Saturday, April 02, 2005

A message from A. who is in Vietnam traveling with Thich Nhat Hahn. I post this here for others that know her. Excerpts:

...Its like traveling with the dalai lama, we usually
arrive in places in a big procession. Its quite something, with the
drums going to announce his arrival, and everyone bowing to us and
giving us flowers.  People mistake me for a nun when I am wearing my
robes (the robes we laypeople are wearing are the same as the nuns - a
gray ao dai)....

..we went to a museum about an hour from the temple where
the monastics stay, and were watching the ethnic peoples perform these
fantastic dances to the drum and gong (and also displays of sword and
spear fighting).  This sweet woman in her seventies was fanning me so
i wouldn't get too hot.  She spoke english and had worked for the
american embassy and had a half american child.  All of this means
that she must of have suffered a lot, because the americans abandoned
the vietnamese who worked for them in the embassy, and people who had
amercian children here were reviled for a long time.  So I thanked her
after the performance and hugged her, and she started weeping and said
"I miss you so much"; I think she was not talking to me but to the
Americans who abandoned her...

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