More cheo

Earlier this week I was invited by my former flute teacher, Pham Van Doanh, to see a cheo play at the Kim Ma theatre. The play was called "Nghề nuôi Vẹt", which I think should be translated as "teaching the parrots" or maybe "nourishing parrots". It is a modern play that includes more talking than many of the older cheo plays. Most of the music used for the arias was traditional but the orchestra also played a lot of more western style background music during the performance. I am always impressed by the quality of the performers of the Nha Hat Cheo Viet nam (not to be mixed with Nha Hat Cheo Ha Noi), the singers as well as the musicians are really good! I am well aware that some traditional musicians in Viet Nam regard these modern cheo plays as being non authentic and boring, but even though I do really enjoy listening to more down scaled and "authentic" cheo, the parrot play was pure entertainment! It was probably the most queer thing I have experienced in Vietnam this far. If I understood the plot correctly with my limited knowledge of Vietnamese, it was about a family that owned 4 parrots, Illustrated beautifully by two men and 2 women all dressed in white tights, mini skirts, colourful feathers around ankles and wrists, sparkly silver belts and shiny makeup, all topped off with feather hats. The husband in the family wanted to train them to speak different languages and sing songs. After they have been offered a lot of money for the birds from a rather silly man with a bald cap (who also danced and made out with himself at the same time at one point) the wife joins in and everything turns rather crazy. They get more offers on the parrots and eventually they are offered a billion VND for the birds. At the same time the parrot are not at all keen on being sold as they want to stay with the daughter of the family and they refuse to sing. In the end the husband realises that if he threatens to hit the girl the parrots will do as he says. Of course it all ends well and the play ends with a moral twist were the parents don't get any money, the birds escape and the daughter twirls around on the stage in a shower of bubbles and parrots. A very entertaining evening!

Henri Oger - Mechanics and Crafts of the Annamites

Today I bought the recently published new edition of Henri Oger's book(s) with drawings and woodcuts from the early 20th century. I had seen the one of the extremely rare first edition in the collections of the British library and when I stumbled on this new edition in a bookshop next to the post office I just had to buy it! The first edition was only published in 60 copies. The second edition (2000 copies) includes translations from the original Nom and Han character into Vietnamese, French and English as well as a number of chapters about Oger and his works.. The pictures in the books shows a multitude of different crafts as well as gruesome torture scenes, musical instruments, people picking their teeth and loads of other strange, funny and interesting activities! I am very exited that I found it but I haven't got a clue how I will get it back to London, might have to send it separately. Any way if you see it, buy it!

Ca tru goes to university

Yesterday I was invited to a ceremony at the FPT University. I wasn't really sure what it was all about but Hue had mentioned to me that they had plans to start a ca tru drum course at the university, however, I had I assumed that this was a bit into the future. As It turned out this was the opening ceremony of the ca tru course. When I arrived (30 min late due to Hanoian traffic and wrong turns) Linh, Thuy and Ngoc from the Thang Long Ca tru club were performing. I was a bit surprised but delighted to see Nguyen Thi Chuc there as well. She also sang a piece on stage before the first group of drum students entered the stage. Together with the vice-rector of the university Dr. Nguyen Khac Thanh they hit three strokes on their drums to symbolise the start of the new course. I had the opportunity to have a chat with Dr. Thanh about the new course when all the students had left. He said that he had always been a bit of a folklore enthusiast and that he felt that in such a theoretical university as FPT (focusing mainly on finance and IT subjects) there was a need for a practical art subject. He thought that there were things, such as for example ethics, that was better taught with music. He and another member of the board, who both knew Hue since before, had suggested that the university should try to have a music course on the schedule. After talking to Hue the ca tru course was put into the range of courses that the students could choose from and they decided that they should start out with a maximum of 15 students. All the positions in the course were taken and these students will have a total of 12 lessons of one and a half hour each. The subject will both include practical drum beating and more theoretical issues such as ca tru history and music structure. The first lesson will start later this week and Hue will be the main teacher. This is not the first experiment the Hue and the Thang Long club have made with audience courses for ca tru, they have had regular free audience classes in the club before. Hopefully their experiences from teaching these classes will make the new university course an interesting and useful one for the students. As far as I am aware this is the first university course entirely devoted to ca tru and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out!