Liniment - #1

I have an unusual obsession, and one to which I don't readily admit.
I love Chinese-style liniments! I have shelves full of them, and use them regularly!
I was originally introduced to green liniment many years ago by my Vietnamese-Australian partner, and ever since then have nursed a passion for this little bottles of medicinal wonder-oil!
Being a headache sufferer has made me extremely fond of these liniments, which usually contain some variation on a combo of peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil and menthol. But oh so many variations - choosing a liniment is like selecting a perfume - there is one for absolutely every occasion.
Of course, there are the classics - Eagle Brand Green Oil (a perennial favourite) and Wood Lock Oil (for the purists), and the ubiquitous Tiger Balm (mostly just for white folks). One applies these liniments to the back of one's neck, but also to the temples and the crown of the head. They are also good for muscular pain and even stomach ache! My partner tells me that they work a treat when fed to non-laying hens, and I have seen people in Vietnam drink them to stave off nausea, but ingestion is definitely NOT recommended!
Though Eagle Brand Green Oil claims it can also be worn as a perfume, I don't think this is particularly good advice. Unless you wanna smell like an arthritic Vietnamese granny on your next hot date.
It's almost impossible to stop me buying liniment. Once, while on a stopover in Singapore, I had ingested too many sleeping pills, and when my partner slipped off to the toilet I wandered in a drug-induced haze into the traditional medicine clinic at Singapore Airport. By the time I was found I had purchased $300 worth of liniment (Singapore is liniment capital!). Bags of the stuff!
So, I will take you on a tour of liniments.
This little bottle pictured was purchased in Hong Kong, and is relatively mild - I tend to prefer the stronger stuff that really makes the eyes water. It has an unpleasant smell, and the effects aren't particularly long-listing. Nice label, though.

Kwan Yin

For the past week I've been living, breathing and eating Kwan Yin.
Not a bad thing, of course - I could be doing much worse things than spending hours absorbing the lore of the embodiment of compassion and mercy. I wonder if it has had any flow-on effects in my life?
The reason for this absorption is that I'm giving a talk tonight at the Swedenborg Association on the history of Kwan Yin and her place in popular religious culture. I have always been a fan of the Goddess of Mercy, ever since I first travelled to Vietnam as a young man and decided that she was to be my patron saint.
Naturally, Kwan Yin is everywhere in Vietnam - here is a pic of some nuns I know at Binh Chanh with the Kwan Yin statue in the garden in front of their temple. She is a source of inspiration for everyone, and people turn to her in times of need.

Vietnamese Holy Picture

Further to my obsession with Holy Pictures, here's one I bought at a wonderful Catholic church in Ho Chi Minh City. It has the world's BEST range of HPs, as well as a dazzling array of religious tat. You just have to run the gauntlet of aggressive old-lady beggars to get in there.

At the beach - Pt. 2

This is a wonderful pic of my Father-In-Law and my niece enjoying themselves on the beach in Vung Tau, Vietnam.
Now, any resident of Saigon knows that an annual trip to Vung Tau is one of the necessities of life. It is about 90 minutes drive from Ho Chi Minh City, and used to have the much more glamorous name of Cap St. Jacques. Naturally the communists stopped all that, and tried to turn it into a functional fishing village. But Vung Tau's glamorous past was always going to catch up with it, and it wasn't long till it became, once again, a weekend destination for stressed-out Saigonese.
This pic was taken on the private beach. Let me recommend the private beach. The public beaches in Vietnam have almost as many beggars, panhandlers and ruffians as genuine bathers, and if you want to go unmolested, you really should go the private route. It may seem a little elitist, I know, but even my patience has limits - particularly on the beach.
The People's Committee for the Vung Tau area was always a lot more lenient than that of Ho Chi Minh City, and as a result it became something of a religious centre - monks discovered they could establish monasteries relatively unharassed, and so the road to Vung Tau is littered with literally dozens of religious institutions of various stamps. It can be a fascinating trip for anyone interested in religion.
Ironically, Vung Tau has also became THE place for Saigonese to take mistresses/boyfriends etc. for dirty weekends, and the mid-priced hotels along the beach do a roaring trade in star-crossed (temporary) lovers.
For the most part, Vung Tau has nothing much to offer the average Western tourist save some warm, muddy water and some excellent seafood restaurants. But spend any time in Saigon and you'll soon be invited on a trip to Vung Tau - for whatever purpose.

Kwan Yin Worship

The one and only time I went to Dalat I spent much of my time seeking out obscure little Buddhist temples in the surrounding hills. I don't much like Dalat, though such an admission is sacrilege to my Vietnamese friends. It's too cold and dirty. But the inhabitants of Dalat, forced, probably, through all that grey, chilly weather and those cold showers, tend to be religious creatures. Dalat has re-invented itself as something of the focus of Zen Buddhist practise in Vietnam, and many notable Saigon monastics have their roots in Dalat.
One day my friends took me to quite a large nunnery on a distant mountain, and as always the sisters kept the place in tip-top shape and running perfectly. The place was filled with elderly nuns fingering their prayer beads, and the main hall rung out with the sounds of the younger nuns chanting the sutras and banging on an enormous fish drum.
A little track behind the main hall led up the mountainside, and when I reached the top I discovered this beautiful little shrine to Kwan Yin. There were women, lay and monastic, there offering their prayers, and my presence caused a great flurry of giggles. I was worried I'd wandered into a woman-only space, but one of the young sisters smiled at me and lit some incense for me to offer.
So here is the Kwan Yin on that isolated Dalat mountaintop, and some of the women who live in devotion to her.
Nam Mo Quan The Am Bo Tat!

Nostalgia #2

Here is a pic of my dear friend Thay Quang Thuc in front of a statue of Kwan Yin at Giac Uyen Temple in Phu Nhuan, Saigon. This pic was taken over 10 years ago, but strangely enough Quang Thuc has come back into my life. He is in Australia at the moment on a holiday, staying at the little Buddhist temple just up the road from me. We are exactly the same age, and many years ago we were great pals. He was a student at Van Hanh Buddhist University, and was so kind to me, taking me all around Saigon on the back of his Honda. Now I have had the opportunity to repay some of that kindness, taking him around some of the Buddhist sights in Sydney - isn't it odd how things turn out - we never know when someone from our past will reappear.
Which is why it pays to be kind to everyone, I guess.
Here is Quang Thuc now - this video was taken just a couple of weeks ago.

Nostalgia #1

A blast from the past, gentle readers!
The handsome young chap in the photo is yours truly, posing on the terrace of Tinh Xa Trung Tam in Phu Nhuan, Ho Chi Minh City sometime circa 1996!
Tinh Xa Trung Tam is a fascinating place, being one of the central monasteries for the indigenous Vietnamese monastic order, the Tang Gia Khat Si. I say 'one of' because after the death of the founder-master, Minh Dang Quang, in the 1950s, the order soon split along doctrinal lines, and in TPHCM there are several khat si (mendicant) monasteries which claim to be the 'Central Monastery'. Each of them represents the seat of one of the original disciples of Minh Dang Quang - almost every one of them established their own lineage and order, though all are ostensibly united beneath the teachings of the Master.
The Indigenous Mendicant Order is a fascinating experiment in Buddhist syncretism, and one day I hope to write a book about it (should be a mammoth seller!). Minh Dang Quang was a half Khmer, half Viet man who dreamed of repairing the Theravada and Mahayana division in Buddhism, and went about doing so, based on his own knowledge of both schools gained through his ethnic and racial blend. In Southern Vietnam, the TGKS represents around 20% of all Buddhists, though monastics from the more traditional schools look askance at this indigenous form. Their main criticism is that Minh Dang Quang translated the sutras into a rhyming form of everyday Viet language, making them easy for lay people to remember. The traditionalists, however, claim that these translations are lacking in depth and authenticity, and in some places are outright incorrect.
The TGKS monastics are easily recognised by their bright yellow robes and their practise of public begging. For the most part their theology is mainstream Pure Land Buddhism (hence the presence of this huge statue of Kwan Yin), but they insist that monastics follow the stricter Theravada Vinaya (i.e. the rules by which monks and nuns must live). It's a fascinating blend, and the only place in the modern world where such an amalgamation is practised.

Khmer Buddha

Some years ago (1999 in fact) I spent some months living in Vietnam studying Vietnamese at Ho Chi Minh Social Sciences University in Saigon. I was a devout Buddhist boy at the time, and spent most of my time in the company of monks. I developed some strong friendships with Khmer monks living and working in the city - many people forget that in southern Vietnam the Khmer people make up a sizable minority, and that Saigon itself was once a Khmer city.
These monks showed me a part of Vietnam that I didn't even know existed - whole provinces populated by Khmer people, vast temple complexes populated by 70 or 80 monks, a whole world speaking Khmer and observing the old-fashioned kind of Khmer culture that Pol Pot attempted to destroy in Cambodia itself.
One day, whilst strolling down Dong Khoi, I glanced into one of the fake antique shops and saw this wonderfully goofy Khmer Buddha statue. It was exactly the type made by amateur craftsmen that clutter up houses and temples all over Kampuchea Krom (those mostly Khmer provinces in South and South-Western Vietnam). I fell in love with it and have to have it. The charming woman in the shop sold it to me for an outrageous $60 (I could probably have bought it for $15 in Tra Vinh, where I remembered watching the men make similar statues), and also sold me a small sandalwood Bodhidharma into the bargain.
When I came home I didn't have room for it in my luggage, so it lived for some years in my sister-in-law's house in Ho Chi Minh City, much commented on, though I suspect she thought it hideous. Finally, a couple of years ago, I brought it home with me, and I absolutely cherish it - it is a focal point in my home. For a while he lost an ear (through the efforts of an over-zealous cleaning lady), but Thang repaired him, and now he is looking resplendent once more.

The Numa Numa Song

While I was in Vietnam (this time last year) the Numa Numa song was at the very height of its popularity - one could hear it blaring out of every clothing store and hairdressing salon from District 1 to Binh Chanh. They even played a hotted-up heavy bass version of it at Disco Ben Thanh. A friend of mine came to stay and within days was dreaming about the Numa Numa song, so deeply had this tricky and incomprehensible ditty entered his psyche.
A brief perusal of Youtube shows that the Numa Numa song has now taken over the world, and you can see and hear myriad different versions of it. I was delighted to discover that there is now a Vietnamese version, and it translates particularly well into Viet (let's face it, the original made no sense). And the guy singing it is just a hoot!!