VIII. Souk's First Birthday; The Arrival of Mr. Nixon
After the family trauma of Thongdy's near death (Chapter VI), it was difficult to settle down to routine. But what had brought me to Luang Prabang was a contract to teach English at the Teacher Training College of Luang Prabang, which supplied primary school teachers for most of the northern half of the country. So Thongdy was left with orders to rest, mostly, and Khamsouk did the marketing (a formidable task), running our kitchen, and tending to laundry and basic cleanliness in the house. I had to ride my trusty (mostly) 50 cc. Vespa motorscooter to the College, a kilometer or so outside the town, in time to be at the flagpole assembly to join in the singing of the haunting Royal anthem ("Since we Lao migrated here....") and chant the Buddhist "Five Precepts for Laypersons."
The Teacher College of Luang Prabang, also known locally as "Houanakang,"
These "Five Precepts" are worthy (I hope) of a short digression. Westerners often confuse the "Precepts" with "Commandments." "Commandments are prescriptions for behavior that must be met. "Precepts" are goals that probably never completely fulfilled, but toward which a person strives on a daily basis. The "Precepts," -- imperfectly transliterated and imperfectly translated into English are --
"Panatipata veramani, sikkhapadang samadiyami."
I undertake the training rule to respect the lives of all sentient beings.
"Adinnadana veramani, sikkhapadang samadiyami"
I undertake the training rule to refrain from taking anything that is not freely offered.
(A little stricter than "Thou shalt not steal.")
"Kamesu michchara veramani, sikkhapadang samadiyami."
I undertake the training rule to refrain from sexual misconduct.
(Sex by coercion, sex that involves breaking a promise. No, the Buddha didn't much
care what folks did with their genitals, as long as there was no coercion, no broken vows.)
"Musavada veramani, sikkhapadang samadiyami."
I undertake the training rule to refrain from allowing untruthful things to be communicated.
(Stricter, I think, than a mere prohibition on one's own lying.)
"Sura meraya majja pamadatthana veramani, sikkhapadang samadiyami"
I undertake the training rule to refrain from the use of substances that might tend to
impair the functioning of the mind.
These Precepts were chanted daily in Pali, the language of all early Buddhist scriptures.
My first year, my time was devoted almost solely to teaching English, interspersed with Sunday outings with students to swim at really glorious nearby waterfalls and perhaps collect wild orchids off trees along the way. I was pretty good at teaching English as the Peace Corps had given us the equivalent of the classroom work for a Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Foreign Language under the combined auspices of Princeton University in the U.S. and "Robert Koleje" (now "Bosphorus University"), often affectionately called the "Harvard of Turkey," in Istanbul. That was followed by two years' teaching English at Ataturk University in Erzurum, high in the Pontic mountain range, in the foothills of Mount Ararat in the far northeastern part of the country. To give you an idea of distances, it took overnight on the "Far Eastern Express" to get from Istanbul to Ankara, the capital, and then another two days and a night on the same train to get from Ankara to Erzurum. In Ankara, the hotels hated to see us coming because we turned the bathrooms black with the soot we'd accumulated going thru tunnels on the rail line with coal-powered steam locomotives along the way.
If other moral obligations had not presented themselves, I probably would have fulfilled only the two-year contract I had with International Voluntary Services (IVS) and then returned to the U.S. Not that teaching in Laos was not enjoyable! Because the only thing actually "worshipped" by Buddhists is "knowledge" or "wisdom," teachers are treated with an unbelievable degree of respect. In Turkey, teachers were expected to manhandle unruly students; I had found it bizarre to be slugging or wrestling a 280 pound university soccer player to the floor (I weighed about 130 pounds at the time and was as scrawny as a beanpole). In Laos, the idea of a student behaving in an unruly way never even occurred. One of the national holidays was "The Day for Worshipping Teachers." The idea appalled me at first, until somebody pointed out, "They aren't worshipping YOU; they are worshipping any wisdom that may be in you." On meeting a teacher anywhere, students would bow their head and put their hands together in the universal sign of respect.
posted by Frank | 9:55 AM
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