Nhà Bè

The other day my friend Phuong took me to Nhà Bè, an outer southern district of Saigon. We went to visit a temple there. She wanted to take me to this temple because it’s well known amongst locals as very linh thiêng.  Phuong and I have had quite a bit of discussion about this word, for which I cannot think of an English equivalent. You can use it to describe a temple which is, to quote my dictionary, ‘ready to comply with the prayers of the living.’ Phuong tells me that beginning in 1997, people started spreading the word that this temple was very linh thieng, and thus the numbers of visitors grew and grew. In other words, it is believed that you have a good chance of getting what you pray for if you go there.

Phuong picked me up on her motorbike from Lottemart, a bright and shiny new shopping centre in District 7, and we headed to Nha Be from there.  The development never stops in this area. Saigon is reaching out to the Mekong Delta in the form of apartment blocks and residential estates. Most are in construction or at the just finished stage. It’s all very optimistic and somewhat unsettling, as you wonder who’s going to live in all these expensive places. But after about 10 minutes of driving through construction sites we slipped into a little pocket of sleepy countryside. It was very pleasant cruising these tree-lined, traffic free streets, though soon enough I was reminded we were still on the outskirts of the city, as we turned onto a bustling main road.  From this road we turned into a narrow alley that lead to the temple.

This alley was probably about a kilometre long. It wasn’t residential, rather it was lined with shops and restaurants, the shops selling incense, fruit for offering, and other colourful worshipping accessories. As we whizzed past these places were a blur of hot pink, gold and red shininess. On our way, we were also stopped by 3 or 4 enthusiastic young men, insisting that Phuong park her bike in their spaces. But she didn’t give in to their zeal and we pulled into the bike park closest to the Temple.

The whole experience of visiting this place, including the drive down the covered in alley, felt like something else than what I have come to know as a Vietnamese Temple or Pagoda. We stepped through the entrance way and to the left was a low ceiling space, supported by concrete pillars and full of tables and chairs in rows, which looked out on the Nha Be River. It reminded me of the waiting area for a ferry. On the right were a number of alcoves with colourful deity statues.  The temple area didn’t really have a complete external structure. It was a strange and colourful indoor/outdoor space that you wound around to visit about 20 different altars where people were praying. Some areas had a wall or two, some altars were covered with a corrugated iron roof. Among the intriguing objects and statues was a small (3-4 metres long) wooden boat. If I understood Phuong correctly, you prayed here so that all your troubles would be taken out to sea on this boat.

It was interesting to see this place after visiting some very different pagodas in Chinatown on the weekend, which were defined by their solid stone structure, symmetrical arrangement, and more sombre tone.

The Nha Be temple was busy, but not too crowded, just enough to create a lively atmosphere. Phuong said it was better to come in the morning, because as the day went on it did fill up and your eyes would be streaming from all the smoke of the worshippers' incense. This would not be good for me because as a temple visiting novice, mine already were.

Later in the day, I told my Vietnamese teacher about my experience, and he clarified a few things for me. I already knew that as a temple, this is a different place of worship from the more common Pagodas. Essentially, when you go to a Pagoda, you go to pray to Buddha, whereas at a Temple you pray to other deities. However, by showing Thay my picture of the entrance to the Nha Be temple, he was also able to explain that the name means shrine (Mieu) of the 5 ‘misses’ (Ngu Hanh) as he called them; the 5 grandmothers or Năm bà in Vietnamese.  The name Miếu Ngũ Hành is actually derived from Chinese words. Many Vietnamese words have a Chinese equivalent, often used for the formal naming of things/places/people in Vietnam. The 5 ‘misses’ are actually the elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, and are intrinsic to fundamental aspects of Chinese culture, so this is one of the many customs that Vietnam has absorbed from its imposing northern neighbour. He said you will see them depicted as 5 women statues in a row when you enter a temple like this. However as I was quite disoriented by what we entered in Nha Be, I don’t remember seeing this.

Buddhism, like a lot of aspects of Vietnamese culture, is still a big puzzle to me. I get pieces of information from various sources, sometimes they are consistent with the bigger picture, and I can build upon my knowledge, other times they will contradict something someone else has told me or I’ve read, so then I don’t know what to do with them. I suppose why I’m saying this is to make a disclaimer of sorts. I like to write about what about people have told me but it’s not necessarily true for all the people all the time.

Thay, my Vietnamese Teacher, supplied some more vocabulary related to this experience. We talked about the word linh thieng, which his dictionary translated as ‘having supernatural powers.’ He also provided words for the three actions that you do when you visit the temple, first you light incense, then you worship, then you pray, or as he put it, say good things. He told me the word for saying good things, and imitated the way people whisper prayers in a rushed voice. He asked if I had done this while I was there. I said I hadn’t done it in this way, but had thought of good things that I wished for my family, friends and me.

‘Did you think in English, or Vietnamese?’ He inquired in a serious tone.

Of course he knew the answer to this question.

‘Ah, it’s no good then,’ when I replied that it had been English, ‘The Gods only know Vietnamese, they can’t understand you.’

I pointed to the dictionary on the table between us and suggested maybe they had one of these.

We laughed at our nói chơi, meaning ‘say play’. It was a good joke but as always Thay was ready to pick up on my lack of diligence in practising Vietnamese.