Hat Boi: Traditional Vietnamese Opera in Phan Thiet

Below are photos taken of Hat Boi (or Hat Bo), a traditional form of Vietnamese opera. The performance was hosted in a local whale temple. Van Thuy Tu is the most famous such temple in Phan Thiet, but there are perhaps a dozen such whale temples in Phan Thiet alone. The temples occupy a similar position in the lives of local fishermen as the old Chinese assembly halls have had for Chinese merchants in Vietnam's port towns. Whale temples always have stages for performances, making them an ideal place to perform these operas.

The announcer and story teller wishes wealth and happiness to the elders of the community, calling them out by name, one by one, with melodramatic ceremony.

The first performer comes singing out in a flamboyant costume, with drummers on either side, and a traditional orchestra just out of view.

Notice his elaborate head dress with peacock and pheasant tail feathers.

The central character is joined by his co-star.

Throughout the performance the audience (mostly male elders in the community), throw bunches of sticks at the performers. I'm unfamiliar with the meaning and ceremony behind this but I suspect this character is a villain and throwing sticks is akin to throwing tomatoes. Boys sit on either side of the stage, continuously cleaning up the sticks.

All photos (as always) copyright 2010 Adam Bray. Photos may not be used or republished without written permission. All rights reserved.

Phan Thiet Barn Owl

Barn owls are seen as evil omens and harbingers of death by the Vietnamese. If they can get their hands on one, many Vietnamese are likely to kill them out of spite. It's a sad thing because of how graceful, shy and beneficial the birds actually are. As everyone knows, these beautiful birds of prey feed on mice and rats, which are in ample supply due to Vietnam's sanitation problems. Barn owls are not afraid to live in cities, and can be seen and heard all over town--if a person is actually paying attention. Barn owls have the largest range of any bird species. The same species is also found in North America and Europe.

20 Things That I Love About Vietnam

20 Things That I Love About Vietnam

Light-hearted musings of an American expat

Reprinted from Vietnam Pathfinder Magazine, July 2010

by Adam Bray (me) 

1. I love all the variety of Vietnamese food. It’s different in every city. I love how nem can be pickled pork in a banana leaf in one city and roll-your-own-springrolls with grilled meats in another. Ordering from a menu is like unwrapping Christmas presents.

2. I love surfing the web from Vietnam; especially Facebook, my blog or a friends, or any number of independent websites. It has all the excitement of Russian roulette. Will it come up? It’s loading… it’s loading.. “Client Error”… refresh… loading… loading… “This page could not be”… refresh…

3. I love Ruou Can (bamboo pole wine) made by hilltribe minorities. Every tribe makes a different brew with unique ingredients and flavors—and each variety causes the drinker to wake up in a different novelty location.

4. I love doing paperwork in Vietnam—like getting a drivers license or applying for a work permit. It makes me feel like Angela Landsbury (minus the ladies undergarments), running around town for weeks sleuthing a captivating mystery.

5. I love all the ethnic minority groups-54 by official count but hundreds in actuality, all with their own language, clothing, crafts and customs. If you get bored with one, you can try another the day after tomorrow.

 

6. I love Russians at the beach in their cute swimming outfits. They look like, in their excitement, they ran to grandma’s attic, flung open the chest, and tried on random cloths from bygone decades, until they found something that fits… sort of.

 7. I love the international cultural exchange we have in Saigon. My visits are never complete without a stop at Pizza Hutt, Carl’s Jr, Coffee Bean (& Tea Leaf), and Sozo (their cinnamon rolls rock).

8. Love my 50-cent Vietnamese coffee with fresh milk. One makes a perfect morning. Just two keep me fueled all day. Three sends me to the water closet.

9. I love it when the Vietnamese guy on the moto next to me wants to practice English during rush-hour traffic. It keeps things from getting boring. It keeps me in the game.

10. I love Vietnam’s baby goats. They are oh-so-cute and squeezable, and nothing tastes better on a grill with a sweet marinade and a chili sate and stinky tofu dip.

11. I love all the cute little Chinese dogs on doorsteps, wagging their tails and panting when I walk by, but not so much when they disappear just before the neighbors invite all their friends over for rice wine and grilled meat.

12. I love Vietnamese stir-fried chicken dishes. Finding the head, feet or gizzard in my bowl is a bit like finding the doll in a Mardi Gras King Cake, without all the added privileges and obligations.

13. I love browsing through open markets, especially during Tet, when all the fruit candies and holiday decorations are on display. I just wish Bob Barker was there to tell me when I land on the Vietnamese price, rather than the foreigner price.

14. I love watching American films at the Megastar Cineplexes in Saigon. For a moment I feel like I’m back at home in a luxury cinema in the USA, with reclining chairs and surround sound, only the movies in Saigon are somehow much cleaner and more polite.

15. I love the creativity and originality of Bobby Chinn’s hilarious Vietnamese cookbook, Wild, Wild East and how each book sold in Vietnam received meaningful personal touches. It’s encouraging to see another American writer succeed unfettered in Vietnam.

16. I love Cham-style field rat (minced, bones and all, then stir-fried with chili and rice paper), but not Bahnar-style field rat (charred hair and all on coals and then gutted after), but I thank both my hosts for telling me what kind of meat it was this time.

17. I love going to a Cham birthday party and then being told that there was a misunderstanding and it’s actually a death anniversary and exhumation feast. A dinner party is much more interesting any time a corpse is involved.

18. I love seeing all the spa, health and beauty specialists in Pham Ngu Lao. Where else can you observe a young man on a bicycle with a baby rattle who will solicit another grown man for an innocent, therapeutic back massage in the privacy of his hotel room at 2am?

19. I love all the friendly Filipinos that wait around the Caravelle Hotel, Vincom Center, the Ho Chi Minh Museum and all over Pham Ngu Lao. Selfless ambassadors of goodwill, they are always up for a good conversation, a cup of coffee, or a rigged card game with a US$10K pot.

20. I love being free to ask someone’s weight, age, marital status, salary, passport details, how much they paid for their watch or cell phone, or probe a person’s family history on a first meeting without evoking a faux pas. Conversations are much more up-front in Vietnam without all those fussy Western taboos.

Mid-Autumn Festival, Phan Thiet, Vietnam

Below are photos from last night's Mid-Autumn Festival Parade in Phan Thiet, Vietnam.

School children marching to join the Mid-Autumn Festival Parade.

Drummers follow the children closely behind.

These lion costumes often adorn the chariots that carry drummers in parades and processions.

A dragon lantern float

The guys from Quan Hai Nam Dragon Troupe open the festivities with a drum orchestra.

You can't have a Vietnamese festival without drums

Phan Thiet's acrobats are renowned

Festival antics

All photos copyright Adam Bray 2010. May not be reprinted without permission.

Elephant Fragments of a Fragmented Elephant

A privately owned work-elephant that I met recently in my adventures in Ratanakiri, Cambodia.

Curiosity breaks through sad eyes

Every few years the tusks will be trimmed, and the ivory sold across the border in Vietnam.

A life in bondage

He's lucky to have tail hair. Vietnamese & Cambodians pluck elephant tail hair to make good luck rings and amulets, leaving elephants with a very sore nub and nothing to swat the flies.

At least we know he's regular

A Fist-Full of Amethyst

...and I've got big hands. 

In Ratanakiri, Cambodia, they measure these stones by the kilo. The better the color and overall quality, the higher the rate. Miners get between US$5-10 per kg. Then gems are then cut, fit in jewelry and sold in Ban Lung or Phnom Penh for much higher prices.

Are you planning to visit Cambodia? Check out Insight Guides Laos & Cambodia and Thomas Cook Travelers Cambodia. I undated both current editions myself, and so give them my personal endorsement. Click on the images below to view the books on Amazon.com.

 

Kigali National Prison for Perpetrators of Genocide and Other Criminal Acts, and Elementary School

As I stood at the Natural History museum in Kigali, I looked out the window and saw a prison on top of a hill and a school below with kids playing. I took a photo. I had an overwhelming urge to post the photo on twitter with the caption “Kigali National Prison for Perpetrators of Genocide and Other Criminal Acts, and Elementary School.” I didn’t. I decided it would make a better chapter title. I could reminisce about other things at the museum, like their extensive dinosaur collection (all plastic and under 6 inches), or the lengthy plaques of nothing but text, detailing the country’s rich history (all written in German), or the many glass cases full of every conceivable type of gravel found along Rwandan roadsides (also labeled German), the fabulously life-like taxidermied frogs and toads, or the $6 entry fee I paid to get in. The museum was an excellent example of good stewardship. They obviously didn’t have much at the museum, but they sure took darn good care of it. Everything was shiny, clean, polished and presented as professionally as any museum could hope to do.  The Smithsonian could learn a thing or two from Rwanda.

Journalists & Travel Writing Do Not Mix (Not Well Anyway)

Journalism Copy. Definition: a hodgepodge of 3rd-party quotes & facts spliced by journalists with no deep understanding of the subject matter, editable at random because the text has no overarching story or themes.

The type of stories I'm targeting specifically are found in the real of travel, adventure, discovery and environmental issues (the sort of subject matter one might find in National Geographic, though Nat Geo itself is not the outlet I'm complaining about). One might call this "Travel Writing" (or not).

Explanation:

One, I'm not a big fan of half the text coming from quotes. Here in Vietnam we have to become the experts since there are so few people that know anything more than a scratch on the surface so I don't wanna rely on someone else's hearsay to fill a word count if I can say it more authoritatively in my own commentary.

Secondly, there is the whole 2 sentences per paragraph thing, which some of my outlets just said they want to start doing. I'm not a fan of that--it prevents one from developing complex thoughts & themes because those tiny paragraphs are design to be cut here and there like a gardener trimming shrubbery.

Thirdly, I'm not a fan of journalists or travel writers writing outside a coverage area where they are based or experienced. They are relying too heavily on what they read or what someone else tells them and not what they know or have experienced for themselves.

Summary:

In 2010, professional travel writing sucks. More on this subject soon...

I Was "Featured" at TED & Never Knew It

I accidentally stumbled upon a video at the TED "Ideas Worth Spreading" series that is so en vogue now. In it, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (who I might add is as pleasant to work with as her name sounds) presents some recent highlights of her work with Kanzi and other bonobos in her language research program. The video was presented in 2004. I worked at their Atlanta lab in 2001, where I took care of Kanzi and the other bonobos. There are two shots, it just so happens, where I appear in the background. Can you spot them?

See the video here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html

New Species of Parakeet Discovered in Vietnam?

While photographing the regular illegal wild bird markets that we have in Phan Thiet, Vietnam along the riverfront, I came across this bizarre yellow, red & grey parakeet. The coloring does not match any known species of parrots in Vietnam, but there is in overall similarity in pattern to the red-breasted parakeet. Is this a new species? Unknown color phase? Or simply a really good dye job? Any ornithologists out there care to weigh in?

AsiaLife Article on Cham Temple Ruins Discoveries

My article, "In Pursuit of Panduranga," about my Cham temple discoveries in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam, appears in this month's issue of AsiaLife HCMC. Download a PDF version of the issue here.

View a previous story I wrote for CNN on the subject here: http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/none/landmines-and-scorpions-temple-hunting-vietnam-273834

Or else read about Cham culture and my discoveries right here on this blog:
http://fisheggtree.blogspot.com/search/label/Cham

What Happens to Baby Monkeys When Cambodian Children Have Idle Time

Can small children kill the "souls" of baby monkeys?

"My daily itinerary include dress-up, make-up, spankings, picking fleas and cowering under my mistress. Please kill me."

Eat Me! ...and All My 8 Legs!

Doesn't he just scream "Eat Me!"? No? He sure does to a lot of Cambodians. Is it ethical to eat these tarantulas though? Apparently most or all are caught from the wild, and are consumed in large numbers. I don't think anybody breeds them in Cambodia. It's hard to imagine there are THAT many left in the wild, but I don't know. I've been all over the jungles in Vietnam, and a little bit in Cambodia, and never seen a wild one myself.

In case you are wondering, this fellow (or is it a she?) was docile & gentle--a lovely creature actually. But then again he'd had much of his spirit pounded out of him by the little Cambodian girl who had played with him for hours. I'm not sure if they are more aggressive when first caught. He certainly showed no interest in biting me.

My Cham Temple-City in Ratanakiri, Cambodia

While in Ratanakiri (northeastern Cambodia) on assignment last month, I took a day off and asked me guide to show me some things that were "off the radar." I told him that I was especially interested in ancient temple complexes. My guide consulted an elder Jarai man who told him that he knew about a dozen undocumented temple ruins spread around the province. Delighted, we asked him to tell us how to get to the one closest to town. "Closest" turned out to be a few hours away, and deep in the jungle.

The complex was massive, with an enormous earthen rampart (citadel wall) and elevated road leading up to it. The walls were nearly 7m (20+ feet high above the jungle floor). Here we are walking on top the wall, with a drop-off on either side.

Inside the walls was an enormous moat system, shown here with trees that don't mind their roots a bit wet, growing in the middle.

Inside the moat was an enormous man-made mountain, also about 7m (20+ feet) above the moats. The grand expanse of the mount can be partly seen here, with a flat plateau on top.

My guides had led me to think that they were taking me to see an Angkorian temple. It was however, when I saw piles of red bricks, that I knew immediately that this was no Angkorian ruin. This was a Cham temple city. More importantly, the only Cham temple city that I am aware of in Cambodia, and perhaps the largest individual temple complex in all of Champa (if one views My Son as a collection of seperate temple complexes rather than a unified whole, for the purpose of this comparison). Most of the structures in the complex were now entirely collapsed. However some vestiges of brick walls, towers and building foundations remained.

No temple complex ever escapes looters. This hole was dug--so I am told--by thugs employed by very well-connected individuals. Temple thieves commonly remove gold and jeweled objects, steles with written histories, statues and other invaluable relics.

Stone flooring panels which once covered the looter's hole.

My guide looking at the vestiges of a baked red-brick wall. Red bricks are the primary (nearly excursive) building material of the ancient Champa Kingdom. Though Khmers did use red sandstone in the Angkor Kingdom, most temples were made from laterite. The Khmer's Funan (pre-Angkorian) Kingdom used red-baked bricks, but their range was much further south. it is likely that the Cham acquired this architectural building principal of using red bricks from the Funanese.

A pile of rubble: red bricks covered in moss and lichen.

Though difficult to see, the pile of rubble under the greenery is a collapsed red-brick tower: a hallmark of Cham temples.

The find is very exciting and if acknowledged and further studied, could alter the history of kingdom expansion and territorial boundaries between the Khmer and Cham. It may also shed light on the development of Cham temple architecture. Though possibly one of the largest single structures now known in Champa, this site is not without precedent. Other Cham citadels exist in Vietnam within provinces such as Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh and Binh Thuan.

Many questions remain. What was this place? Why live here in the middle of the jungle (infested with malarial mosquitoes I might add), far from water sources and known cities? How did the inhabitants travel between this place and other populations? Are there more temple cities like this in the vicinity? Will we ever know?

Nghinh Ong Festival Video

As much as I hate watching myself on television, here is a good video from local news on Phan Thiet's Nghinh Ong Festival: http://baobinhthuan.com.vn/vn/videoclipx.aspx?pgv=286&pgc=62 .

An accompanying newspaper article (in Vietnamese) is here:
http://baobinhthuan.com.vn/vn/default.aspx?cat_id=580&news_id=33362#content

Nghinh Ong - Quang Thanh Festival Parade Photos

Below are photos from yesterday's Nghinh Ong- Quang Thanh Festival in Phan Thiet City.

The festival began at 5am in front of the Quang Thanh Temple near the Phan Thiet Central Market.

Costumes from a certain young queen in Star Wars come to mind.

Elaborate costumes

A large drumming platform.

Reenactment of a goddess I think--perhaps a local Cham godess.

A dragon-dancing troupe from Saigon.

One of my favorites and not often seen in Vietnam - stilt walkers.

One of the young heroes of the festival, Vu is captain of Phan Thiet's yellow dragon troupe and bears much responsibility for the high degree of excellence and coordination in their performances. 

Phan Thiet's renowned Ky Lan only makes an appearance once every two years for this festival. His beautiful head stands about 2.5 metres tall. 49m long with 19 body segments, the Ky Lan requires 22 people to operate--4 of them devoted to the complex puppetry of the head.

Please note: as always, all photos in this blog are copyright Adam Bray and may NOT be re-posted or republished for any reason without written consent from Adam Bray. 


If you are a publisher, television crew, film special effects team or similar professional and require consultation on this or any other local festival, or the creature puppets of the festival (lions, dragons, ky lan, phoenix, etc.) please contact me through the form on www.muinebeach.net or post a comment on this blog and I will be in touch.