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interpretive distinctions mr. Trung was born in the late 1920s, and describes his life as having been difficult . he never really knew his father, who died when mr. Trung was four years old. he was the youngest of six children, and was moved around quite a bit, living for periods with various members of his mother’s family. at a young age he joined the revolution to fight against the french and spent some time in a notorious prison, the “maison Centrale,” which is called hỏa lò by the vietnamese and “hanoihilton”byamericanpoWswhowerelaterimprisonedthere.heproudly told me that his name and picture remain on exhibit today in the museum that replaced the prison, along with those of others who had been imprisoned there. he says that he was an undercover agent, receiving orders from a handler for a variety of covert tasks, but he was unable to discuss the exact details of what he did because it remained secret. after liberation, he continued to work for the government, still doing undercover work that, again, he was unable to describe. By his account, he had been very successful with the tasks that his handlers gave to him and he received recognition, a monthly pension, and other benefits from the government for his effort. every year the government pays for a vacation for him and other former undercover agents (which i understood is a reunion of sorts), though he told me that in recent years it has been reduced from ten days to five. he started to become more interested in Buddhism as he grew older, though at first he only went to the pagoda on occasions when he returned to his home village , and he kept it secret from the people in hanoi where he lived (presumably to avoid being labelled as “superstitious” by his peers—a descriptor that would have impeded his career). When he retired at the age of fifty-five, the age established by state policy at that time, he believed that he wanted to contribute something to society, so he focused his efforts on learning more about Buddhism. he lived close to phúc lộc pagoda, and he used to stop by occasionally, especially on the death anniversary of the nun who had resided there. on one occasion he saw that there was a neglected palanquin, used for carrying the spirit of the pagoda during festivals, sitting on the ground. he went to the current nun to ask why such a precious object was not being better treated. he then volunteered to clean it up and put it on a proper stand for storage. later the nun asked him to help with 8 160 • interpretive distinctions the organization of some feasts and he gradually became more involved. Then he started to study more about how to do rituals (cúng). after the renovation, when the pagoda was being restored, he was part of a Buddhist study group and the people in the neighborhood elected him and one other (mr. lê, described in Chapter 9) to lead the reorganization of the pagoda. They believed that it was important that the proper rituals be performed at a pagoda, so he invited an old ritual master to teach him and mr. lê how to conduct the rituals. he studied several years with the old ritual master before the master became too old and had to return to his home village. When i first met mr. Trung in 1997 he was the head of the ritual group (ban cúng) and was busily teaching other older men how to perform the rituals. When i last met him in 2010, he had moved some distance from the pagoda, but still returned (one hour by bicycle) to perform rituals on the first and fifteenth of every lunar month and on other important ritual days. as described in Chapter 3, young men often deride religion. in doing so, they tend not to differentiate between various aspects and activities, labelling all religious practice as superstition. one young man who had come from a village close to hanoi in order to get a job in construction summed it up when he told me, “it’s all a bunch of superstition.” devotional practices that involve making offerings and praying for material benefits are seen by many men as signifying weakness and dependency, and are antithetical to the hegemonic masculine ideal. Thus, young men, who are most actively engaged in the reproduction of this kind of masculinity...

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