is a symbol for non-attachment. It invites us to admire its growth, appreciate its unstained beauty, watch it fade, and let it go. Although the lotus-eaters in Odysseus's story lost their desire to return home, they were still attached. They lusted for their lotus food. So, obviously, it was not the sacred lotus. And besides, I seem to remember the lotus in the story was a tree.

Happy 5th, 8th and 4th Lunar Month!

Today is a new moon. It also happens to be the fifth new moon after Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, which means today's moon marks the beginning of the fifth month in the Vietnamese lunar calendar. This calendar is one of many lunar calendar systems around the world. Southeast Asia alone has at least four different types, giving us a clue about the region's broad cultural diversity.

In the Chinese Calendar, this new moon begins the month of the guava blossom.

Historically, the Vietnamese calendar was based on the astronomical observations in Beijing that dictate the Chinese lunar calendar. Therefore, both calendars always began on the same day, which is the first new moon of spring. However, Vietnam changed time zones in the 1960's. Since then, the two calendars still begin on the same day, except for once every twenty-three years or so. The next time these two calendars won't be aligned is in 2030.

Both the Vietnamese and the Chinese calendars are based on seasonal change, in which the beginning of the year marks the decline of winter and the rise of spring. In contrast to the seasonal approach, some other lunar calendars of Southeast Asia are based on the position of the sun in relationship to the stars--or more precisely, on the twelve constellations that are recognized in the west.

Nations with large populations of Buddhists follow the Buddhist lunar calendar. This includes Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos. These last three countries follow a special version of the calendar that originated in Thailand. The Thai lunar calendar usually begins in December. However, the first month of the Thai lunar calendar doesn't signify the beginning of the year. Actually, the Thais follow three calendars, including the international calendar and their own solar calendar, which must make a challenge of asking someone's birthday. The months of the Thai lunar calendar are in sync with the new moon, so it seems today's new moon is the beginning of the Thai calendar's eighth month.

Similar to the Buddhist calendar is the one used by the Hindus. At one point, all of Southeast Asia was once part of a great expansive Hindu civilization. Its lasting legacy is a religion that is still very common in the region. The Hindu New Years celebration in Singapore is called Ugadi. Last year, I got the chance to walk around Singapore's Little India during Ugadi. It was phenomenal. I have strong memories of brilliant lights, fragrant food, and wild music. Ugadi fell on April 4th of this year, which was the day after the new moon on April 3rd. Since Ugadi was three months ago, tomorrow marks the beginning of the fourth month.

Actually, the star-based calendars of the Buddhists and Hindus, and both the seasonal calendar of the Vietnamese and Chinese, are based on the time of the solar year, and therefore are not true lunar calendars. Technically, they're lunisolar. The only true lunar calendar is the Muslim calendar, which is also commonly used throughout Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia, where the majority of the population is Muslim. And unlike the other calendars, the first day of the lunar month begins upon the first sight of the waxing crescent moon. That will be July 2, and marks the beginning of the eighth month of the Muslim calendar.

So, happy new moon, happy 5th month in the Chinese and Vietnamese lunar calendars, happy 8th month in the Buddhist and Muslim calendars, happy 4th month in the Hindu lunar calendar, and happy July, too!

Wonderin' Where the Lions Are

Singapore's merlion

The last two posts have featured furry felines of the stone lion variety. I like a good triple play as much as anyone, so I thought I'd revisit my old home grounds in Singapore to bring you the third in our series on stone lions of Indochina. Here in all its fishy, fuzzy glory is one of the most surreal things ever turned out by the tourism industry: the Singapore merlion. This mythical aquatic animal is no creature of ancient mythology. It was completely fabricated about 50 years ago by the Singapore Tourism Board. You'll find the merlion on keychains, refrigerator magnets, and coffee mugs in souvenir shops all over the island. So, why a hybrid between a lion and a fish?

It all comes down to the history of the word Singapore. As the story goes, the island was named by a prince from an ancient Indonesian civilization called Srivijaya, who stumbled upon the island during a hunting trip. In the Srivijaya language, the word Singa means lion. This solves the mystery of the lion's half of the merlion (the lion's share, if you will). If I were to guess, the other half of the beast is to be fished out of Singapore's geography. As an island nation, Singapore identifies with the ocean through its strategic port and rich fishing grounds. Or maybe they just thought a merlion would be a good pet for a mermaid.

In the origin story of Singapore's name, the prince caught a glimpse of a big cat on the island. If he ever really saw one, it probably wasn't a lion. Tigers, on the other hand, have a historic range that extends all the way into Indonesia, including the extant Sumatran tiger, as well as the extinct Javan and Bali tigers. Seems to me the prince got his lions crossed.

It's worth a mention here that there is a lion that has range in Asia. It's called the Asiatic lion. Although it doesn't seem to have ever reached as far as Singapore, its easternmost range is adjacent to historic tiger territory. Realistically, the lion and the tiger territory never overlapped significantly. They probably avoided each other or vied for hunting grounds. But if hybridization had ever been a possibility, well, you Napolean Dynamite fans out there know exactly what that implies: real life wild ligers. It's like my favorite animal.

Another note on lions: Singapore has a pride or two that skulks about in the zoo on the north side of the island. It's particularly fun to visit them at night, during the zoo's nocturnal animal exhibit. All the animal enclosures are designed to look like they're not there. That means you feel like you're in the lion's space when you first see the pride through a break in the trees. Your body courses with the fight-or-flight sensation. This feeling is even stronger when you don't see them, when all you hear is throaty roars in the darkness. The lion's power stirs our instinctive sense of awe and terror, as old as time. It's no wonder why depictions of lions are so pervasive across world cultures.

So next time you see a statue of a lion, try to imagine that prehistoric sense of the predator and prey relationship. For a moment, pretend the stone softens to flesh, a heart starts to beat, the lungs swell with breath. Feel what it's like to stand in the presence of one of these beasts. And if it falls over and flops around gasping for air, maybe you could be nice and push it into the water.

The Museum of Vietnamese History

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, or so they say to reticent history students and US presidents from Texas. I didn't care one bit about history until I became a part of it as a media analyst in Iraq. I might have kept on not caring if it weren't for my boss, also a good friend, who lent me a book that changed my life.

Reading that book made me realize an incredible fact about Iraq. This fact was not that our involvement was just a repeat of many failed attempts to control the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Nor was it the fact that the establishment of a government sympathetic to an occupational force would never succeed--the people of Iraq have always preferred to be ruled by the devil they know over the devil they don't. It was the fact that the place we call Iraq had evolved as a process of conflict and cultural exchange with the rest of the world over millennia. Iraq is more than a three dimensional space. All the foreign involvement changed Iraq over time and made it what it is today, from Britain, to the Ottomans, and before them the Persians, and even by the Chinese. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could understand the present if I could know what happened in the past. And now, I want to know more.

The Museum of Vietnamese History

I took a visit to the Museum of Vietnamese History to find some physical clues that would help me understand what is Vietnam. The museum is a short walk from our apartment. Nestled beneath tamarind trees in the park near the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, which is, incidentally, around 130 years old, the museum is a wooden yellow building with a pagoda and a courtyard. Inside, the exhibitions are laid out in a sort of haphazard chronological pattern. The first room puts you in the prehistoric age, surrounded by display cases of stone axes and dioramas of cavemen on the hunt for mastodons. In the next, suddenly you leap forward to the era of Chinese domination from about 200 BC to 900 CE, followed by the conflicts with the Chinese during the Lý and Trần dynasties. Action-packed models and dynamic paintings depict epic battles between the Việt people and the Song during the 11th century, then Yuan in the 13th century.

Perhaps the Champa lion's style influenced the design of the stone lions that I posted yesterday.

Step in the next room and -whoosh- you're lurched backwards in time again, this time to experience the Champa, a Hindu kingdom which occupied what is now Southern Vietnam until they were displaced by the Việt and Chinese in the 15th century. I read somewhere (great attribution, eh?) that the music and dance of the Champa were so enjoyed and appreciated by the Vietnamese imperial court that the arts were preserved, even as the Viet continued to wage war against the Champa for centuries.

The room beyond the Champa crosses even further back in time. It holds the material remnants of the Óc Eo culture. Artifacts of this civilization were discovered on Vietnam's western shore. The Óc Eo may have existed sometime between the 1st and 7th century.

Then you're teleported forward yet again. Seriously, there's no pattern. The exhibition designers intended you to walk out of this museum with a case of time-warp whiplash. In the next room, the models and dioramas create an image of the late Vietnamese dynasties and their wars with the Siamese prior to French colonization.

Ceramics with a five-clawed dragon could belong only to the Chinese emperor.

But the haphazard time traveling is only half of what the museum has to offer. In one room, a tiny bony mummy in a wooden sarcophagus; in another, various Buddha statues from around the world--an interesting piece is haloed by a hundred arms. There are stone sculptures from Cambodia and ceramics from various Asian countries. There's a collection of 18th and 19th century ceramics, mostly imported from China, but quite a few from Vietnam and a couple from Europe. Finally, there's a collection of minority culture artifacts, in recognition of the 54 minority ethnic groups in Vietnam.

The Museum of Vietnamese History was a good introduction to Vietnam's past, setting the frame for me to understand its present a little more clearly. The first message I took was that Vietnam has a long history of warfare and foreign occupation, including the Chinese and Mongolians, the Champa, the Siamese, the French, the Japanese, and the US. I also got the message that Vietnam has embraced many aspects from its surrounding cultures, including Buddhism from India, music and dance from Champa, Confucian ideals like property ownership and imperial court proceedings from China, as well as Chinese script, which was eventually replaced by the Latin alphabet, one of many contributions from Europe. I would have liked to have seen more descriptive placards. I found an average of one sign per exhibition that explained the cultural significance of the displays at large. I was happy to find that each piece was labeled in Vietnamese, English, and French. The museum lacked some of the multimedia and interactive displays that I've come to expect in a modern museum. But for the ticket price of 75 cents, you can't beat it.


Provender
- breakfast: hủ tiếu gà
- snack: chôm chôm, bòn bon
- supper: mì xào chay with rau muống

The Guardian Lions

Male

Female

This pair of fearsome beasts stands watch at the entrance of a bank in our neighborhood. They're designed in the Southeast Asian style, with a sort of fantastical, mask-like face. The placement of stone lions in front of a building is borrowed from China, and is an ancient practice.

You can find these stone lions, although they might be cast in metal, in any community that has had Chinese influence. I've seen them guarding the steps of buildings in New York and San Francisco, but never knew anything about them until I studied in Taiwan. There I was told that the presence of certain animals, as well as their locations on a property, have an auspicious significance. At the front doors of a financial building or place of commerce, the stone lions are set to protect the building and the occupants.

Guardian lions are usually a mated pair and are portrayed in traditional gender roles. The male rests a paw on a ball, a symbol for his physical prowess, strength, and aggressive nature. The female tussles with a lion cub underfoot, and this represents her as a creator, nurturer, and provider. The male guards the building, while the female protects the people inside.

For these two lions, the mouths are open. Between each of their jaws, a pearl was carved in such a way that it can roll about freely in the mouth without falling out. However, you might stumble upon a pair of stone lions in which one has a closed mouth. Together, these represent the two shapes the mouth makes when chanting the sacred Buddhist Aum.

These two lions are a little different than I expected. The female here is on the right, and usually it's the male. I think I'll keep an eye out the next few months and see whether the arrangement is a Vietnamese convention, or whether these two are an anomaly.

The Bark is Worse Than The Bike

Someone in Saigon drives this thing around town. It just may be the world's greenest bike. The entire thing is covered in tree bark, and it's outfitted with two planter pots, complete with plants. I wonder if it runs on methanol...

Bia Hơi - Fresh Beer

The drinking scene in Saigon takes on many forms. The gaudily-themed clubs are honey for the barflies, Saigon's trendsetters, and tourists itching to make short work of their foreign currency. There are the pavement bars tucked away in quieter alleys, where streetside food hawkers sell bottled beer to folks who sit cross-legged on plastic stools, pry their teeth with toothpicks, and hold quiet conversations in the darkness. You have the same thing but different in the backpacker district, with its all-night revelry and neon, rock & roll ambiance. Shoestring travelers and locals saddle up to curbside plastic seats to drink cheap beer from shop-house stalls. They amass in excited throngs for late sessions of flirting and cultural exchange.

Then there is the Vietnamese equivalent to the working class hole-in-the-wall. These beer halls are where the blue-collar workers convene to drink lots of a rice-based lager called bia hơi. The weak beer (~3 percent alcohol) arrives at the table in plastic bottles and is poured into glass mugs over a glacial chunk of ice, which further weakens the beer as it melts. At the price of 45 cents a liter, this brew attracts imbibers starting at 8 in the morning and ending at 8 at night, or whenever the place runs dry. You could sit in front of one of these roughshod bia hơi halls as early as 9 in the morning and see laborers stumble out of the door, fumble with keys, and zip off on their scooters. In Vietnam, there doesn't seem to be a law on the books about drinking and driving.

At night, as long as there's still beer, the room is packed with drinkers and the sounds of raucous laughter, clinking of ice against glass and glass against glass, and the hum of a dozen rusty wall fans. It's an image of densely packed tables brimming with beer bottles and white foam food boxes, with glaring fluorescent lights overhead, grimy wainscot-paneled sky blue walls lined with red and gold calendars, and wet floors littered with peanut shells, plastic wrap, and tissues. Next to the cooler is an electric-lit Buddhist shrine to bring luck and fortune to the establishment. The drinkers run the age gamut, from early twenties to old men; there are few women besides the beer ladies who serve, sweep, and toss empty plastic beer bottles across the room into a pile that grows by the hour. A hall to the side leads to a dimly lit back alley used as a urinal--not for the faint of heart.

It's a regular bar, not a bia hơi hall.

Beer, Wine, and a Valuable Lesson
I dropped in on one of these bia hơi halls yesterday with Mike and a friend. We took seats at a stainless steel table against the wall. Before the beer lady had the chance to bring us the bottle, the mugs, and the plate of boiled peanuts, a street vendor had trailed us inside to sell us mango slices and garlicky pickled pork sausage. The beer arrived in what looked like a vinegar bottle. We jammed chunks of ice into the mugs and poured yellow foamy beer over the ice to melt it and make it fit.

We settled into atmosphere of the place. At the table next to us, a trio of construction workers poured beer into each other's glasses as they chattered over a tray of pork loaf and rolled rice noodles. They laughed with half-hearted smiles of green decaying teeth, and smoked cigarettes in a way that seemed as if they were kind of bored. One of them stole furtive glances in our direction. We were the only westerners in the place, and in all the stories about bia hơi halls, the locals invariably approach foreigners with a warm welcome and an enormous language barrier. Sure enough, this guy and his two friends struck up a conversation with us by taking my hat from my knee and passing it among themselves to make comments on it. I think it captured their interest because it's a military style hat, and, well, Vietnam has quite a military history.

The old men were delighted to find that two of the three of us can actually hold their own in spoken Vietnamese. I sat and enjoyed listening to the conversation with the benefit of an occasional translation. First they talked about the hat, then the conversation broadened and the old timers got more and more excited. One of them pulled a chair over to our table. He was leathery tan with salt and pepper hair, and wore a green polo shirt, gold corduroy pants with most of the cords worn away, and a pair of foam slippers. He introduced himself and told us he built houses in a development out of town. Then he let loose the usual questions: are you married, how old are you, what do you do? Satisfied with our company, he pulled forth a lime green box from under his table. It was a bonus he received from work, he said, then opened it and drew forth a ceramic bottle shaped like a pomelo.

Rượu Bưởi Năm Huệ

The guy with salt and pepper hair poured a shot of the brown wine into a ceramic dipping dish. Rule 1: in Vietnam, you let someone else pour your drink. He was about to hand the dish of wine to one of us, when the eldest, a man in a navy jumpsuit whose grey roots were just starting to show in his dyed hair, held out his hand and exclaimed in protest. Rule 2: in Vietnam, the person who is oldest is the first to drink. The eldest man took the wine, spilled a little on the way to his mouth, and spilled even more when it hit his lips. He smacked his mouth, and sighed "aahhh," and as he handed the dish back. Again a shot was poured, and this time handed to us. Our friend, the oldest one in our group, took the first shot. When it was my turn, I passed the dish to Mike. He downed the wine, and as he handed it to me to pass back the old man, I brought the empty dish to my lips to taste a leftover drop. It was slightly bitter, like citrus rind. I returned the dish, but I knew I was headed for trouble. I was about to break Rule 3: in Vietnam, you're expected to accept the drink from the person offering one to you.

The next shot was for me. I didn't want it; I already had enough to drink. To decline the shot was going to cause some embarrassment, but there was no way I could drink it. Not that I minded sharing the bowl or tasting the pomelo wine. But, if I had any more than would wet my lips, I'd be exceeding my limit and mixing alcohols, making me a wreck the next day. Faced with the choice between saving face and avoiding a painful hangover, I warned my companions that I had to refuse the wine. They looked grim because they knew, like I did, that declining a drink was not going to go over well.

The old man with salt and pepper poured the next shot, picked it up with both hands, and offered it to me. My face turned red and my eyes dropped as I shook my head no. The old man jerked back. His companions threw their hands up and spoke in escalating tones. Our friend intervened, telling the men that I had a bad heart, and couldn't drink the wine. They seemed to accept that, their voices calmed, and the old man passed the wine meant for me to his other companion.

I'm so glad our friend was there to explain my refusal. Granted, to say the weakness was in the heart and not in the headache I'd get in the morning was a weensy realignment of truth. Ironically, in Mandarin the word xīn means both heart and mind. But the word heart was enough for the old men to accept my refusal. And now, I can't help but wonder. What did that explanation mean to them? Do they now think I have weak cardiac muscle? Or rather, is there some euphemism, a significance behind the word heart, as if one could only expect a weak-hearted person to refuse the kindness of a friendly stranger?

Looking back on it with fresh eyes, I could have just pretended to drink the wine and then handed the rest to Mike to finish. Or I could have accepted the dish, said thank you, and placed it on the table untouched. In either case, I think that would have been the wiser choice than turning it down. If I could give you any advice for when you go traveling in Vietnam, I recommend you accept the drink poured for you, always.

I still had a chance to make things right, one chance to show some presence of heart and/or mind. As soon as the dish was empty, I reached out and took the pomelo wine bottle, poured the dish full, picked it up with both hands, and offered it to the man with the salt and pepper hair. He accepted it with both hands, flashed a smile of green teeth, and drained the dish in a gulp. The awkward moment behind us, the old timers stayed to talk with us some more. Then they poured a glass half-full of with the brown, opaque wine and placed it on our table. With gentle grips, they shook our hand, then stumbled out the door. Mike said they had a 20 kilometer trip ahead of them, and with no law prohibiting drunk driving, I assume they expected to make it on their own. I hope they made it home okay.


Provender
- breakfast: omelette with green beans, garlic, and ginger, over rice
- snack: blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry sorbet with mint, chocolate, and whip cream
- dinner: Gỏi Gà, mì xào, măng cụt