Electric Jesus

In the spirit of doing things that make me uncomfortable, which is how I ended up in Southeast Asia in the first place, I went to a midnight mass at a church in Hue, Vietnam last night. This whole scheme started when I was eating lunch at this little cafe near my horrible little hotel. I found refuge from the sleazy cyclo drivers, who circle the block like sharks and won't take no or fuck-off for answer (though screaming gibberish and smacking myself in the face seems to work), in a place that serves terrible food and plays great music. Eating my slime and listening to BB King, the owner and I got to talking and eventually she invited me to church with her. I agreed -- never letting her in on my dark secret.

The church was teeming with people who were busy taking pictures of eachother in front of a rock. The normal assortment of food vendors camped out on the street with fry pots bubbling with mysterious wonder. There were even a few Buddhist monks in the mix, checking out the scene -- I tried to get their attention so i could say, "hey, me too, buddy -- not catholic, yeah!" thinking we could start a little club or giggle and throw paper airplanes throughout the service together. Didn't work out.


The church was built by French people in the 1960s and I think it shows. The interior, which is sort of like a droopy teapot, is decorated with a lot of acute pastel rainbow triangles. There are some mosaics of the same ilk, even a jesus with sideburns or two. The walls are painted a bright blue and everything is illumintated either with strips of neon lights or multi-color low-wat lightbulbs.


I sat next to my friend in a pew (that's what you call 'em right?) and we watched children act out the story of the creation. The kids that were trees did a good job of swaying in the breeze and giving Eve the apple; the kid that was the sun started off pretty well, but he kind of gave up on hopping around and waving his arms halfway through.

Apparently religious services are a good time for more Vietnamese pop music and everybody started doing the electric slide to a viet-pop version of some Christmas carol or other.

Every so often, when I asked my friend what was going on -- ie, who is the kid with the Yankees hat supposed to be? She would say something like, "Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, remember?"
"oh her, yeah... she looks different!"
"Do they do like this in America?"
"Uhh, yeah ... oh yeah, definitely. Only its bigger and there are more bells and, uhh, we have real Arabs play the wisemen, their beards look better than that kid's."

The crib was brought out next ... and then the extension cord. The next thing I know, the priests are carrying around a glowing neon-haloed Jesus while an altar boy follows behind with a massive spool of extension cord -- like the cable boy who follows a screaming coach around the sidelines at a football game.

When the priests carried the Jesus up to a gigantic diorama of Bethlehem, I made my exit -- but not before I could get a few pictures. So now I know the true meaning of Christmas and I'll stick to eating Chinese food; or, as the case was today, Vietnamese.

Meanwhile, I can't access my own blog or anybody else's on Blogspot, maybe Vietnam has some block on it, because I think they do things like that -- the newspapers are hilarious for that reason -- so I hope y'all can get through and if you're leaving me messages, well, thanks!