Hue, Vietnam: Buddhist Monks' Tink Tam Vegetarian Restaurant

Tink Tam Restaurant Sign

This bad-ass female Buddhist monk (one of the few in Vietnam) drove a motorbike
ahead of our car to show us the way to her and her fellow monks' restaurant.

A mom from another family fawned over Boom. Her son was curious about Boom
then looked perplexed over why his Mom seemed to adore Boom more than him.

Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant kitchen.

My fave female monk makes my fave Vietnamese coffee for me and Ken.

They keep the coffee warm in a water bath. Delicious!
Looking at this makes me buzz like a junkie seeing a photo of heroin.

An orphan who grew up in the Buddhist temple, on the left. Now he's studying economics in college and speaks great English. He's a waiter to make extra money.

January 4, 2011

We ate an amazing vegetarian meal at a Buddhist monks' restaurant named Tink Tam. We also eat vegetarian food for lunch at our local Kuala Lumpur buddhist temple, and let me tell you, these monks sure know how to cook vegetarian in a yummy way. It often involves frying vegetables. And, a HUGE wok to stir fry all the food, dripping in different sauces.

As Ken and I lingered for a rare solo couple moment over our Vietnamese coffees (dark bitter, and contrasted with super sweet thick condensed milk!), the kids played upstairs and then rested in a hammock that the monks usually rest in between lunch and dinner.

Vietnamese Stamps

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This one's for my Dad who helped me develop my hobby of stamp collecting as a child. Here's Vietnamese stamps from across the ages.

Hue, Vietnam: The Vietnamese Dynasty of the O'Neal-Freemans

Hue, Vietnam: Emperor Tu Duc tomb

Emperor's tomb

Germany sent over archeologists to help locals restore this gateway to the emperor's tomb.

Boom needed a break from this tourism-intense day, playing in the mud with a stick.

Griffin, just a little shorter than Emperor Duc

In fact, all the statues had to be a bit shorter than the infamously short Emperor Duc.

Two out of 5 of us would have towered over Emperor Duc.

The emperor liked to ride elephants and horses.

January 4, 2011

Hard to believe that we also saw Tuc's tomb in this tourism-loaded day, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet! You can see that Boom took a break, playing in the rain and mud with his stick. We left him behind, although in sight, and another guide took him by the hand to take him to catch up with us, until I gave him the signal it was okay to leave Boom in the mud.

Duc's tomb was a real sanctuary, as if designed for a peaceful resting spot for the living. It turns out that this incredibly short, melancholy, self-critical, poetry-writing emperor was so pessimistic that he built his tomb and resting spot years before he died. Duc would come and roam the tomb grounds, writing poetry. He wrote a treatise criticizing himself as an ineffective emperor who let the people down and he had it written in stone, placing it at his tomb to be read by everyone who visited.

This was one dark little emperor. And, did I say he was small? So small, Griffin was almost as tall as him. He decreed that no statues at his tomb could be taller than him, so the statues are all mighty short. We all compared our height to his, standing next to the statues that were a smidgen shorter than him.

Hue, Vietnam: Incense Making Lesson

Incense Blooming

Griffin making incense.

Boom rolling up the incense.

January 4, 2011

The kids made some incense. They rolled a wood stick up with ground cinnamon and wood. Personally, I'd never seen the origins of incense and it was a fun craft-making activity for the kids. Click here to see them in action.

Hue, Vietnam: A Rare Glimpse of Thien Mu Temple Ancestors Celebration

Thien Mu Buddhist Monastery Leader going to start Ancestor Ceremony

Local Buddhist devotees praying to photos of their ancestors,
being blessed by their Buddhist monks chanting over them

The locals' ancestors

The locals bring food for the monks to celebrate the Ancestors' Day
on this first day of the 15 day lunar calendar.

January 4, 2011

We had a rare glimpse in time of an ancestors' celebration ceremony at the Thien Mu temple, with all its pomp and circumstance. Every 15th day of the Buddhist lunar calendar, something new is celebrated. This first day of the calendar, the ancestors of the local Buddhist congregation were honored and prayed to.

As we strolled through the temple, the Buddhist temple leader surprised us by popping out of the monastery, decked out in ceremonial robes with an umbrella held overhead by a couple older, but still young, monks at the temple. He was covered for the walk to the locals' temple near the big temple where Boom prayed. Inside, the leader sang along with the younger monks who sang, chanted and played small bells over the local Buddhist congregation as they prayed to their dead ancestors. Click here for the video.

This honoring of elders and ancestors seems to be universal in Buddhism, and Asia, in general. All older grandparents live with their children's family as they age. There are no old folks' homes in Vietnam, or most of Asia. My local Buddhist temple holds an annual red-tented meal for at least a hundred elder congregation members, complete with a Chinese dragon show and bedecked with flowers and welcoming younger members guiding elders to their seats.

Hue, Vietnam: Thien Mu Buddhist Monk Self-Immolation as Protest

The monk's heart.

January 4, 2011

At the Thien Mu temple, we were reminded of a 1963 story Ken and I vaguely remembered from high school history class. A Buddhist monk and leader of Thien Mu temple, named Thich Quang Duc drove the car above to Saigon, Vietnam to protest the Catholic Vietnamese regime led by the notoriously cruel and inept leader named Ngo. Ngo was trying to crush Buddhism in Vietnam, to the point that he not only discriminated against Buddhists but he killed Buddhist monks along with Buddhists.

After getting out of his blue car in Saigon, the monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire in a lotus position as a protest against Ngo regime brutality to Buddhists. He died and is a revered martyr by Vietnamese Buddhists, especially at this temple. They have a legend that he was completely burnt except for his heart, pictured above, representing his purity of heart, perhaps.

Seeing his car and reading his story gave us pause as parents, one of many on this trip. We had to first consider whether or not our kids were old enough to hear about a brutal, tortuous self-immolation. Then, we decided they were just barely ready to hear it and we explained it to the kids, emphasizing it as an act of protest against a brutal regime. The kids all asked lots of questions about the self-immolation and why anyone would burn themselves, but they didn't seem to be haunted by it...no nightmares or compulsive questioning about it later.

Actually, we've had to ask ourselves the question of whether or not to expose them to the brutal truth many times during our stay in Malaysia. And, I think that each time we've decided to be honest with them about societal suffering has not had bad consequences for them. I first faced and made this decision when I told them about my work with illegal refugee children here, and they played soccer at a soccer tournament with the refugee kids who "don't have a home, a country, and don't have enough money for soccer balls or to be on soccer teams." Then, we faced the same issue with begging Cambodian street children along with Cambodian limb-less mine victims aggressively begging for cash. I'm wondering if this time in Asia is not only toughening them up but also reaping the benefit of the kids leaving the protected Park Slope fold, to return with eyes wide open.

Hue, Vietnam: Abraham Praying at the Thien Mu Pagoda (Buddhist Temple)

Phuoc Duyen 7-level Tower at the Thien Mu temple entrance.

Traditional Vietnamese women's wear.

You can see why they say Hue women are the most beautiful!

This temple bell is rung by monks 108 times daily at 4am, heard 10K away.
108 for the 108 sufferings we experience in life.
Now there are 109 sufferings, after my kids rung it. Sorry, everyone!

Buddhas people pray to in the temple.

Young monk ringing the bowl bell repeatedly,
looking mighty bored, like he'd rather be playing soccer.

January 4, 2011

Our dragon boat took us to the Thien Mu pagoda (aka temple), at the top of a hill next to the Perfume River. Thien Mu is probably the most beloved of the hundreds of Buddhist temples in the supposedly secular state of Vietnam (70% of Vietnamese practice Buddhism). It is an active Buddhist monastery dating back to 1601. The pagoda’s name translates to “Heavenly Lady”, referring to a legend that an old woman had appeared on the hill, telling the locals about a Lord who would build a pagoda on that very site.

True, the kids were tired of seeing temples by this 2nd week of our 3 week trip across Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. But, this temple was so ALIVE and interactive that the kids were fascinated. They first started ringing the temple bell that's rung 108 times each morning at 4am, one for each of our sufferings as humans.

The kids didn't seem to appreciate that they added about 10 more sufferings to our human experience, with each additional ring they inflicted on us. Truth is, the fact that the bell is so loud at 4am, ringing 108 times loudly as far as 10 kilometers away, seems like that bell ringing counts as an additional human suffering for the villagers in a 10K radius. Click here to see the kids ringing the temple bell.

Buddhist culture on this trip is rubbing off on Abraham. He avidly prays with all the dramatic flourish of local Vietnamese Buddhist devotees. You HAVE to click here to watch this hilarious video of Boom praying in front of the Thien Mu Buddhas, next to an old Buddhist man praying, eyeing Boom with some confusion and seeming consternation. And, Boom's praying seems to have woken up the young Buddhist monk ringing the prayer bowl.

Even though I now have a Buddhist meditation practice, Boom likes to correct me in how I pray. "Mommy, no, you need to bend like this, not like that. Wait, hold your hands like this. Okay, then pray." It's like Buddha was reincarnated as my 4-year-old and he's coaching me on how to pray, in this 21st century of ours.

Just today Boom said "After you die, you are born again. Mommy, you were born in Nanny's belly. When Papa dies, whose belly is he going to be born in?" Boom must have overheard our guide explaining how Buddhists believe that after you die, you are born again. Funny how certain images and words are seared in a child's memory, even if the words are almost too advanced for them to fully understand. Why did Boom choose these adult words to remember over others? I suspect that he's going through a phase of grappling with the idea of death. At bedtime, he sometimes tells me "I'm not going to die soon, right? I'm not old like Nanny, Papa, Grammy, Harvey, right? Are they going to die soon? When?..." It must have seemed so reassuring to his brand spanking newly 4-year-old brain to hear that he and all his loved ones will just be born again, after they die, into some Mommy's warm belly. But, whose?