A day in Luang Prabang

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Luang Prabang is a beautiful, romantic town with rich Lao and French history. It has been preserved in it’s peaceful state despite being Laos’ tourism capital thanks to its UNESCO World Heritage status. The protected part of town doesn’t allow large buses down the streets and keeps an 11pm curfew on all the bars, preventing the town from becoming the “hedonists paradise” (to quote Lonely Planet) that is Vang Vieng.

My first day was wonderful. There is an organization in Laos called Big Brother Mouse (BBM). They print children’s books in Laos and English to provide reading material for village children and promote learning English. One of their main offices is in Luang Prabang. For $300US you can sponsor a “book party” and bring a supply of books to a remote village and spend the day reading with the kids. If you don’t have the money to donate you can volunteer each morning from 9am-11am at their office to practice English with any students that show up. Mostly the students are high school and college age.

I woke up early and headed to one of t several Western run cafes that are overpriced but offer some familiar comfort foods and delicious baked goods. Just seeing a proper espresso machine in a café was comforting and brought me home to Seattle, even though I don’t drink coffee! I enjoyed my black tea with sweet milk (condensed milk, try it, so good!) and a chocolate croissant (real chocolate!). Then I headed to BBM to find only one other traveler there to volunteer. Eventually 2 other travelers showed up to teach as well, but I was surprised that there were not more. Much of Luang Prabang is entirely travelers and tourists and BBM is highlighted in the Lonely Planet as a fun, easy way to volunteer and meet some students. I was really looking forward to it.

I spoke and read with Jacki for the 2 hours. He is a 20 year old college student studying education and English. He was excited to read with me and listen to me speak but seemed shy about constructing his own sentences. We read a BBM book about the ancient wonders of the world. I asked him questions about what we were reading and challenged him to use his English independently.

I learned a lot as well. After about an hour I asked the question, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go to?” He looked confused and thought for a while and asked me to repeat the question. I did, speaking slower. He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote too and to. “Please explain me, I don’t understand difference,” he said.

Ah, I thought. Grammar. I was not the right person to teach grammar but I could give it a try. I began to explain the difference of when you use to in order to describe a destination and when you use too in order to describe likeness. Jacki shook his head. “I don’t hear difference,” he said. He also wrote down four & for, their & there, world & word.

Oh! He was asking me how to distinguish the difference in sound between the two words (no pun intended…). Suddenly a lot of my frustration in Vietnam made so much sense. Lao and Vietnamese are tonal languages, Vietnamese being the more difficult with 6 tones. When in Vietnam, I and many other travelers were frustrated by our inability to communicate with Vietnamese words. Try as we might to say “Lipton Sua Da” (Lipton tea w/ condensed milk) or “Pho Ga” or the name of a destination, no one could understand us. Often the context seemed so obvious we couldn’t believe that people didn’t figure out what we were trying to communicate. I knew I didn’t pronounce the tones correctly, but if I’m in a café what else could I be asking for? Sometimes, if you said the word more than 15 times you would get response, “Ahhhh, Lipton Sua Da!” Yes, finally! (later I found out that Da could mean both ice or milk depending on the tone, no wonder sometimes my tea was on ice!) It amazed me that people really had such a hard time understanding our attempts. Now, all at once, I was able to comprehend the extreme difference in how the Lao and Vietnamese listen to their language. In English we hear the whole word as part of the sentence order and context. If I say, “I’m going to the market to buy four eggs,” no native English speaker would mistake the sentence for, “I’m going too the market too by for eggs,” because that means nothing. However, here they are listening less for the word and more for the tone. In Vietnamese there are actual few “sounds” compared to the English dictionary of words, but each of these one syllable sounds can have 6 meanings with the correct tones applied, and most of them do! It makes little sense to them that we can have words that sound exactly the same, when we could easily be distinguishing them with tones. And it makes little sense to us that we can say the sounds of their words and not be understood. Jacki was looking for clarity to help him translate English sentences in his head when he didn’t know if he had just heard too or to. How confusing that must be!

I tried my best to explain our concept of “context.” I gave him examples and told him to take his best guess in difficult situations, he would probably be right.

After BBM I explored the various temples in town. I enjoy visiting the temples and taking some time to observe the young monks doing their daily chores. However, after several Wats you understand Lonely Planet’s use of the term “temple-fatigue.” I found it fascinating to discover that at one temple the entire front side was decorated by gold carvings depicting the Hindu epic of Ramayan. This made me curious to understand the shared history of Hinduism and Buddhism and where the religions overlapped in philosophies. (This resulted in me downloading a book on Hinduism, a book on Buddhism, and the Quran onto my Kindle, I’m excited to finally begin to read these ancient texts, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.)

At 5:30pm I returned to a large Wat to observe the evening prayer/chanting. Again I was surprised by the lack of other Westerners. There’s not that much to do in Luang Prabang, where is everyone? A girl my age entered and sat next to me. We waited for the young monks to filter into the temple. The novices took their places on the floor in front of us. They exchanged hushed comments and giggled. One boy folded a paper plane with what looked like a page ripped from his prayer book. After only a day in Luang Prabang, where you see many novice monks hanging around the town, you realize that they really are just boys. I think most Westerners feel a certain reverence when we see the shave head and orange robs. In Laos it is typical for boys to become a monk at some point in their childhood or teenage years, whether it is for several months or several years. Each boy has the freedom to decide to when he completes his “monk-hood.” Certainly, these boys are studying Buddhism and live with a certain level of discipline and simplicity, but you remember that they are also just children when you see them playing in the river, running in the streets, and even smoking cigarettes.

Soon the chanting began and my mind and heart thought of mom instantly. The monks recite their prayers in a tone that incredibly and immediately reverberates through your whole body. I’m sure my mother would describe the sensation as “waves of energy” continually passing through you. During the half-hour of chanting the young monks came and went. They asked permission from a monk at the doorway before they left, bowing to him, then running out. Outside we could hear their laughter. In front of us it was fascinating to watch them pass whispers between each other and giggle, sneaking glances back at the observing monk to check if he had caught them.

When the chanting finished they began a silent meditation. The monk next to us smiled and said, “You try! Meditation.” So I did. I sat upright with my legs crossed and tried to focus my mind on… nothing? Oh, if mom could see me now! I don’t know if she would be proud or laugh, probably both. For 15 minutes we were silent. Towards the end, I have to admit, I opened my eyes a couple of times. What if they had all started to get up and I was still sitting there with my eyes closed! So I’m not a natural at meditating having never asked my mother for any instruction and her never having imposed her daily routine on me. I’m not sure if meditation could be my thing, but yoga does interest me more and more.

Once all the monks got up, the monk that had told me to meditate came over and asked Laura (the Hungarian girl I was sitting next to) if we had some free time. We did and he invited us to sit with him and talk for a while so he could practice his English. We asked him some questions and we joked around. He told us he studied business and English in college and enjoyed being a monk. He thought he would probably finish his time in the Wat in about a year. He tied bright orange strings around our wrists and said a prayer for each of us wishing us a safe trip and success in our careers. We asked more questions about how they live and the rules they follow. Apparently, they are not allowed to play sports, such as football and basketball, and they are not supposed to intentionally condition/exercise their body. So why did so many of the teenage monks have surprisingly buff looking arms? We asked him. He laughed. Because the boys do push-ups and pull-ups in the bathroom where no one else can see them. Male teenagers are male teenagers, despite the orange robs, and they are still vain enough to want to show off. He did not partake in the secret workouts. In fact, I got the impression he may be gay. He asked us if we were interested in seeing his room. We were curious so we followed him into the house where all the monks have their rooms. He shared a room with a novice who slept on the floor, our monk had a bed and many pictures of himself taken by friends on the wall. It was cute, but when he asked us to sit and continue our conversation I think both Laura and I felt uncomfortable. There must be a line somewhere to how friendly we should be. After all, monks could not touch women, were they allowed to invite them into their bedrooms, gay or not? And besides, I was very hungy and ready for dinner. We thanked him for his hospitality and left. Maybe we would return tomorrow afternoon for another conversation, we had had a lot of fun.

(i'm hoping to find time eventually to write a blog about my experience at Tat Bak when the monks collect their alms in the morning... maybe in another week...)