All in the Family

This last Friday, a colleague at, work who came to Vietnam through his college, invited Bryn and I to go with his class to visit the Perfume Pagoda or "Chùa Hương" in Vietnamese. The Perfume Pagoda is actually a vast complex of different Buddhist temples and shrines built in and around the Huong Tich Mountains. It's pretty famous and near Hanoi so expected that I would go eventually. However, our colleague informed Bryn and me that the bus would leave around 8:00am.  That meant Bryn and I would have to leave our house around 7:30.  I was looking forward to sleeping in this weekend but Bryn and I agreed to go.

However, after dinner my host mother asked me if I would like to come with her to visit Hoa Binh Province where she and my host father were going to visit an ancestor's grave. We would leave at 6:30am.

I decided that I would have plenty of chances to visit Perfume Pagoda but I didn't know when I would get another chance to go with a Vietnamese family to visit a ancestor's grave, so I canceled my previous plans and said "yes" to my host mother's offer.

The ancestor's grave and altar is located in a small town in Hoa Binh province.  It took us a little over three hours to get there. It was the most rural place I had been to in Vietnam so far.  The landscape included open fields and large jagged rocks.  I made the trip with both host parents, three relatives, and a lady that I realized later was a priestess.  We drove out into the middle of a field where the altar was.

Ancestor worship is significant part of Vietnamese culture.  Most every house, shop, restaurant, school, gym, etc. has an altar set aside to honor the ancestors. Ancestors are thought to influence the lives of the living.  So in temples, homes, and grave sites, people pray to the ancestors to ask for help and positive influences. At the grave of this particular ancestor, my host family offered a plate with chicken and rice, beverages (including Coca Cola), flowers, cigarettes, and burned incense.  We all sat down in front of the altar while the priestess lady read out a list of names and places in a sort of chant.  The worship process lasted for perhaps and hour or more.  Towards the end, my host mother started acting strange.  She all of a sudden slapped her legs and then began speaking to the rest of the people with her eyes closed.  I soon realized that the ancestor was apparently speaking through her.  The most surprising thing about this was how nonchalant everyone else seemed to be.  My host dad seemed to talk her casually, asking what she/he wanted.  Apparently he wanted water poured around the altar.  My host dad complied.

We also burned paper objects to send to the ancestor.  The paper objects included horses, dragons, and paper money.  After finishing the worship, we gave the food and drink to the nearby farmers that worked the land.

That was on Saturday.

 I don't have time right now to talk about what happened on Tuesday but I'll give a teaser: