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the peace walk took place around the ruins of a church- one of the tourist sights of Berlin. 50 people were present led by 6 monastics from the European Institute of Applied Buddhism. People brought flowers and sang the Avolikitera chant so sadly. The walking meditation around the tourist site was deep and profound in silence. a petition was signed and brought to the Vietnamese Embassy in Berlin today at 10am.

that morning I had been to another surrealism collection, and a picasso and klee collection in Charlotteburg. Overwhelmed by so much art I reflected that surrealism seemed to get back to blood and bones. I’d like my writing to be bare and brutal like that when appropriate. Surrealism was born from chaos and eventually ww2 so it is no wonder these artists were disturbed. I want my writing to also contain hope, love and peace because I have experienced these things. That’s where I differ I guess.

last night met Xin Ran which I’ll blog separately about. and saw a chinese punk band Joyside who were great! Bought a CD which comes with a DVD of theirs too. I also went to SO36 the punk indie club of Kreuzberg to check out Japanese techno. Very intimidating looking place with 5 eastern european bouncers and dog- but once inside, the safest club in the world.

I met Pham Thi Hoai yesterday, by dropping in on her apartment- I made the mistake of thinking her magazine Talawas actually had an office! She is lovely to talk to with the assistance of my father- her english is like my german. She is devoting all her time to Talawas and has not written fiction for a long time. She said she needs to be in her own world to do that and there are other things in the world to worry about than her own problems.  Talawas has also picked up on the story of the monks and nuns in Vietnam in Bat Nha.  She made some comments about the lack of news coverage in Germany on Vietnam, and said it was harder to get published in Germany as an Asian diasporic writer than in Australia. She has read the Boat by Nam Le which has been translated into German- loved the first story but the rest did not touch her. She has kindly offered to show me Vietnamese community in Berlin and will come to my reading on November 4 at the Literaturwerkstratt.

She also told me that the East Berlin Vietnamese community from the North and the West Berlin Vietnamese community from the South do not talk to each other. She had also heard about the pho dogs (see my article in issue 6 of Peril at www.peril.com.au)

I went to the Berliner Philomoniker last night which was brilliant (of course) and saw more museums with my father who is in Berlin for two days.  The dali museum has inspired me to try and adapt a form of writing that is more jagged, subconscious and surreal in terms of narration- which I will write more about once I’ve started trying it.

The Wall fell in Berlin, Communism crumbled in the USSR, oppresssion can come to an end through peaceful action. Today I am more hopeful about oppression around the world- change can occur. I have been repositioning my work in response to the religious oppression in Vietnam- and decided that the Lady of the Realm which is a historical fantasy novel about Quan Am is about oppression and responses to it. Quan Am responds with compassion. Perhaps now I am closer to understanding the response of non violence. Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) has asked us to voice our concerns for those in Bat Nha and I have been meditating and cultivating positive energy while I can. Yesterday I met two activitists- a queer Italian activist in my German class and a Marxist feminist that I knew ten years ago from student politics. Their take on European politics is fascinating. Germany is not utopia although liberal feminism has come a long way here. Der Grun is also not equivalent to the Greens in Australia- they are much weaker now having formed coalitions with the Christian conservatives in the south of Germany and making compromises. Der Linke is more like the Greeens at home.

Italy is conservative and getting worse. Davide is flying back to Italy for two days to participate in a demonstration against the Vatican. There have been bombings of queer nightclubs in Rome in Italy. In Berlin sexuality is open here with affection part of everyday life. Davide questioned me about Australia, yes we have the mardi gras but that does not mean Australia is not homophobic.

On the other hand Kate has been telling me that amongst left student activists in Germany women are still not holding leading positions and taking part in political debate.  Which boggles my mind a bit- I associate the left with women’s liberation so am trying to grasp this and how it might work.

So there are so many nuances and one thing great about this residency is learning about these things.

Yesterday went to a surrealism exhibition which was brilliant and gave me much food for creative thinking. It featured, Dali, Magritte, Miro and others and slices open what can be done in the representation of the mind, consciousness and psychic states. Since my work features psychics, psychosis and hallucinations it made me wonder how else I can represent the fragmented mind in my writing. The short story “Yolk” (which you will find in my collection “Vivid”) is the closest i have come to attempting it.  What also fascinated me is that the Surrealism manifesto came out during the chaos of world war 2. The oppression of war and violence undercuts some of the works I saw. Perhaps the repeated oppressions of Vietnam birthed the Order of Interbeing so beauty can come from oppression like a lotus from mud. Here are some lines from my impressions:

Sliding escape of psychic realities

Red bloody twisted shapes splashed onto the subconscious lake

Freedom undercuts every movement of the sharpest mind

Against the blackest midnight.

Today I have discovered that Vietnam is now the head of the UN Security Council for 2 months from today. Ironically the situation for the Prajna monastics has worsened and they are now under siege from uniformed police in Bao Loc. Below is an article that I have submitted to various newspapers for publication.

A memorial to my true home

Hoa Pham is currently in Berlin on a writers residency courtesy of the University of Western Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, the Goethe Institute and the Copyright Agency Limited.

Time is marked in memorials of concrete and stones in Berlin. The Communist rule here has been taken over and superseded, the Wall is now slabs of art and a gallery, the site of the Third Reich planted with memorials for their victims. Germany lost a war more than fifty years ago, and the tourists visit the legacy of places where once  massacres occurred. The death strip where those who tried to escape East Berlin is also immortalised in stones, reminders of a more recent past.

How different is the reminders of war in Hanoi? Here the memorials are also cast in concrete and history is written by those who won. It is more than thirty years ago now and tourists take pictures next to tanks and the Liberation Palace that witnessed the fall of Saigon. There is no mention of the hundreds of thousands who fled the Communist regime, nor of those murdered or imprisoned for trying to leave. Instead the Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) return to marvel at what has become of their homeland and spend foreign currency much needed to boost the economy.

I visited the statues of Marx and Engels in Berlin, flanked by metal rectangular monoliths that had photos of other Communist regimes incised on the surfaces. Ho Chi Minh was there, along with a photo of a tiny woman from the Viet Cong next to a gigantic American soldier. There is no commentary with the photos, they speak for themselves in black and white on silver.

Both places make a living from the recent past, a morbid fascination with history drives the snapping of cameras, for people to say, I’ve been here. Communism in Germany and Vietnam is a souvenir to Westerners who have not experienced it. Some of the radical left in Australia tag themselves Communist in ideals, expressing values that have resulted in lethal oppression in other countries. To me this seems impossibly naive.

It is the present that concerns me now. As I write three hundred Buddhist monks and nuns, have been forcibly evicted from Prajna Monastery in Bat Nha, 6 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City. The monastery has been destroyed while police blocked all exits and it is known that plain clothes policemen were part of the mob that destroyed the temple.

Prajna Monastery followed Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, the exiled Vietnamese Zen Master based in Plum Village in France. Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King in the sixties when he was in the US asking for the end of the war. Thich Nhat Hanh was invited back to Vietnam twice by the Vietnamese government, the last time in 2007 when he did a tour of Vietnam for Great Ceremonies of Mourning commemorating all that had suffered during the American/Vietnam War. His teachings say that fear and anger are the enemy, not mankind. In 2007 it seemed that Vietnamese government was opening up and encouraging Buddhism, the predominant religion in Vietnam.

Now in 2009 this action by the Vietnamese Government destroys the optimism of removing Vietnam from the list of repressive regimes by the US just before APEC was held in Hanoi in 2006. Coincidentally APEC occurred just before Thich Nhat Hanh’s last visit to Vietnam. The government that maintains his exile have withdrawn their opportunistic welcome of him once more. On the thirtieth of September the Prajna monks and nuns having fled to Bao Loc’s temple have been placed under siege this time by uniformed police. Under the threat of violence the abbot has been forced to surrender 30 of the youngest nuns and monks who have been arrested and taken to Ho Chi Minh City.

I have been to Prajna Monastery and visited the monks, nuns and aspirants there with their bright smiles and welcoming eyes. It was at this peaceful beautiful place that I thought I had found my spiritual home, connecting me to Vietnam as a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese). Thich Nhat Hanh held a five day Buddhist retreat there for ten thousand Vietnamese people in 2007, teaching breathing, mindfulness and peace within oneself to promote peace outside oneself. Prajna means insight, one of the three jewels of Buddhism.

At one of the sister temples in Ho Chi Minh City there are five pebbled mounds commemorating the execution of five followers of Thich Nhat Hanh before the war broke out. If the world does not react to the latest oppression in Vietnam there will be yet another memorial for more than 300 monastics in the ground.

I dread to think what this might look like, and weep for my true home.