Another Quiet American

by Brett Dakin

  “But I’m teaching these students now,” I protested. I had been making progress with a sticky grammatical point just prior to our brief digression into the intricacies of being drunk in English, and I didn’t want to give up now. “I thought we had decided on a schedule.”

  “The general is free now,” Khit insisted and, swiftly turning on the heels of his low-cut black leather boots, walked out.

  Exasperated, I looked to my students for support. How could the chairman decide on a whim that he wanted to study and just expect the rest of the staff to give up their only chance to practice English for the week? And what about me? I wasn’t some sort of dial-a-teacher that you could simply order on demand. This was an outrage! Right? Unfortunately, my valiant call to arms fell on deaf ears. While my students were disappointed at the rude interruption, they told me not to fight. If the general wanted to learn now, he would learn now. That was the way it was going to be. Don’t ask questions, Mr. Brett. My students began packing up their things, and, just like that, class was dismissed. They taught me among the more important lessons I would learn about life in Laos: whatever your own views might be about the situation, you’d better keep them to yourself. If I wanted to get anything done at the NTA, I soon realized that I’d have to put aside my personal feelings in order to avoid conflict and to please those in control. As far as General Cheng was concerned, my opinions were irrelevant.

  Inside Cheng’s office, I may have been the teacher, but the general was always in charge. His office suite was twice the size of the International Co-operation Unit, where I worked along with three other members of the staff. He used one room—which contained a full sofa set and two coffee tables—to greet the steady stream of guests that came to pay their respects to the general: from Taiwanese businessmen to Malaysian diplomats, everyone wanted an audience with Cheng. The second room contained his desk and a large wooden table surrounded by chairs, which was used for staff meetings—and our English lessons.

  When I knocked on the general’s door that first time, Khit opened it and showed me to a seat on one side of the meeting table. The general sat just opposite me. At the end of the table sat Khit, whose role it was to translate my sentences into Lao whenever the general could not understand. As the general spoke no English, this occurred after every other phrase. Of course, Khit couldn’t speak English much better than his boss, so he ended up doing a whole lot of listening. And whenever the general needed something, Khit’s job was to fetch.

  “How about a blackboard?” the general asked in Lao. “I can’t learn without a blackboard. Who learns without a blackboard?”

  “A blackboard, sir?” Khit asked.

  “I don’t really think we need a blackboard,” I suggested helpfully.

  “Get me a blackboard,” the general insisted.

  “Yes, sir,” said Khit before scurrying out and obtaining one from the Marketing and Promotion Unit next door. After he returned, Khit erased whatever had been written on the board and propped it up against the wall just behind me. How important could those Marketing & Promotion notes have been, anyway? Khit’s actions were indicative of the way most things were run at the NTA. Whatever work employees at lower levels might have been doing paled in comparison to the immediate needs of their superiors. Long before I had the chance to get to know him, I learned that the NTA was run as Cheng’s personal fiefdom.

  ___

  Cheng was powerful, but in fact he struck me as a rather gentle man. I found it difficult to reconcile his reputation as the “singularly venal Party official” who inspired fear in the hearts of so many with what I knew about him. A foot shorter than I, and, at 63, a bit heavy around the middle, the general wore large glasses and a broad smile. He had inherited a no-nonsense, business-like approach to work from his days in the military, and had little time for pleasantries. But he invariably spoke in a low, soft tone, and only rarely raised his voice. His handshake was warm, and I felt the faint urge to give him a hug every time I saw him, as if he were my own grandfather. His wardrobe contained only one business suit, a dismal gray affair that he almost never wore. On official outings, he preferred instead to sport a casual Thai silk shirt and his favorite Nike baseball cap. It was the aura of power that surrounded the general, more than any brute force, which discouraged people from challenging him.

  I was certainly taken by his power. I knew that I’d been hired to help the NTA as a whole, not to serve as Cheng’s personal assistant. While Cheng’s learning English certainly had the potential to be useful to the NTA, I imagined that it would end up doing far more for any personal business enterprises he might be pursuing than it would for the development of tourism. Nevertheless, the prospect of close access to a man who was so well-known—and feared—throughout Laos was alluring. And so, though he made little progress in conversational English, and though it took time away from the work I was doing that was clearly of more benefit to the staff of the NTA, I continued to teach General Cheng.

  One weekend, I tagged along with Cheng and his four-year old grandson—and Oudom, of course—for a trip to the general’s country house on the outskirts of Vientiane. Cheng had one daughter, three sons, four grandchildren, and countless homes. In Vientiane alone, he owned at least three. This particular one was situated in the middle of a vast plot that had once been a farm, and was as large as a small hotel. But while the house was big, it was not the kind of place you would expect the wealthiest man in Laos to reside. The building itself was made of cement, and contained little wood; the columns and railings, benches and picnic tables had been painted to look like natural teak. This was ironic indeed, considering Cheng’s deep involvement in the lumber trade at Lak Sao. You’d have thought he would have been able to get enough real wood for his own house.

  The verandah out back was surrounded by a railing topped with a series of ersatz Roman figures, now completely covered in cobwebs. Weeds were already beginning to emerge from Bacchus’ head. The gods presided over a man-made fish pond, a favorite accessory of the Lao upper class in Vientiane. These ponds were usually muddy and always seemed overwhelmed by expanding algae; at Cheng’s house, the fish remained invisible until the general threw in some food and attracted a pack to the surface, to the delight of his grandson.

  Throughout the day, in fact, Cheng’s attention had been entirely consumed by his grandson. As I watched them play together outside, I realized that neither the activities of the NTA nor his private business enterprises were of the least importance to Cheng anymore. At this point in his life, all that really mattered to him was his family. He had participated in the Lao revolutionary struggle, witnessed the birth of a new nation, risen through the ranks of a young military, and helped to develop at least a part of the Lao economy. In the process, he had also developed quite a bit of wealth, and a degree of fame in Laos that was unsurpassed.

  As I spent more time alone with Cheng, the rage toward him that had built up inside me dissipated. My thoughts of people like Bounthang and his family, who had suffered while Cheng had prospered, and the way Cheng had made use of his position in order to further his personal wealth—all of this began to fade away. For at the end of the day, I realized, this man, as feared as he was admired by his fellow countrymen, was just another grandfather playing with his grandson. Just one more caveman discovering the joys of old age. And just another wartime hero, secure in the knowledge that he would live out the rest of his days in the comfort of continuous revolutionary struggle.

  Lent’s Over

  ______________

  It was four in the morning. Just a few minutes ago, I’d been fast asleep in my bed. Now, the insistent sound outside my window kept me awake. Bong, bong, thwak. Then silence. Bong, bong, thwak. Again, silence. Two beats of a gong, followed by a single beat of a drum. Bong, bong, thwak. The steady rhythm drew me out of my stupor and over to my bedroom window. I looked out at the sky above the temple just across the street. A full moon filled the early morning sky with light over Vientiane, this City of t
he Moon. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but I knew what day it was: Awk Phansaa, the end of Buddhist Lent.

  ___

  I considered myself lucky to be lying in this bed, in this house, in this neighborhood, located in the historical and spiritual center of Vientiane. I was surrounded by the most important Buddhist temples in the city—and some of the most beautiful French colonial architecture. When I’d first arrived at the airport, Khit and Oudom had driven over in the office van to meet me at the gate. I wasn’t sure that someone would meet me when I arrived, and of course had no idea what that someone might look like. And while my photograph may have been sent to the NTA at some point in the months preceding my arrival in Vientiane, I’m sure it hadn’t found its way to Khit’s desk. But it wasn’t hard at all to find each other, because at that point Vientiane International Airport didn’t really have gates. Not much seemed to have changed at the airport since the early years of the Cold War, when the facility had first been built. There were only one or two flights a day. The loudspeaker announcements were intermittent, and only in Lao. The toilet door let you in, but not always back out again. On my way from the plane to the terminal, I had seen a lone farmer on a bicycle making his way slowly across the crumbling runway. I loved it.

  That first day, Oudom had driven me directly from the airport to the Pangkham Guest-House, where I spent my first week in Vientiane. The Pangkham was a nondescript Chinese-owned hotel. It certainly wasn’t anything to write home about—and, ungrateful son that I was, it would be a few weeks before I wrote so much as a postcard—but its central location gave me a chance to explore the downtown. Not far from the NTA, the Pangkham was situated just off Samsenthai Road, which was the main drag running through Vientiane’s prosperous commercial district. Only a decade ago, this area had been a ghost town; most stores had been shuttered and unoccupied, as the Party had yet to initiate its economic reform program or to open up Vientiane to foreign influences. But now, this was the busiest part of town, and the Thai-owned Lao Hotel Plaza around the corner from the Pangkham was a monument to the city’s recent economic growth.

  Along with Setthathirath and Fa Ngum roads, Samsenthai was one of Vientiane’s three main thoroughfares, each of which ran perpendicular to the grand Lan Xang Avenue. A few small streets ran through the neighborhoods between Fa Ngum and Setthathirath, which was named after the king who moved the capital of the Lan Xang kingdom from Luang Prabang to Vientiane in 1560. Chao Anou Road is the namesake of King Anouvong, the ruler of the Kingdom of Vientiane from 1805 until 1828. Anouvong launched an ill-fated attack on neighboring Siam in 1826, prompting a fierce response that resulted in the obliteration of the city in 1828. The Siamese re-settled large numbers of Vientiane residents to Northeastern Thailand (even today, there are more ethnic Lao living in Thailand than in Laos), and captured Anouvong and brought him to Bangkok, where he died in custody.

  The Siamese attack on Vientiane in 1828 left the city in ruins. When Francis Garnier, a French explorer, arrived in the city less than forty years later, he was appalled by the destruction he found on the site of the capital. “The absolute silence which reigned in the enclosure of a city that formerly was so populous and so wealthy astonished us,” Garnier wrote in his Mekong Exploration Commission Report. “Fire and slavery after victory are, for most of the Asian races, the final outcome of a conquest. In the ruins and the solitude of [Vientiane] we find a striking example of this brutal destruction.”

  East of Chao Anou is François Nginn Road, named for a member of a late nineteenth-century Indochina exploratory mission led by Frenchman August Pavie. Born to Cambodian parents in Phnom Penh in 1856, Nginn studied at the École Coloniale in Paris and took the name François after becoming a naturalized French citizen in 1906. After working as a secretary, guide, and interpreter for Pavie—who eventually awarded him the cross of the French Legion of Honor—he entered the colonial government in Laos as an administrative and commercial officer. Nginn retired to Vientiane and died there in 1916. Of course, most people in Vientiane had no idea this street was named for Nginn. Residents of the capital city almost never used the names of streets. If you were to ask for directions, any reference to street names was futile—landmarks such as temples, restaurants, and water towers were far more helpful. Even if they did know the story of François Nginn, many in Vientiane probably preferred not to think of his contribution to their nation’s history. After all, his story embodied the legacy of the colonial rule of the French and their penchant for employing other Southeast Asians to rule over the Lao, whom they considered lazy and inefficient.

  The city center is dotted with temples that were destroyed when the Siamese invaded but have since been rebuilt. The sim of Wat Chan, located at the intersection of Chao Anou and Fa Ngum Roads, houses a large bronze seated Buddha that actually survived the destruction, in addition to a series of beautifully carved wooden panels. Wat Mixai, on Setthathirath Road, is built in the Bangkok style with a surrounding verandah. Two guardian giants stand at attention outside the heavy gates, and there is a lively elementary school on the grounds. Wat Ong Teu, just up the street, is named for the large “Heavy Buddha” found at the rear of the sim. Originally built by King Setthathirath in the mid-sixteenth century, it was reconstructed by the French and the Lao in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Home to the Buddhist Institute, a school for monks who come from around the country to study here, Wat Ong Teu is one of the most important religious centers in Laos. Given the constant flow of students through its gates, there was always a group of novices gathered outside in the gardens surrounding the temple, talking or playing cards. Wat Ong Teu was my favorite of all.

  As I walked through the streets of the city center that first week, piecing together the capital’s story with the aid of the occasional street name, I was overwhelmed by its rich history. In Vientiane, the past did not seem distant at all—it was immediate and palpable. In the neighborhood’s varied architectural styles I could see the centuries of conflict and change, the waves of competing foreign influences that had shaped the city over the centuries. But whenever I paused for a moment on the temple grounds, I could feel the strength of Lao culture, the spirit of a way of life that has endured. It was here that I wanted to live.

  So it was with the greatest delight that I came upon the small, handwritten sign in the window just along the street from Wat Ong Teu. It read, in English, “House for Rent.” I stepped back from the window to take a look at the place, which was a two-story Chinese shophouse that had recently been painted a bright, vibrant yellow with a white trim. The house was graced by a second-floor balcony that overlooked the street below, where a family of chickens loudly objected to my presence. I knocked on the door and soon found myself inside, taking a tour with the landlady, who spoke a smattering of English and French.

  On the first floor, the front room, at one time perhaps the eating area for a small noodle shop, had been converted into a sitting room with beautiful hardwood floors and simple rattan furniture. The wooden cabinets were filled with a collection of old lacquer boxes that had belonged to the landlady’s mother, who had used them to store betel nut. The rear of the house contained a large kitchen, dining area, and bathroom. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms, each with hardwood floors, a double bed—and a desk, which was key. I had an idea I’d be doing quite a bit of writing. The house didn’t have air-conditioning, of course, but the large and powerful ceiling fans put me at ease. There was no hot water, but I convinced the landlady to install in the shower one of the small electric water heaters I’d seen at the Morning Market. The house was so extraordinary that I wondered aloud why anyone would ever want to leave. The landlady explained that her family was moving to a new place she and her husband had just built on the outskirts of town, and they needed someone to take care of the shophouse, which had been in the family for generations. After negotiating for a few minutes, she and I agreed on a monthly rent that even I, on my limited stipend, could afford. I told her I’d take it, and we shar
ed a bottle of drinking water, a staple of life in Laos, in celebration.

  ___

  The sound I heard early that morning as I lay in bed was emanating from the tall drum tower on the grounds of Wat Ong Teu. The monks were calling nearby worshippers to the temple to celebrate one of the country’s most sacred and beloved festivals. Boun Awk Phansaa, in late October, the eleventh month of the lunar calendar, marks the end of the monks’ three-month rains retreat. During the retreat, which takes place during the long rainy season, monks must spend each night in the wat, or temple, where they live, study, and work. After Awk Phansaa, they are finally allowed to travel freely throughout the country to visit family and friends. It is an important occasion, and to mark this day, a monk is often presented by the faithful with a new set of brilliant, saffron-colored robes.

  By seven o’clock, I was wide awake and had already prepared my offering for the morning’s takbaat, or alms-giving ceremony. I placed my gift of bananas, Vietnamese sweets, and sticky rice in a glistening silver bowl, designed especially for giving alms, that I’d found buried deep within my landlady’s closet during a desperate search the night before. My next-door neighbor, Sumali, helped me to arrange my rather pitiable offering in a style appropriate for the special day. Sumali, who was my age, was dressed in her finest sin, the traditional sarong-like skirt of Laos, and pa biang, a sash draped loosely over the shoulders and across the chest on special occasions. I was used to seeing her hanging around her house in a T-shirt and jeans; this morning, she was strikingly beautiful.

  After we had finished our preparations, we went across the street to Wat Ong Teu. We walked past the monastic quarters that sat directly opposite my bedroom window. This morning, the building was empty. Though a rich combination of colonial French and traditional Lao architecture, the dormitory was a modest affair indeed; I imagined that the monks, glad that lent was finally over, had been quick to get out.