-^-for posterity-^-

the 27th day of the last month of the lunar new year.

today i went with a friend to venerate his ancestors. i was told to be at their house at 700 and that his father had a car. no one has a car here and this thoroughly confused me.

when i arrived, i was delighted, surprised and couldn’t stop laughing. the car was a french ‘citroen’ from maybe 1950. the father said it was brought to vietnam in 1960 but couldn’t say exactly when it was manufactured. my mother had told me about these cars from when she studied in germany. she said they called them ‘flying nuns’. the cars are squat and curvy, but not in a sensual way. the wheel hubs are gigantic and stretch out horizontally from the body of the car. when you look at the car from the front, you see two giant bug-eye lights protruding from a tiny grill, a hood that is tapered for some reason, gigantic wheel hubs and a tiny cab with a large vietnamese man behind a gigantic steering wheel. i was afforded the front passenger seat because of my height and we were off. to shift gears in this relic of a car, one must pull out a black leaver and turn it. i didn’t quite figure it out and whenever gears were changed, there was a reassuring mashing noise resonating from somewhere beneath us. we drove slowly to their ancestors home land with my hand hanging out of the window and my head hitting the ceiling on every bump.

we arrived on a small, dirt road that runs parallel to a canal of the mekong. there were two largish houses to my right and many older people standing around drinking tea. we walked towards the group and greeted everyone.

we gathered plastic bags full of fruit, bread and other snacks and headed off towards the jungle. walking through the jungle is fascinating and i always end up being on guard for some reason. the ground is formed and clay-like. it does not form a smooth path, but rather a path that is covered in miniature clumps of clay that have been dried and packed by the sun and human feet.

we arrived at the tomb of my friend’s family. it sits in the middle of a beautiful rice paddy that is surrounded on all sides by majestic trees. the tomb is a fairly large, fenced in area with two off-white tombs about three feet off of the ground sitting parallel with each other. between them is a small alter. the tombs are in the half of the fenced in area that is covered with a roof and each tomb has a picture of the deceased on it. it has been half reclaimed by the jungle when we came to visit.

there were large vines growing on both of the tombs. they crept up from the floor and were making a vain attempt to retake the jungle floor. we used a machete and chopped them away. we swept and cleaned and made the tomb look perfect. everyone lit incense and prayed at a small alter.

we went up the path to another set of tombs. this was the extended family. i was shown the tomb of the great-great grandfather who was the founder of the family. he came down to vietnam back in the late 1800’s from china. he had one wife who died and he married another. his tomb was old and made of ornate concrete. he was a very rich man.

all of the men stood around the tombs talking about those that came before them and those that will come after them and the whole system really started to make sense. they do not pray and ask for favors, or protection. they pray to remember and to be remembered. i believe the simple fact that the whole family walks out to the tombs and looks at the grainy black and white pictures is just as important as the actual prayer. to remember those that came before you, to remember their pains and their joys will inevitably help you in your own life. there are lessons to be learned.

i thought about my family at home. my home is a small town about an hour from philadelphia. my family’s church is located not two hundred yards up a hill and every time you set foot on our dining room balcony, you are faced with a sloping cemetery. i remember many sunday diners where my father, some of my great aunts and my grandparents would walk up to the church and mull through the grayish white stones. they would tell stories and remember the people. i remember going with them a few times and, as i grew up, appreciating the stories more and more.

today we returned from our venerating and i was given a tour of the town. it turns out that their great-great grandfather was very wealthy and had the first house built of stone in this province. the remains of the house were still there. there was a gigantic wall with intricate carvings all over it. there were high, arching windows. it was a beautiful wall, but something was wrong. there was only one wall, the rest of the house was missing. the wall that remained looked very sturdy and there were a number of bamboo houses built around it.

back in 1945, the french were raping the vietnamese countryside and also bringing ‘civilization’. they were very concerned with groups that fought against them and one of these groups was the ‘viet minh’ (a predecessor to the viet cong). well, back in 1945, the french were trying to take a firmer grip on their land after being kicked off of it by the japanese in wwii. they ended up burning this gorgeous house because the owner, my friend’s great-great grandfather, sympathized with them. now, all that is left is the charred remains of what must have been one of the most beautiful houses in the mekong.

our day ended and most of the family told me the story of the burnt house. i’ll have to return to take pictures. we said goodbye to everyone, hoped in our french ‘citroen’ drove past the charred remains, and headed home.