Amplification

This morning I did a little walk-about in Luang Namtha. We are in the Northern reaches of Laos, not far from the Burmese, Chinese, and Vietnamese borders. The roosters had woken me up around 5:15 a.m. and I had a sound night of sleep beneath an oscillating ceiling fan. I found myself locked into the compound we are staying at, but decided to hop the gate rather than wake someone. I and the gate were both a bit precarious, but I managed to not fall off and to only injure my shirt with a 4” tear where a snag of metal caught me. There are 5 hill-tribe ladies encamped just outside this guest house – doing needle work, chewing something, and selling handiwork and perhaps substances. They were there and one of them watched me jump the gate and laughed and then tried to sell me something… Later when I returned she pointed me out to the group I think recapping my gate jumping.

The town dogs were out in force. Fighting, breeding, playing, walking with purpose, sniffing, or laying about. One puppy had an oversized stuffed creature about his size that he was worrying with his teeth. Another game I observed was being played by two young brothers, the half naked baby was trying to stomp on his brothers shoes, and he was dodging out of the way to the delight of both.

Walking a bit further a father and son emerged from the undergrowth by the road with a stick that had a short blade on one end. I gathered it might have been for digging up a type of root, but they didn’t appear to have any harvest yet.

I walked without a particular goal and eventually headed toward high ground. Soon I could hear music coming from a ways away and I headed that way. It kept growing louder as I neared, but 3 blocks had gone by and I still had not discovered the source. Eventually the source revealed itself: a temple atop a hill just outside of town. Several saffron robed chaps were sitting atop a knoll silently. The music was almost blaring from two speakers off a building next to them that had a number of monks bowls in it and mostly older people there for a morning prayer session. It is a doodle thought, but I wonder about how recorded music has taken away from the need for the monks to chant or for Americans to sing or in Muslim cultures for a cantor to sing the call to prayer. Too often I fear we trade in spectatorship for participation. I want to decree (when I am king for a day), that the monks should make their own music, that the mosques should have a live call to prayer- that, like the rooster or the crying baby, one’s own vocal power ought to determine the reach of the call - especially when one makes music at 5:30 a.m. I particularly wondered how the immediate neighbors felt about the daily music. On my way back I was greeted by more music emerging from one of the municipal buildings – exhorting the people I imagined to be good, upright, true and accepting of music and speaker announcements and roosters that blare in the morning air.