A Year In Indochina: Treated to some unique performances

A positive change I have noticed in my life recently is that I have been naturally waking up early and feeling full of energy, something I accredit to my improved fitness of late. A less positive trend has been my very poor motivation in the past few days, setting me behind on this week's work. This weekend we are taking a trip to the Cat Tien national park in the Central Highlands and I have plenty to get done before then. With these considerations in mind I took an early walk after breakfast today in the hope that the morning exercise would focus my mind to my work when I got back home. It seemed to work. The walk was a little unusual however, as on my way home I began to hear military music in the distance and far ahead of me could see a hazy green block marching towards me, a sight that could be a little unnerving. As I got closer I saw that, sure enough, a troop of about forty young soldiers, presumably newly-recruited, were marching loops up and down the road to a horrible, endless military song. They were carrying large guns but didn't look intimidating as they were so youthful and lazy-looking. At the edge of the road a few officers watched critically and some passers-by stopped to watch, but besides this the drill inspired little interest, despite the fact that it seemed so surreally out of place in our quiet, leafy neighbourhood. I stood and watched to take it all in, reminding myself that I am in a country very different from my own.

I told Thuy about this when I got home, thinking she may have seen the spectacle when she was out walking the dog earlier. Her eyes bulged like a terrified child. "How many?", she asked.
"It's another war", interjected Jessica from the kitchen table, perhaps a little tastelessly.
"No," said Thuy, who lived through the war years, "the war is over now!"
"The English are coming," Jessica warned her. "Amy is a spy".

In the afternoon I cycled over to the Anh Linh school for my first art class of the week. I had thirteen students today and we made cardboard puppets, which were secured to wooden skewers. The colour of the paints came out really nicely on the cardboard, which I had collected from the boxes of La Vie mineral water we have delivered to the house. The children finished the work quite quickly and I set them the task of devising a story in groups and performing a play to the class using the puppets they'd just made. The kids would squat behind one of the desks and enact their story, with the Thuyen the English teacher translating for me. We saw three performances and interestingly, each had a clear moral to them. Firstly, there was the story of two rich girls (characterised by puppets with pretty hair and dresses) who befriended a poor girl (a puppet wearing a traditional conical hat, usually associated with peasants and those who work on the streets). The rich girls' parents didn't want them to be friends with a poor girl, so they dutifully shunned her. Until one day, when one of the rich girls' bag was stolen on the street and the poor girl rushed to help, leading the two girls to apologise to the poor girl and re-evaluate their values. The girls who created this story checked the translation of the word, then told me the name of their play was 'Friendship'. Next, three other girls performed a story about a girl, who they named Philip, who met a wicked witch called Alice and was taken away to "Wonderland". Philip's friend went looking for her in Wonderland and they were both snatched up by the wicked witch. A grisly ending. The wise message of the story was to never follow strangers. Finally, two boys who had been messing around all day went to perform their play. I was not at all surprised when it went as follows:
Puppet 1: "What's your name?"
Puppet 2: "Why do you want to know?"
Puppet 1: "Because I want to be your friend"
Puppet 2: "Well I don't want to be your friend."
[The two puppets clash violently and have to be separated by Thuyen]
They told me, half-convincingly, that the message of the story was not to fight over small things.

The students were keen to hear my feedback from their performances and then asked me to look at each of the puppets and "commend" them. At the end of the class one of the students presented me with his puppet as a gift, prompting nearly all of the class to follow suit. Despite the sweet gesture I was disappointed as I hoped they'd take them home to play with, but I could hardly turn down something offered to me as a gift. Next time I will have to make it clear that it would make me happy if they kept their work as a reminder of our class.

On my bike ride home I spotted one of the little girls from my class, who had kept hold of her work, walking alone along the street, wearing an oversized backpack and twiddling her puppet by the stick. It was an endearing sight, although she looked so small and vulnerable in the busy road.

These three girls insisted on sitting at one desk together, and created identical puppet replicas of me.

Planning their puppet show

I love the bold colours on this witch puppet

Performance: Philip in Wonderland

Me with my lovely class

In the evening I met up with Jessica in town for a trip to the Saigon opera house. She had bought the two of us tickets to see Ao Show, a performance by a Vietnamese acrobatic troop depicting the evolution between traditional village life and modern city living in Vietnam. It was a fantastic show to watch, with impressive stunts and choreography and a charming use of lighting, traditional music and props (all the stunts were performed with oversized wicker baskets and ten-foot long bamboo poles) to give a very evocative impression of Vietnamese life. I had expected this to be very tourist-orientated, but in fact I was pleased to find it quite touching. Already I can sense the nostalgia I will soon feel for this country after I've left. In the 'modern, urban' phase of the performance, a special appearance was made by a young lad doing stunts on his bike, cycling along the aisle between the audience and then hopping onto the stage.

In a very unusual move, the performers led the audience out of the theatre at the end of the show and lined the stairs to thank us as we left. They even courteously posed on the steps for photos after everybody had passed through. Jessica and I went outside and admired the beautiful site of the French-built opera house lit up at night (it is much less impressive inside). Slickly, the stunt bike performer from the show rolled through the front entrance, down the steps and disappeared into the traffic."See it before the world talks about it," read the slogan for the production on posters outside.

We met up with Crystal and ended the evening at SH Garden, a great top-floor Vietnamese restaurant with views over the city. This place also incorporates elements from traditional Vietnamese village life into its décor, making it the perfect accompaniment to the production we'd just seen. I think I love this country more and more the longer I stay.