Week 4: Leslie

Potential Challenges of a Transnational Vietnamese Heritage Program that Focuses on Len Dong

Although I am second generation Vietnamese American, I never heard of Lên đồng before reading Karen Fjelstad’s research article “We Have Lên đồng Too” Transnational Aspects of Spirit Possession (2006). I learned that Lên đồng stems from the Mother Goddess religion (Đạo Mẫu); lên đồng spirit mediumship involveds a ritual in which “up to 36 spirits” posses the spirit mediums for “over a couple of hours;” according to Getrud Hüwelmeier, the spirit mediums’ responsibilities during the ritual include dancing to “music play by chầu văn musicians,” receiving “offerings,” and distributing “lộc (blessed gifts) to the audience” (Hüwelmeie, 302.) Both Fjelstad’s article and Hüwelmeier’s article inspire me to visit public temples in Ha Noi to observe Len Dong mediumship rituals in-person when I return to Viet Nam this year. My long-term goal is to use Fjelstad’s research article to visualize a transnational Vietnamese heritage program in Viet Nam that educates multi-generational Vietnamese college students in the diaspora about Lên đồng, interdisplinary research skills and collaborations between science and spirit realm studies, the practical roles of Vietnamese shamanism in Vietnamese national politics and the contemporary national economy, and other hidden, suppressed spiritual mediumships within Viet Nam. 

The program will show how Vietnamese shamans consult with animist spirits in nature to provide political and economic decisions that protect the land and people of Viet Nam. The program will also provide open forums for students, especially those studying the sciences and public health, to understand how microorganisms have rapidly multiplied and digested oil in petroleum spills in oceans through a spirit realm studies perspective (Broomfield, 2015.) (As a side note, when I read the information on microorganisms resolving petroleum spills in the ocean, I realized that the microorganisms were responding to environmental crises through animistic energy or a spiritual force that cannot be completely explain through science alone.) 

At the same time, I understand that one should not be naive when developing transnational Vietnamese heritage programs if they have an awareness of anti-communist sentiments and backlash against intellectual collaborations with Viet Nam within Vietnamese communities in the diaspora (Valverde, 14.) For instance, I am concerned about political backlash from Vietnamese American communities who perceive Lên đồng as “primitive” and “unscientific,” because I anticipate that these community members will invoke enough fear in the Vietnamese American college students to discourage them from participating in the program.

Questions
Building off of Fjelstad’s research on lên đồng temples in the Sillicon Valley, my question is, why do some Vietnamese communities members in the Sillicon Valley hold negative views of lên đồng even though temples that practice lên đồng rituals provide “mental health care resources for community members” and support for “maintaining one’s ethnic identity” (Fjelstad, 98-99)?
 
What historical contexts and historical events in the US and in Viet Nam have influenced some Vietnamese American community members to devalue, silence, and suppress open discussions of lên đồng  and see lên đồng as “primitive” in Vietnamese American communities?

References

Broomfield, John. "’We Are Not Alone’ The Shamans Of The World Tell Us." Temple of the Way of Light. Collective Evolution, 01 Mar. 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

Fjelstad, Karen. "‘We have len dong too’: Transnational Aspects of Spirit Possession." Possessed by the spirits: Mediumship in contemporary Vietnamese communities (2006): 95-110.

Hüwelmeier, Gertrud. "Cell phones for the spirits: ancestor worship and ritual economies in vietnam and its diasporas." Material Religion 12.3 (2016): 294-321.

Valverde, Kieu-Linh Caroline. Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, culture, and politics in the diaspora. Temple University Press, 2012.

Video

VIET≈NAM≈ LEN DONG