Funeral Music

We stepped outside into the beginnings of rain and a small crowd dressed in pure white--cymbals, drums, and stringed instruments had been playing all afternoon and into the evening. As we napped on the tile floor of our room on the fourth Tang (floor) this afternoon live music filled the air in strange intermittent spurts. I found it beautiful, though perhaps meant to be sad, it filled me with happiness as it was only the second time I have heard non-electrified live music in over three months. The first was a few days ago in Can Tho in the Mekong delta, when I took a break from reality and wandered to The Victoria Hotel for a U.S. priced sandwich and a dip in the pool. I stayed there all evening with a fellow student--slowly sipping overpriced Indian beer, reading Dostoevsky and fairly melting into my chair each time the resident pianist graced us with twenty minutes of classical. Today's music was for a funeral, the object of which greeted me in the form of a framed photograph wreathed in flowers when I stepped outside. She was 72, and lived a long life: in Vietnam the life expectancy is ~71. Tables were set up in the alleyway, incense was burning, the funeral began three days ago and will not be over until at least tomorrow.