Luang Prabang - Part 2

So the previous post was my writings about Luang Prabang while I was still there. I didn't really have time to finish writing everything so I thought I should make a second Luang Prabang post to finish things up. As I mentioned earlier today, we are now in Vietnam and have been here for two days so we left Luang Prabang Sunday afternoon (and now it's Tuesday evening). It's getting difficult to remember exactly what I have talked about so bear with me if I mentioned something I already did.

Also this computer doesn't have English spell check so if there are typos, please bear with that too.

I think I was in the middle of writing about the historical museaum in LP and talking about the various gifts from various countries which were housed in the museaum.

After visiting the museaum we decided to attend (later in the evening) a performance of a traditional Laotian drama which were held in a building on the palace grounds a few times a week.

The performance was interesting. I can't say much more about it other than how interesting it was considering it was entirely in Laotian and also had very little dialogue in general. It WAS interesting though. The drama, while it did have a story (although I had no idea of any of the details at all), was mainly a series of dances. The Laotian dancers had on very elaborate and interesting cotumes in a very particular style. The men also had special masks on which covered their entire while the women had a particular type of hat. We had seen some of these types of masks (old ones) on display in the history museaum and it seems as though there are different styles of mask to depict differnt specific people or characters in the plays giving the impression that the people watching would know (if they were familiar with Laotian dance, anyway) who was who based on the mask that they had on. I did know at least (thanks to the placards in the museaum) who was a person, who was a monster, who was a monkey, and who was a bird (although it was generally pretty obvious), and these four types compromised all of the characters (thankfully).

(Side Note: right now both the Vietnamese guy at the front desk of my hostel and the French backpaker websurfing next to me are mumbling along to the same hip-hop song playing on the radio.)

This is what I gathered was the plot of the drama/play/dance. First there was an opening dance with a bunch of women. Next came in two men (I think kings, or important men) they talked about something for a while and then in came some monkies. The monkies talked to the kings and then they monkies went on a hunt. I think they were hunting this red bird because when they found the red bird they tried to kill him. They did not succeed in killing him but instead ending up talking to him. Then there was what seemed to be a side story involving a monster and his wife. The wife was not happy being married to the monster and she fell in love with a blue bird who passed by. The monster and the blue bird fought and the monster won so he won the girl. Then we went back to the monkies and the red bird. One monkey (the while monkey) flew on the back of the red bird for a while doing something. Then there was a dance with some giants. Then there was another dance with a bunch of women. Then it was over.

I am sure it all made sense in Laotian.

But I got the impression that, like other traditional art forms, it was a lot more about the dance than it was about the story. It reminded me of the feeling you get with opera (or at least the feeling I get) where it isn't really about knowing or understanding what the singers are saying more more about their singing in general and their motions and the drama of it. Or maybe I'm just bad with opera. The way the dancers moved was very particular. There was a particular way that they moved to signify walking or running or fighting or even when they were talking. The actors did not talk. Instead there was a voice-over on the speaker-system whenever anyone "talked" and the "speaker" made specific motions to indicate he was talking. This actually made it very difficult for me since the dancers who were "listening" we also makeing particulr "listening" motions. It's all hard to describe and unfortunatly I couldn't take any videos but I do have some pictures of the dancers at the end (which will be up EVENTUALLY).

One thing that struck me was that pretty much everyone in the audiance were tourists. This isn't really suprising considering that the same performance is done three times a week and the town only has a population of about 100,000. If anyone in the city had wanted to see it, I am sure they already did so long ago.

But it was still interesting to think how these people felt. They were all pretty young, probably around my age. Do their parents make them do this? Is this a sort of cultural thing that they feel obliged to do or do they do it to make money? Is this like an extracirriculr activity? I feel like, it would be weird if, say, when I was a kid and was still doing ballet, I would do it a couple times a week but ONLY for foreigners, not for community members, especially since I knew that the foreigners both did not understand the performance nor did they have any cultural connections to it.

I can't remember if I mentioned it earlier but Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage site. Beacuse of this the town is very restricted as to what kind of building and so on happens. The old buildings cannot be destroyed. It's weird to think about this considering that the old buildings that are being protected are so because they are of French-influence and are therefore a special blend of Laotian and French architecture. This town (while it does get most of its income from the tourist business, I am sure) is special and protected because of the influence it received while the French ruled Laos. When you think about it that way its kind of strange. I wonder how the Laotian people feel about it.

The dances were another thing. Obviously being protected and passed down to younger generations as a cultural heritage. But was it a cultural heritage more for the Laotian people or more for the tourists? Who decides when something becomes culturally historically significant? The Laotian people obviously had been developping this particular style of dance for I don't know how long. It didn't spring into being one day all of a sudden a thousand years ago, it has been refined for centuries, I am sure, and it was practiced, in the way it is still today, not really that long ago. But now, since it has become a historical cultural tradition, will it cease to develop? It is now a part of the history of Laos, I think. There weren't any Laotian people at the performance. Maybe they had already gone but it was clear that this was mainly for the tourists. The Laotians I saw about seemed much more interested in watching Laotian soap operas (like the girls at the massage parlor we went to) or Laotian action films or music television (like our hostel's owner). But the world has decided that whatever was the tradition at a specific time in history (when this dancing was still a popular entertainment, before soap operas) is historically the culture and will be preserved even though it had been evolving throughout history all this time. So maybe soap operas are the next step for the evolution of Laotian entertainment. So maybe the definition of a certain region or group of people's culture is where it was before the influence of world culture. But cultures have been influenced by other cultures forever. I think its hard to see the line. Modern times are confusing.

Anyway I am sorry, that was a really long tangent and I am sure I did a poor job explaining myself succinctly since I am pretty tired.

I didn't do much else in LP. On Saturday morning I took a cooking class which was awesome and lot of fun. It was very relaxing to be able to just be in the same place for a few hours. We're starting to get worn down rapidly. In the afternoon I had my hair cut. In the evening we went to the night market in town and then that was about it. We took Laos Air out the next day (Sunday) to Hanoi and there we are now.

One last thing. The night market in LP boasts a number of food stalls each of which offer a number of foods for a cheap (10,000 kip, or approximatly 30 cents) buffet. These we had two nights and they were absolutly delicious if not some of the least sanitary meals I have ever eaten in my life (but I'm still alive, Mom).

Luang Prabang was great if only to have a nice place to just stop and chill out for a while. As I think I mentioned, its a fairly small place with relatively little to do. We had a lot of time to just relax and it was welcome to say the least.