Toasting Vietnamese rice wine
An Act of Random Kindness
Vietnamese music hits a chord in America - As with most cultures, for Vietnamese people music is a powerful wellspring of emotions and cultural identity; and interestingly, music transported to another land often finds new and novel ways of evolving and thriving.
Happy October 2004, Vietnam Art Gallery subscribers!
To those of you planning for a visit from a white bearded man in a red suit this December, don't forget to choose a painting or two for your loved ones in preparation. Free shipping added to great art and low, low prices are hard to beat!
This month's newsletter brings you assorted tales from the land of the dragons and legends.
=============== CONTENTS ===============
- Toasting Vietnamese rice wine. Reflecting Vietnam's ethnic diversity, ruou (rice wine) delivers an intoxicating array of tastes and traditions. Go >>
- An Act of Random Kindness! An account of James Murtaugh's trip to Vietnam, or, how the people of a country
can often make an impression on a traveller that will remain with them for decades to come. Go >>
- Vietnamese music hits a chord in America. As with most cultures, for Vietnamese people music is a powerful wellspring of emotions and cultural identity; and interestingly, music transported to another land often finds new and novel ways of evolving and thriving. Go >>
- Artist of the month. Nguyen Duy Nhi: A favourite of Vietnam Art Gallery patrons, Nguyen's bold use of vibrant colours sweep across the canvas, delighting the eye with their lyrical vitality. Nguyen's use of definitive lines adds a lithographic aspect to many of his works, while the figures depicted are often playful and magical. Go >>
=== Toasting Vietnamese rice wine ===
Reflecting Vietnam's ethnic diversity, ruou (rice wine) delivers an intoxicating array of tastes and traditions.
While expensive scotch, imported whisky, French wine and even Russian vodka may be gaining popularity among urbane tipplers, most Vietnamese men still prefer the local ruou.
The local liquor or medicinal wine can be a concoction of rice, corn, herbs, cassava or fruit, and even animals like snakes, geckos, sea-horses, goats or crows.
Despite the low price, the local liquors are often nothing to turn your nose up at either. Foreigners served a local home brew liquor called quoc lui (country spirit) are often surprised at the high quality.
For beginners, Vietnamese liquor can be broken into three general categories: quoc lui of the Hong (Red) River Delta; ruou can in the Northwest and Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) and ruou de (rice wine) in the Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta.
Tay Nguyen brew
For ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, ruou can is a spiritual drink.
Ruou can conjures up images of spiritual culture and festivities around a bonfire or inside a nha rong (long communal stilt house), coupled with the age-old mystical rites of liquor-offering by villagers.
In the late afternoon light inside a stilt-house with trembling silhouettes to and fro, beside a fire in the fading twilight, men can be found drinking a deceptively strong, sweet liquor out of a large vase through bamboo straws.
When families or tribes gather in times of joy as well as in their times of sadness, they sit on their hunkers, clasp a bamboo shoot and suck ruou can.
The origin of ruou can in these communities is said to come from a time when a man visited the God of the Porcupine and received a milky-white drink that made the man feel as if he were walking on air. Then the God taught the man how to make it, and just as importantly, how to drink it.
That is why ethnic people offer ruou can up to Giang (Heaven) and the God of the Porcupine before drinking it. Each ethnic group has their own way of offering ruou can, but perhaps one of the most unique belongs to the E De tribe.
For special occasions they drink liquor by a method called map-po-to-rai (water-fall). A jar of ruou can is tied against the ritual pillar of the house. Seven charming girls in ceremonial dresses, standing up or kneeling down, form a gradually descending line to the jar, each with a bowl of water in their hands.
In turn, they pour water from the highest bowl to the next, and a waterfall of ruou gushes down to the bottom jar for distinguished guests to drink from.
The guest must bend the pipe and gulp until they can drink no more in order to prove their sincerity and their affiliation with their hosts.
Red River wine
Every year, Ngo Van Trac from To Village of Ta Thanh Oai Commune in Ha Noi's Thanh Tri District, distils home made liquor to prepare for the Spring Festival. The age-old recipe, handed down through many generations, is a slow careful process and considered a family secret.
Trac explains the distinction between glutinous rice liquor, ordinary rice liquor, and cassava liquor: "It is very difficult to make a distinction between glutinous rice liquor and ordinary rice liquor. Glutinous rice liquor has a mild aroma and gives you a shock when you drink it. Ordinary rice liquor is not so tasty or aromatic, though some distillers add some leaves of glutinous rice to add scent or flavour.
"As for cassava rice, its smell enters your nose when you sniff at it and after a gulp you feel at once quite shocked. If its alcoholic volume is too high it is bitter and usually it gives you a headache."
Van Village liquor, made in the two communes of Van An and Tam Da of Bac Ninh Province's Yen Phong District, is so famous that liquor distributor's export thousands of litres of to Ha Noi daily, a host of other provinces in North and South Vietnam and even to Laos.
Mekong mixture
In Kien Giang Province's An Bien District, Ba My Chau's family began to brew liquor about a century ago and this craft has been handed down from mother to daughter for generations.
"As you know, this is a drinking land," Chau says. "They drink liquor everyday. Some prefer drinking liquor to eating. Some even start work only after a gulp of wine. Even women drink!"
Visitors to the district of Ngoc Hien of Ca Mau Province will find houses of elders drinking and chatting and younger men drinking after a hard afternoon's work.
The locals drink liquor with just some roasted dried-fish, unripe bananas or some slices of cucumber with nuoc mam (fish-sauce). Visitors may be surprised at the broad range of topics which moves from recently harvested crops to domestic affairs to international sporting events.
Drinking culture can also help unite communities, as in a story from An Bien which tells of a young man who falls for a girl above his station.
The boy's family are reluctant to ask for marriage even though they know the girl's family, but at a banquet after the boy's father pours out a cup of liquor to the girl's father in a courteous manner the subject comes up. Afterwards the fellow-eaters heartily approve and the boy's dream of marriage comes true.
The culture of drinking
Drinking is a central aspect of cultures all over the world and the Vietnamese are no different. In Vietnam it is not only the quality of wine or the method of distilling, but also in the way liquor is offered and shared. When they drink they toast to good health, prosperity and happiness.
Of course when we drink on those happy occasions, lest we forget, too much can ruin a happy day. The cultured drinker is the one who knows to drink just enough!
=== An Act of Random Kindness ===
James Murtaugh last stayed in Hue, Vietnam, in 2003. The following is his account of his trip there - and how the people of a country can often make an impression on a traveller that will remain with them for decades to come. James recounts the following from his travel diary:
"My wife and I are staying at the Saigon Morin Hotel. My favorite hotel in Vietnam. It is over 100 years old but it is first class.
"On a very hot day, we cross over the Perfume River Bridge. I notice a park on the other side and plastic tables and chairs set up in the shade.
"After showing my wife the sights of the "Forbidden City", I can see my wife is very hot and needs a drink. I remember the park by the river and we walk over in that direction.
"The park is empty during the hot afternoon. Only madmen and American tourists walk around in the heat.
"We sit on the plastic chairs and a man, about 20 years old, comes over to wait on us. We order a coke. He returns with the soda and tea and asks to join us. His english is very good. We learn that he is from a village in the countryside far from Hue. He had come to the city to seek a better life. He waits tables and sleeps in the little building where the food and drinks are kept. While his boss sleeps, he charges us Vietnamese prices for our drinks. We enjoy each other's company very much. As we leave, he gives me a 100 Dong Note for luck. I enjoyed trying to pay cyclo drivers with this note (one American dollar equals 16,000 Dong).
"On our last day in Hue, my wife and I return to the park for a soda and to say goodbye to our friend. This time the park is full of people but we find a place to sit. Our friend came over and we ordered our drinks. I watched as he went inside his building with a woman. Something was wrong! A lot of time went by and he did not return.
"At last, he came back with the woman and a lot of things on the tray. The woman is his mother. She can only make the trip twice a year to see her son. On the tray is our soda, tea and sticky rice with beans and other treats that the waiter's mother had made for her beloved son; and I can't believe it, but he is sharing it with us.
"I look around for his mother and I find that she is waiting on the people sitting at the tables around us. Doing her son's job so that he can spend time with us. I was very moved by their acts of kindness to strangers. I'm reminded why I love the Vietnamese people so much. We will never forget this day and these fine people."
Jim Murtaugh
== Vietnamese Music Hits a Chord in America ==
By Dr Phong Nguyen, Kent State University
While the major influx of Vietnamese immigrants came to America as a result of the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese population has been establishing in the United States in a significant way since the beginning of the late 1950s. Numbers of Vietnamese have relocated to the United States from various European countries. Additionally, diplomatic relations with the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) has led to a number of Vietnamese students and officials being trained in U.S. institutions, thus becoming long-term visitors of the country; the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, was himself educated in the United States.
As with most cultures, for Vietnamese people music is a powerful wellspring of emotions and cultural identity; and interestingly, music transported to another land often finds new and novel ways of evolving and thriving.
According to the New York Times, the Vietnamese-American population numbers over one million. Among them is significant number of musicians, singers, actors and actresses who embody musical culture quite distinct from those of earlier immigrant groups. These performer possess knowledge and skills in many forms of Vietnamese traditional and folk music, which are characterized by specific repertoires, instruments, singing styles, ideals of sound and secrets of performance practice.
A great variety of Vietnamese musical genres is performed in the United States today; these include dan ca (folk songs), cai luong (southern Vietnamese "reformed" theatre), do ca tai tu (or tai tu, a genre of southern chamber music), Buddhist chant, cha van ritual music, and tan nhac (popular music). Because most Vietnamese in the United States came from southern Vietnam, most of this music has a southern Vietnamese origin. Other religious music includes music of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, as well as music for Roman Catholic ceremonies.
Two fundamental traits of Vietnamese musical culture are the importance of the tonal nature of the Vietnamese language as it applies to vocal music; and the modal nature of Vietnamese instrumental music. Together, these characteristics produce a music that is highly melismatic (meaning, a passage of several notes sung to one syllable of text, as in Gregorian chant) and ornamented. Regional dialects result in distinct singing styles and song repertoires from northern, central, and southern Vietnam. Vietnamese music's unique sonic qualities, in combination with its cultural context, make it a complex tradition consisting of numerous genres, which draw from both rural and urban society.
Among the most popular of Vietnamese traditional musical genres in America is dan ca, which was original a genre of peasants' songs, but which moved into urban communal settings, colleges and on to the stage in Vietnam several decades ago. Dan ca pieces are short occupational or entertainment songs which still thrive among the public because of their simple language and sweet tunes, making them accessible to everybody. The best know sub-styles are ho (non-metrical songs) and ly (songs of comparison). Da ca are now sung in many concerts of popular music.
Traditional music genres
Today, groups of musicians and singers in California, Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia continue to perform ta tu (southern Vietnamese chamber music) in a family context. A weekend get-together often becomes an opportunity for an amateur performance of tai tu instrumental pieces and songs. The music performed expresses a deep sense of nostalgia, and the topic of the songs center around love of country, or perhaps thinking about one's mother and family.
Tai tu music is an art form that was born in southern Vietnam during the second decade of the twentieth century. Tai tu's repertoire includes short songs, long songs with multiple sections, and vong co songs (which are the best known). The latter rocked the entire country of Vietnam in the 1950s with their newer style, from which emerged a rich and famous class of successful traditional singers, actors, and actresses of cai luong theatre. In the United States, vong co songs are not only sung on the stage or in people's homes, but are also found on numerous commercially released cassette and video recordings.
Cai luong theatre has also played an important role in Vietnamese-American artistic life. It is of interest that new cai luong plays have been written and produced in the United States by Vietnamese immigrants, and the training of actors an actresses continues. Because of the difficulty of importing instruments for use in ca luong ensembles, some Vietnamese traditional instruments have been built in the United States from available materials. Most popular among these is the luc huyen cam (or ghi-ta) a modified guitar with raised frets and a scalloped fretboard, which allows the player to produce the bending ornamentation integral to the performance of Vietnamese traditional music. Some musicians use violin (called vi cam or vio-long in Vietnamese) an instrument easily found in music stores. This instrument was introduced to tai tu ensembles in southern Vietnam in the 1920s.
Over time, the social significance of cai luong to Vietnamese-Americans has changed. In the early years following 1975, cai luong was the ultimate expression of the despair, loneliness, and homesickness of those who had departed from home. As pointed out by Viet Hung, a senior cai luong actor, "it is the deepest voice of the Vietnamese. Cai luong uses a rich metaphor of mountains and rivers to express the love of the country." Now that Vietnamese immigrants are quite settled, however, these tragic sentiments are no longer a prominent aspect of cai luong theatre. As mentioned earlier, audiences enjoy both stage performances and video and CD recordings of cai luong that feature fancy popular music and even ballroom dances.
Another aspect of traditional Vietnamese music is that associated with religious ceremonies. Mahayan Buddhism is the most widely practiced religion in Vietnam. Since 1975, there has been remarkable growth in the number of Buddhist temples within Vietnamese-American communities. Over one hundred Vietnamese temples and prayer halls have been built around the country and serve as cultural centres as well as places of worship. In these temples, Buddhist chant is heard on a daily basis. In California, some large Buddhist ritual festivals have been held. These ceremonies, which may last for several days at newly built temples, are accompanied by a nhac le (ceremonial music) ensemble. The anniversary of Buddha's birth, called Le Phat Dan, is the most important time of the year for Vietnamese Buddhists to visit temples. Fund-raising concerts are often organized in conjunction with this holiday.
Popular music culture
Tet, the Vietnamese New Year (which usually falls in early February) is the most important occasion for Vietnamese cultural and musical activities. In the United States, Tet festivities generally include both traditional and modern music. Performances featuring music, dance and fashion shows are often held at local school auditoriums, which are rented as cost-effective way to ensure the participation of a maximum number of community members.
In larger communities, ta nhac (popular music) predominates the entire production market, and is virtually the only form of Vietnamese music found in Vietnamese bookstores, music stores, nightclubs and cafés. This music, which originated in the late 1930s, was based on European romantic genres, first sung in French, but later adapted with Vietnamese lyrics. Since the middle of the 1980s, popular concerts called da vu ("night dance") have become very popular among both older Vietnamese-American ballroom dancers and young people. Rock bands are contracted with local promoters to perform late into the night on weekends, an are also hired for wedding parties.
Capitalizing on increasing interest in Vietnamese culture over the past decade, a few U.S.-based world music labels (World Music Institute, Music of the World, Lyrichord, Silver Burdett Ginn's Music Connections, and others) have begun to show an interest in Vietnamese music, releasing audio recordings and publishing them for both academic and general uses.
==== Featured artist: Nguyen Duy Nhi ====
A favourite of Vietnam Art Gallery patrons, Nguyen's bold use of vibrant colours sweep across the canvas, delighting the eye with their lyrical vitality. Nguyen's use of definitive lines adds a lithographic aspect to many of his works, while the figures depicted are often playful and magical.
Nguyen Duy Nhi - To Miss 1 - $200 - more >>
Nguyen Duy Nhi - Go home 6 - $200 - more >>
Nguyen Duy Nhi - New - $130 - more >>
Xuan Khoat - New still life - $1000 - more >>
The girls in Manh Phu's paintings wear the ao dai - a national dress of Vietnam both beautiful and functional. The younger women and students wear the white ao dai, which symbolizes purity.
Manh Phu - Vietnamese Girls - $200 - more >>
Thank you for reading! We wish you peace and good fortune for the coming month!
============== Artist Roster ==============
Our database of up-and-coming artists has doubled in the last few months and we now have over 850 original art pieces in our database -- one of the largest virtual galleries on the Internet! Here's a rundown on the artists you'll find in our pages. Think you can pick the next Bui Xuan Phai?
Subscription policy: You're receiving this information because you signed up at our website - http://www.vietnamartgallery.com. To be removed, simply reply to this message and let us know.