Songs for the Spirits: Music and Mediums in Modern Vietnam

Notes

notes introduction 1. There are a number of Vietnamese terms used to refer to mediumship rituals and its music. Throughout this book I employ the most commonly used terms, len dong (lit. “mount the medium”) and chau van (lit. “serving literature”). Mediumship rituals are also referred to as hau bong (lit. “serving the shadows [spirits]”) or dong bong (lit. “medium and shadows [spirits]”). 2. Maurice Durand’s classic book, which documents the practice of mediumship at the end of the colonial era, is the only substantial work by a non-Vietnamese scholar that concerns mediumship in Vietnam (Durand 1959). Two other studies provide accounts of mediumship as practiced by the Vietnamese diaspora in France (Simon and Simon-Barouh 1976) and America (Fjelstad 1995). See also Fjelstad and Nguyen’s (2006) edited volume for recent contributions to scholarship on mediumship by several Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese researchers. For further essays on religious revival in contemporary Vietnam, see Taylor (2007). 3. The lack of attention paid to chau van by Vietnamese scholars is evident in the fact that a seven-volume compendium of articles written in the twentieth century on Vietnamese music does not include any that focus on chau van (Vietnamese Institute for Musicology 2003). Thanh Ha is one of the few scholars who published articles on chau van music that focus on the analysis of scales and musical structure, before the reform era (e.g., Thanh Ha 1976). 4. There is a distinctive style of chau van in central Vietnam, and an examination of the differences between the northern and central styles of mediumship music would be an interesting topic for a future research project. Mediumship practices in central Vietnam also have many differences from len dong in the north. For instance, instead of the goddess Lieu Hanh, one of the main spirits worshipped in central Vietnam is 230 . notes to pages 10–45 the Cham goddess Thien Ya Na (see Ngo Duc Thinh 1996a). In southern Vietnam, spirit possession is much less common, and when rituals are held the style of chau van music performed is similar to that heard in the northern tradition. In the south, len dong are known as roi bong (lit. “purification ritual of the spirits”). 5. Trinh T. Minh-Ha, for instance, offers the following critique of “giving voice” in relation to documentary filmmakers’ discourse: “For despite their denial of conventional notions of objectivity and contempt for romantic naturalism, they continue to ask: how can we be more objective?, better capture the essence?, ‘see them as they see each other?’ and ‘let them speak for themselves?’ Among the validated strategies that reflect such a yearning and state of mind are: the long take, hand-held camera, syncsound (authentic sound) overlaid with omniscient commentary (the human science rationale), wide angle lens, and anti-aestheticism (the natural versus the beautiful, or the real/native versus the fictional/foreign)” (1991:56–57, emphases in original). 6. This track appears on the two-CD compilation Further East–Westercisms (Law & Auder Records 1998, LA 4CD). Chapter 1: Mediumship, Modernity, and Cultural identity 1. Various terms are used for male and female mediums. The word dong, meaning “medium,” can be preceded with personal pronouns indicating the sex, age, and status. Female mediums are usually referred to as ba dong or co dong (for older and younger women, respectively), and male mediums are usually referred to as ong dong or cau dong (for older and younger men, respectively). See Nguyen Khac Kham (1983) for further discussion of the terminology of Vietnamese mediumship. 2. Based on a police report from 1933, Do Thien notes the wide range of social backgrounds of females and especially the involvement of Vietnamese women married to Europeans (2003:98). 3. From Section 5 of Directive 56–CP of the Party Committee on the elimination of superstition, 13.3.1975. 4. “Que Ta” is frequently performed and broadcast and was one of the pieces in a concert I attended at the Youth Culture Palace (Cung Thieu Nhi) in November 1996, which commemorated forty years since the founding of the Hanoi Music Conservatoire . Another neotraditional composition influenced by chau van as well as the music of Hue is Thao Giang’s “Du Thuyen Tren Song Huong” (Drifting in a Boat on the Perfume River), written in 1991. 5. The use of the term hat van (lit. “singing literature”) is significant, as it is a more neutral term than chau van (lit. “praising literature”), which is closely associated with mediumship. 6...