Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam (i)
from anthropologist Philip Taylor and Vietnamese studies
First sentence of the first chapter, at right, “At the base of a small mountain on Vietnam’s border with Cambodia stands a shrine to a goddess known as Bà Chúa Xứ, the Lady of the Realm.”
Where? Find Saigon just to the right of the middle of the northeast quadrant on the map at left. Philip Taylor is calling it HO CHI MINH CITY after the reign name of the man who accepted the sword of the Nguyen dynasty in 1945 directly from the last emperor at Ba Dinh square in Ha Noi ,
where Ho now enjoys a cult as he does not so much in Saigon. Slide your eyes directly left to the center of the northwest quadrant to find Vinh Te at the top of the Seven Mountains. There at the piedmont just north of the Mekong delta, just south of Cambodia, the edge as well as the middle of nowhere,
is the shrine of Bà Chúa Xứ, the Lady of the Realm. Philip visited her 6 times to write this account of her cult. By cult we mean as in the cult of Mary. There is no cult leader. The cult takes you onto the high road where you meet many people rather than cloistering you away from others. There are many teachings, not resolved into a doctrine.
Every variety of silly bullshit, to put it one way. The novelist Ho Anh Thai (2012) and the poet Linh Dinh (2010) have each written fiction you can read in English about how Vietnamese life is stuffed with every kind of happy horseshit. Ho made the same point as he fought the French, calling traditional life superstitious,
and in turn the critics of Ho’s own dynasty have pointed out his many illusions. Philip wrote his first Fragments of the Present (2001) from such discussions among intellectuals in southern Viet Nam under the Ho. But this one is about the life of the people, not their everyday life, except for the carnies who work the show,
but life in pilgrimage. What is silly bullshit when you live it, when you journey with your people on a quest?
Publicity:
Authors my age whether born there or regarding Viet Nam from abroad share a common theme, that life over there is full of astonishing bullshit.
Among my contemporaries Philip Taylor has gone to great lengths to participate in outrageous nonsense, to observe what it is all about.
What anthropologists do. Not to be missed. Well, maybe you will take my word for it.
Anthropologists, one literary critic has observed, are the people who lead fascinating lives and write boring books about them. I disagree. I rather can hardly open a literary memoir, novel or travelogue from the United States,
the depth of horseshit about allegedly normal American lives and values I don't share too deep for me to shovel. By contrast I could read Philip on pilgrimage all day long.
Here is the first of many posts to come about doing that very thing. Read me writing about Philip writing about his friends on the road to the Lady and you have fulfilled our purpose here.
Thank you. Should you further take part in our pilgrimage through Viet Nam letters at $50 or $250 annually we will appreciate it.