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Flash Dispatch, 2-16:
Cultural Comprehensive
Searching for Heritage in Hoi An
By Maura Nguyen Donohue
Copyright 2001 Maura Nguyen Donohue
HOI AN, Vietnam -- Dalat,
city of the eternal spring. I kept referring to it as VN's San Francisco,
with its avant garde haunts, generally mellow pace and hills hills
hills. However, I was just told that the rainy season can last six
months up in the Highlands. So I'm changing my comparison to Seattle.
And, after the past few days that comparison might well be shared
with the sweet and soaked town of Hoi An.
I 'honeymooned' in Dalat
for one night during the early phase of last year's wedding odyssey
at The Crazy House. This is a cafe, art gallery and guest house
right out of your wildest acid flashback. Hang Nga, the mastermind
behind rooms built into fake tree trunks and caves (we enjoyed the
Gourd Room in the Tower) looks like she'd have been more comfortable
in the Haight-Ashbury a couple of decades ago rather than suffering
the regular disapproval of Dalat's People's Committee (a.k.a. The
Thought Police). Her compatriot in the pursuit of individual expression
is the goateed, chain-smoking poet Duy Viet. You can find him, with
beret permanently attached to his head, tending to his overwhelming
flower gardens, teaching kung fu, painting, writing calligraphy
in French, Vietnamese or English, or serving up croissants and 'ca
phe sua' (Vietnam's most delicious milk coffee) at his tranquil
StopNGo Cafe. Though he won't speak much about it, he is part of
what has been called VN's Lost Generation. 80% of VN's population
is under 40 years old and most of that group is under 30. I wonder
often as I gaze out into this country how long social memory lasts
against numbers like this. Viet and his peers enjoyed trips to camp
after the South's 'Liberation' in 1975. That's re-education camp.
His great crime was serving as a correspondent to a Saigon newspaper.
Until VN's 'doi moi' policy in the mid/late 1980s was initiated
many of Viet's generation couldn't work and were cut off from all
social activities. Art was developed in a vacuum with artistic projects
dictated by the government. Even now, people like Hang Nga and Duy
Viet exist at the fringes of society, developing their ideas in
private and attaining merely a novelty status among foreign travelers.
In Nha Trang, VN's nicest
municipal beach town, and Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site since
1999, I re-evaluate my take on cultural tourism. The Visiting Arts
Project and the Ford Foundation are working with the Ministry of
Culture and Information to coordinate a program to develop arts
and culture management in a market economy. In a substantial report
about findings and suggestions, they site various problems for developing
cultural tourism. Among these include the requirement of the MCI
for companies to stage specific (often large-scale) performances
of political or historical importance, without additional funding
to subsidize these. Many companies feel that change is something
that happens to them rather than something they themselves can initiate.
And they perceive that the language problems within the work will
not develop interest among tourists.
Some effort towards creating
venues for tourists to witness aspects of Vietnamese culture in
performance, other than say those of your ever-available cafe-om,
karaoke-om, or beer-om girls, are developing. Unfortunately some
are like the depressing dinner show of ethnic minority song and
dance performances at Nha Trang's Vien Dong Hotel. Here I face the
deadly poison that this form of cultural consumption can create.
The performers seem understandably bored with only 10 people scattered
about the large hotel's courtyard on a Tuesday night. The musicians
look entirely distracted and the women performing the traditional
dances remind me of a school recital for Miss Janes, or Miss Nguyen's
rather, School of Dance. Two male performers offer some lively versions
of minority dance but in the end its difficult to gauge how authentic
and true to origin these dances are since they look something like
a Comp 1 exercise. So, I go in search of a couple of the three provincial
dance companies. When I finally find the base for Hai Dang Song,
Dance & Music Company and Khanh Hoa Provincial Ethnic Song, Dance
& Music Company I discover, via my pathetic Vietnamese but outstanding
charades, that the hotel show is the only regular gig in town. And
after perusing a few photos of the groups in action I realize the
best I'd get from these guys is more of the same with maybe a little
more zeal. Or as they like to say around these parts "Same, Same
but different."
Thankfully, Hoi An's
presentation at the Traditional Performance House, a room above
the Champa Bar & Cafˇ, restores my faith in what this kind of venue
can offer. Hoi An is a quaint town virtually untouched by the various
wars and was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. As
part of this they offer nightly performances of, you got it, song,
dance and music. At my count there were only five, including myself,
foreign tourists among the 40+ audience members who crowded into
the 18'x18' room. But the enthusiastic Vietnamese audience, who
all arrived together at the last moment, helped develop an attentive
crowd. Plus the dancers were practically in my lap many times. The
MC apologized prior to the performance, explaining that they are
not professionals, and asked for our forgiveness should anything
displease us. And then the not-so-professional musicians proceeded
to Rock OUT! Pieces featuring the dan Tranh, 16 string zither, the
dan Nhi, a 2 string fiddle (like the Chinese Erhu), and Vietnam's
unique dan Bau, a monochord, are exciting, compelling, vibrant and
at moments very contemporary. The dancers have much more energy
but the choreography is still a pretty weak mix of folk dance movement
and a little show biz butt shaking in between. I've still yet to
find a traditional dance performance that can rival the richness
of those easily seen on the streets in Thailand or in the young
dancers and their few remaining masters in Cambodia.
And it is here that I
am reminded that though dance does exist at some level here it is
truly through song that Vietnam expresses itself. The unfortunate
blandness of Viet Pop, a form without harmony or variation from
the standard synth drum beat, might scare you away. And, I too have
spent many a night cursing the Japanese for sharing karaoke with
the Vietnamese. Struggling into sleep against the painful howls
of some Vietnamese hopeful blasting their way through Celine Dion.
But, folk songs are everywhere and song is the integral part of
many of the traditional and modern theatrical forms here. Even without
too careful attention, any visitor here should notice that this
is a country that grows up singing. And it is there in it's many
forms that almost everyone here dances.
(Editor's Note: To read
Maura Nguyen Donohue's Saigon Dispatch, click here.
To read her Hanoi Dispatch, click here.)
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