Hot Coals

A guy at work, who had been on exchange for the past three months in Canberra, returned to Vientiane on Tuesday, several days before his wife’s second child was due. He arrived on the 8pm flight. At 2am the following morning, the baby was born in the back of the car on the way to the hospital.
Anyway, Lao journalists being Lao journalists, this was the perfect opportunity to abandon the business of newspapers and descend en masse to the house, me included, where we cooed over the baby, ate a hefty meal and played cards.
This post is dedicated to his wife, who was unable to join us as she was busy lying on a bed of hot coals in the backyard, and I mean this very almost literally.
In Laos, a woman who has just given birth must then lie for a certain period on a low bed over a fire. Sometimes she stays there for several weeks, sometimes for nine or ten days, I think it depends on how many children she has already had.
It also doesn’t matter what the weather’s like. Now is a relatively cool period in Vientiane, but imagine how it would feel in July?
Plus, the bed isn’t padded or comfortable. The mother’s not allowed to get up and walk around or sleep in her own bed or bathe her own baby. Instead, relatives bring the baby to her to be fed, stoking up the coals, just in case she looks too comfortable.
I don’t know why they do this, or what it could possibly mean. We’ve asked many people, and received responses ranging from the superstitious (something about cleansing the spirit) to the purely vain (it tightens up the flabby, post-pregnancy flesh).
It’s baffling, and seems to have no logical foundation.
But try telling a Lao person that some of their nutty health-related theories are flawed, and you will get only a blank look. No woman here, no matter how educated or progressive, would consider NOT prostrating herself over a bed of coals during the first weeks of her baby’s life.
I shudder to think what the smoke is doing to the kid’s lungs.
[As an aside, my friend Mel immediately saw the potential of these low beds as a kind of offbeat seating arrangement, and bought up several of them. She fitted them up with cushions and they now serve as terribly funky couches in her living room.]

Commy hacks
More debates in the newsroom. The National Assembly is in the middle of one of its ‘sessions’, and the phonelines are open for concerned citizens to ring up and voice their complaints. Surprisingly many of these are addressed in parliament.
The complaints have ranged from corruption among officials to neighbourhood nuisances regarding late-night clubs. Some have voiced concerned about a multi-million dollar Malaysian investment project that will see a water theme park open up on the heart of Vientiane….in a protected wetlands area. Is this consistent with the government’s commitment to environmental preservation? the people are asking.
And are the traffic police even doing their job properly? Why are so many people still riding without helmets?
At least one of the journos has quite a nose for controversy, and it’s a guessing game each day to try and determine which of his stories will run the following day. The problem is, contrary to the image most people conjure up when they think of censorship, at my paper there seems to be a complete lack of defined policy as to what will or won’t be published.
I thought, for sure, the complaint about the fact that so many government officials drive luxury cars wouldn’t get a mention. Nor the one about retired officials who, having worked hard for 30 years, still don’t have subsidised housing, while young upstarts in the job for three or four years have several houses AND fancy cars already- where is this money coming from?
The story listing all these complaints ran on the front page.
But another story, about buffalo owners in rural Luang Prabang being forced to pay damages to Chinese rubber plantation owners, despite these investors refusing to build fences around their plantations, didn’t run, even though it was riddled with direct quotes from an official saying that buffalos aren’t good for the economy and rubber plantations are, so why are these bloody peasants (who have breeding buffalo for generations) complaining?
Never mind that the locals are yet to see a cent from the plantations, which have also been condemned by environmental NGOs.
Anyway, like I said, it’s a guessing game from day to day.

Also: dead bodies, gore
A young girl tried to kill herself in the middle of Vientiane a couple of weeks ago, drawing quite a crowd. She climbed up an electricity pole, intending to electrocute herself. She didn’t succeed, but she did give herself a nasty electric shock, causing third degree burns and frizzed-up, singed hair.
One of the journos was on hand to capture the event on camera, before hurrying back to the newsroom to record the whole thing in detail: her name, address, high school, possible reasons for wanting to die, and a lovely close-up of her messed-up face, wracked with pain as the rescuers pulled her down.
An argument ensued.
“You cannot, absolutely cannot, run with this story,” I said, without thinking.
Bafflement all round. But why? This is hot news! Great photos! Stupid girl, stopped traffic, the people have a right to know!!
After much debate, I managed to convince them to run a small story, omitting personal details and all mentions of suicide, and absolutely no photo.
The journo is still resentful.
“Sally, the news should be a mirror of society,” he pointed out.
At this breathtakingly ridiculous statement, given where we were (the newsroom of a government-controlled, heavily censored Communist mouthpiece), I had no choice but to abandon any complicated speeches about ethics and cut straight to the heart of things.
“Ekaphone,” I said, “this girl might have done something stupid, but she is still alive. Do you think she wants to see photos of herself all burnt up like this on the front page? And what about her family? Ekaphone, what if this was your sister?”
Boom. Case closed.
I’m almost ashamed, especially as I had to employ that little cliché a few days later, when they tried to run a photo of a motorbike accident victim- dead on the road.
“Somsack, what if that was your brother?” I pointed out, and again, it seemed to shut him up.
I would almost prefer it if they had some counter-argument, but the problem is that they want to run these stories without thinking. I suspect this is also the case in the Thai papers, from which the Lao journos draw much of their inspiration. Thai papers seem to have no qualms about publishing photos of dead bodies or accident victims.
It’s an age-old editorial debate.

Teeth and candles- books and root vegetables
There are only two more weeks left of this year. Amazing, no? Philippa and Caroline are joining me in Vientiane for Christmas, which has placed a strain on my language skills already. That’s because in Laos, the words are in a different order, and every noun comes with a classifier. So I can’t tell someone that I have ‘two younger sisters’, but rather ‘I have younger sibling, two persons, girls’.

So I can’t order ‘two cups of coffee’ but rather ‘coffee, two cups’.
Buying 12 roses? “I’ll take rose 12 [insert classifier specific to flowers, light fittings and nails].”
Or 3 turnips? “Please can I have turnip 3 [insert special classifier for books and root vegetables].”

I know, nuts. How am I supposed to learn all this? After a year, I think I’m improving a bit, but for a relatively rough language, it’s very hard to absorb.
I thought, because I already had another language, it would be easy. But I forgot about how hard it is to memorise stuff. I haven’t had to this since high school, pretty much. Even at uni, my exams were all open-book. And I can’t even remember learning French as a process- I was too young.
The problem is that Lao words mostly bear no relation to English or French words. It’s a pain in the ass.

Booker Schmooker
What else has happened in the last fortnight? Work is really picking up the pace, the Island has a new job, and I’ve been reading a lot. Finally got through Katharine Graham, all 680 pages of it, but I haven’t only been reading that. I brought back a slew of reading materials from home- some Quarterly Essays, Australian Vogue, a music mag, this year’s Booker winner The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Dessai. Yes, and I know I said last year’s Booker winner was one of the best books ever, but Inheritance was brilliant. Really stunning. [Incidentally, only one person I know liked The Sea, and that’s Billy in Melbourne. Typical, as he’s a writer himself.]
In the mood for some classical drama, I’ve now foolishly plunged into Anna Karenina. Up to page 80, with just 720 to go.
I bought a stack of DVDs recently, and marvelled at Helen Mirren playing the Queen in The Queen the other night. Ditto Gretchen Mol in The Notorious Betty Page.
Also, a friend gave me the first two seasons of The OC. That’s, like, 50 hours of TV right there. I decided, after the first two episodes, that I was ready to take the plunge, to jump in and invest my time and emotions in the lives of Marissa, Ryan, Seth and Summer. I’m 20 episodes in now, and practically dying of boredom. If only Mischa Barton could act, you know? Her lack of skills are stealing hours of my life! Enough.
Oh, and I’ve had a few nights out. That’s a photo of me bowling, by the way. I don’t like bowling, but the pic is kinda cool. Last weekend I got terribly drunk and had an awful hangover, and considered making a new year’s resolution to stop drinking.
But I really don’t think that’s feasible, do you?