Learning Tuong

Learning Tuong I arrived in Vietnam in august 2005. I stepped out of the airport anxiety searching for a sign that would say my name; Thi had asked his niece to pick me up from the airport. She was learning English at University and was keen to be my guide.

I had arranged a home stay with one of Thi's friends, Nguyen Thanh Tuyet (Co Tuyet) she was also an artist in the 'Cheo' theatre. A beautiful woman with a big heart. For the entirety of my first stay in Vietnam. I lived with her and her Husband Chu Duc who was a music teacher. During that time she really took on the role of organising my lessons, checking my schedule, taking care of my health, introducing me to the culture, she even firing one of my teachers because she didn't like her method.

My plan was to do an intensive course in Tuong over a period of four months. I planned to study as hard as a could and achieve as much as possible in that short period of time. It was arranged that I would have lessons five times a week, two hours a day. During the rest of the time I would practice privately. Before leaving Australia I had bought an inexpensive Samsung camera that had a filming function. I thought the best way to learn would be to film the lesson every day and load it onto my computer and revise it by playing it back. My lessons were going to be in Vietnamese as none of the teachers spoke English. I knew this was going to be tough as I had only been learning Vietnamese for a few months so there were going to be a lot of miscommunication, but I was up for the challenged. I figured that if I plunged myself into a completely Vietnamese environment I would be bound to learn the language quickly.

My first lesson was by far the worst, my teacher, Co Hue, I had heard was quite famous in Vietnam for her art form. So I was feeling quite exciting about learning from a master. We began the lesson with some basic movements of Tuong, she wrote some information for me in my work book, all in Vietnamese of course, and I didn't understand I single word. Then we began the lesson, she would showedme a movement and I would attempt to imitate her. But I quickly began to have difficulty; she was following some kind of odd rhythm that I couldn't quite grasp. After only a few moments of showing me the movement she sat down behind a drum and instructed me to perform the movement as she played. I couldn't remember it yet, I felt like such a donkey attempting to recall what she had just shown me. She stopped drumming and looked up at me seriously 'Em thuoc chua?' I didn't understand, I knew that the word 'em' was referring to me and the word 'chua' meant 'yet' but 'thuoc' I didn't know. So I just replied in the only way I had learnt was to say 'chua' meaning 'not yet'. She seemed annoyed at my response but got up and instructed me a second time.

This routine continued to the end of the lesson, at which time Co Tuyet came into the room with a plate of fruit. We all sat on the floor eating some kind of melon and Co Tuyet asked about the lesson. My teacher began talking, and I had no idea what they were saying, but I could tell that she was unimpressed with me. I could imagine what she was thinking; 'who is this Australian girl who hardly speaks a word of Vietnamese, what am I supposed to teach her, this is a waste of my time'. I managed to catch a few things that Co Tuyet said back to her 'em ay rat thong minh' (she's very clever) 'the thi noi cham' (then you should speak slowly). The lesson ended and my teacher went home for the day, leaving me feeling disappointed and desperate. I started to think perhaps this was all a bad idea, and I wanted to go home. Determined to turn things around I loaded the lesson that I had filmed onto the computer, played it back, and analysed it, I watched it over and over, paying attention to every element of the dance; the rhythm, the expression, the intricate hand movements, and I imitated them. I studied for hours trying to get it exactly the way she had done it. Then I filmed myself doing it and compared it to my teacher. When I felt confident that I knew what I was doing, a thought occurred to me; recalling what my teacher had said to me earlier I quickly fetched my Vietnamese dictionary; 'thuoc- to know or remember the lesson'.

The next day when my teacher arrived she asked me the same question as the day before 'em thuoc chua?' (Do you know the lesson yet) and this time I was confidently able to reply 'em thuoc roi' (I know it already). I performed the piece with ease and watched the expression on her face change. 'Ok', she said, and we continued, I had earned her respect. This was the manner in which the rest of my lesson's would be carried out; if I didn't get something straight away my teacher would be confident that I would know it by the next day. At this rate I was building up an impressive repertoire.

My singing teacher was a completely different story. She arrived ready to love me, she was thrilled that an Australian girl had come all the way over to Vietnam to learn Tuong and she was ready to help in any way she could. During the first lesson with her she sat opposite me and talked quickly and excitedly constantly touching me and stroking me with happiness. I couldn't understand a word she said but I sat there and smiled. She began teaching me the singing for the piece Ho Nguyet Co Hao Cao; (a famous piece about a woman who was born a fox but possesses a magical pearl that allows her to become a powerful human. After one thousand years of being a human she meets a young man who tricks her and steals her pearl, without the pearl she turns back into a fox.) Apon hearing my teacher sing, I found it to be the strangest sounding singing that I had ever heard, it seems to go up and down with no pattern and no set rhythm or tune. Much later on when I came to understand Vietnamese better I realised that it did follow a patter dictated by the tonality of the language, but at the time it seems completely random.

After the first lesson I rang my friend Tom who was a Vietnamese man who lived in Australia and asked him to translate the lyrics of the song for me. I faxed him the words and waited for him to email me the translation. He rang me back shortly afterwards and said 'I can't translate this' I asked him why. 'Because the words are written in ancient Vietnamese, most Vietnamese people would not be able to understand' Great, I thought, as if this were not already tough enough. It took around 2 months to learn all of the movement and singing to Ho Nguyet Co Hoa Cao. I performed that extract where she has just lost the pearl and slowly, agonisingly turns back into a fox. And as I became more confident with the piece I felt a sense of freedom that I hadn't before, to bring huge amounts of emotion to the piece. I think that it being in a different language allowed me to get over some stage fright that I previously had.

At the time I never anticipated that I would actually ever perform the piece well (in comparison to how a Vietnamese performer could perform). My intention was always to learn skills for Tuong that would allow me to create my own form of theatre back in Australia. But after some time, people began to praise the quality of my performance, and unlike in Australia, you can usually count on a Vietnamese person's word to be genuine because if they find fault in you they don't let politeness get in the way of the truth.

After finishing Ho Nguyet Co I began learning other pieces, each time I learned a new piece it would take a little less time than before. I guess you could say I was getting the hang of it. I also learned Xuan Dao Cat Thit (A piece about a woman who is poor tha she has to cut her own flesh to feed her mother in law) Du hong (The powerful chicken man) and Ngu Bien (Five Disguises. A woman breaks into the palace to kill the man that murdered her husband then has to disguise herself five times to escape prosecution.

Each piece had a different teacher; My teacher for Du hong was a lively man name Chu Ke. He came from three generations of Tuong performers and he had been training since he was 12. I remember on the first day he arrived he taught for about an hour and then invited his friend over who brought beer and dog meat and we all sat on the floor eating and talking. My teacher for Ngu Bien was Co Man Thu, who at the time I did not realise was Vietnam's was famous and most renowned Tuong Actor. She had the title of 'The People's artist', which is the biggest honor you can be given. She was an elderly woman who could still jump up high and land in a sitting position. Another teacher was Co Yen, she began to teach me Dao Tam Xuan but I didn't think the piece was kind what I wanted to study. However I found her be such a wonderful teacher that I had to hold onto her. So she began teaching me basic Tuong songs. I found her to be the most intelligent teacher I have ever had.

By the end of my five months in Hanoi, although everything in Vietnam is cheaper than that in Australia, I found my-self back in Australia, not just broke, but in debt. I had been given good service from all my teachers in Vietnam, but I had paid for it- in Viet Nam Dong. Back in Australia, having learnt what I'd learnt, opportunities were beginning to open up for me that weren't there before. Theatre Companies were starting to take interest in me, my old lecturers were asking me to perform, I could easily have taken what I'd learnt from Tuong and started working in Australia as a theatre practitioner. But I felt like something was missing, all I wanted to do was get back to Vietnam, I wanted to study ... Cheo.