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    Critical Notes: Fourth Uncle in The Mountain: A Memoir of A Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam

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    The joys of Buddhism made real in this brief document.

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    Critical Notes: Fourth Uncle in The Mountain: A Memoir of A Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam

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    javanenosh
    45 views2 pages
    The joys of Buddhism made real in this brief document.

    Original Title

    Global Buddhism

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    The joys of Buddhism made real in this brief document.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    45 views2 pages

    Critical Notes: Fourth Uncle in The Mountain: A Memoir of A Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam

    Uploaded by

    javanenosh
    The joys of Buddhism made real in this brief document.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Critical Notes

    Journal of Global Buddhism 6 (2005): 44

    Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in


    Vietnam

    By

    Franz Metcalf
    [email protected]

    Copyright Notes: Digitial copies of this work may be made and


    distributed provided no chargeis made and no alteration ismade to the
    content. Reproduction in any other format with the exception of a
    single copy for private study requires the written permission of the
    author. All enquries to: http://www.globalbuddhism.org
    Journal of Global Buddhism 44

    ISSN 1527-6457

    CriticalNotes

    Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam By Marjorie


    Pivar and Quang Van Nguyen. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004, xiv + 368 pages,
    ISBN: 0312314302 (hardcover), $25.95

    By

    Franz Metcalf
    [email protected]

    A magical book, literally and figuratively, the autobiography of a "monk" in the


    tradition of Buu Son Ky Huong, a millenarian folk-Buddhist-Daoist tradition from
    Southwest Vietnam. Spanning decades of what we in America call the "Vietnam War,"
    the memoir tells a rich, first-person tale of a vanishing lifeway in a vanishing culture. We
    follow Dr. Van Nguyen as he grows into adulthood and develops his skills through
    encounters and apprenticeships with a bewildering cast of shamans, monks, healers,
    meditation masters, martial artists, sorcerers, and priests. The reader is often at a loss
    trying to decide which of these titles to assign to the book's important characters — even
    to the protagonist and his father. Yet in a way this is a virtue: we are plunged into a world
    that does not correspond to our preconceptions of "Buddhism," "Daoism," or even
    shamanism. Not until p. 124 does anything resembling the Buddhism scholars tend to
    valorize (if not fetishize) appear in the narrative. Even then, it is a particularly South
    Vietnamese form, in contrast to models commonly taught in academia.

    A pleasure to read, the book brings back a culture now distant in time, as well as space,
    with both specificity and sensuality. Vietnamese American readers may be particularly
    moved and enriched by the book's evocation of their historical and cultural legacy. The
    accessible style makes the book appropriate for undergraduate as well as graduate
    courses. It would fit naturally in courses on indigenous religions and on religion and
    healing. In Buddhist studies, it would be valuable in courses on Buddhism in practice as
    well as, of course, Buddhism and healing. Additionally, I can imagine excerpting
    chapters as bracing additions and antidotes to the usual fare in Buddhist survey courses.

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