A Call to Order
In temples along the Mekong and throughout Southeast Asia, the monks are most visible. Dressed in saffron robes, they’re ubiquitous on village roads during morning alms, sweeping temple grounds, or presiding over ceremonies. But the nuns are there too - they’re just not always as easy to see.
The Truc Lam Phuong Nam Zen Monastery near Can Tho, Vietnam, is home to four nuns. These women glide through the temple buildings with warm smiles, ready to help visitors who need help or have questions.
Two nuns were so kind to sit with my interpreter and I to talk about their lives. Dieu Ngoc is 81, on the left. She’s been a nun for six years. Hue Lac, 57, on the right, has been a nun for fifteen years.
Before she became a nun, Hue Lac was a midwife. When she was young she studied at the university for a year and a half, but couldn’t afford the fees to continue. “So I left university to study midwifery and then got a job at the hospital.” Over her career, she helped more than 100 babies come into the world. “I loved the work, and I loved the babies. But so many women had pain,” she said. “I worried about them so much.”
She says, quite simply, that the Buddha called to her and she decided to become a nun. Now, she says she has no more stress, as she leads a quiet life devoted to meditation and kindness. “I don’t worry about anything, thanks to my focus on Buddhism,” she says.
Hue Lac’s happiness and calm is clear as she helps the elder Dieu Ngoc tie her robes.
At 81, Dieu Ngoc is also happy and says she now has no worries.
Her life as a nun is very different from the life she knew as a younger woman. She says she grew up very poor in difficult conditions. Remarkably, her parents still managed to send her to school until the sixth grade – quite rare in those days. In her time she’s seen many wars including the Indochina wars, the American war (as it's known in Vietnam) and the subsequent conflicts that followed with China and Cambodia.
She was a housewife and mother to eight children. And her first job in the 1970s – what we in the West might see as freedom – was not easy.
“My husband had to join the army during the American war,” she explains. “I had to find a way to look after the children on my own. So I became a motorcycle taxi driver. It was typically a male job. At the time, men could do any job they liked. But it could be dangerous for a woman – we were at risk of getting groped by male passengers.
Or, if you were seen with another man on the bike, there would be rumours.” In traditional Vietnam, she says “it felt like being a prostitute, and I didn’t like it. So I only carried women on the motorbike.” Though this could also be hard. “I once carried a woman who saw her husband on a motorbike with another woman. She was so angry she reached over and grabbed her hair, and tried to pull her off the bike.” Dieu Ngoc now laughs at the memory.
I ask the nuns what advice they have for girls today. Hue Lac, the former midwife, is quick with an answer. “Focus on study and get an education,” she says “When I was young girls and boys studied separately. But today, they study together. And fall in love too early. This leads to girls getting pregnant too young, and sometimes needing abortions. There is time for love later. For now, girls need their education.”
After we talked, the women invited us for lunch. They gave us robes to wear at the table. Dieu Ngoc showed me how to hold the rice bowl for the pre-meal prayers. The nuns chanted for about 10 minutes, honouring the food we were about to eat. The meal was vegetarian and delicious. As we ate, a cheerful young monk came from the room next door to say hello. The women were lighthearted and there was a lot of laughter. It was all quite special.
Before we left Dieu Ngoc wanted to show us one more room in the temple - the place community members who have died are commemorated, their names painted on ceramic tiles on the wall.
In the room there was a photograph of Dieu Ngoc’s husband. “He was a monk for many years, and he thought it was good. He asked me to become a nun and I did.” So, they lived their last years together devoted to one other, and to the Buddha. Her husband died about one year ago. In the photo, he has the same happy, shining eyes as Dieu Ngoc has today.
With thanks to Maruko Chen for her guiding and interpretation.
