kinderszenen, scenes from childhood

kinderszenen op 15 no 1 is a piece composed by schumann, which means "scenes from childhood." I first heard it from behind the scenes with a friend when a school alumni played it to me. we took turns to play different songs on the piano. when it was his turn, that was also the first time that I ever heard kinderszenen.

it was a very intimate experience. we were just there in the music room that moment. the tenderness of the piece intertwining with its playfulness caught my impression. however, like most things, I forgot about it completely. I only remembered a few weeks ago when I got back to running, which was inspired by one of my teachers, who told me that she wanted to run a half-marathon.

I ran mostly around my neighborhood like I used to in 2020. beside nike run club, I also used strava as recommended by a friend. having a friend that also used the app regularly really helped because it makes you want to compete and beats up the loneliness. I was running through space. and time, too. I was running through the streets of my childhood. this time, I discovered a couple more places: a national historical site and a pagoda built by thích nhất hạnh "right in my backyard."

in parts, kinderszenen is also a liminal photography collection. most of the photographs are of empty buildings and car parks. transitional spaces like empty hallways and corridors evoke this colloidy feeling of being suspended and stuckness, with no beginning or end. this is also the same feeling that I had while

looking at edward hopper's paintings, nebraskan plains, abandoned waterparks, prisoner cells, and postwar bulidings like soviet and albanian bunkers,

listening to the 1975's about you, the sound of clock ticking and sand falling in hourglasses,

being stranded at airports,

reading dostoevsky, murakami's hear the wind sing, and john green's paper towns,

feelings that I had but couldn't find the right word to express: I was feeling liminal. sometimes misanthropic, too.

in this vacumn of space and time, you visit your past selves. it is an eerie yet calming feeling. it reminds you that heraclitus was right and forces you to hold tightly to the present and reality at all costs.

chapter 1. the kindergarten-church-market complex

I grew up going to a kindergarten with a church nearby, with the church facing the district market. I grew up around sơ (vietnamese loanword for the french sœur, or sister, means nun), who were my teachers. we grew up praying before meals and with regular walks to the church, where we would listen to stories about jesus.

in the space between the kindergarten and the church, there was this area where people would socialize and host teachings related to the church. but for my 3-to-5-year-old self, it looked like where jesus would live. I don't know how it started among us. maybe the nuns told us that, or we started it ourselves. for every trip to the church, we would shout "con chào chúa!" (hi jesus!/ what's up, jesus!) into those cells and chambers and believed that he would hear us. in some more extreme and hardcore imagination, I'd imagine that he's invisible during the day because of visitors but he reveals himself at night. he'd be walking in those cells and chambers, cause that's where he lives.

runs to the church helps me realize that distance is only a perception. before going to the us, I would consider the run from my home to the church "far." in my 2020 days, I'd only run here one or two times. now I run to it almost every day. size is relative to what you already know.

taken early in the morning (7.19am) when it was drizzling and cloudy

taken later in the morning (8.41am) when it was less cloudy

upper text: "I am going there to prepare a place for you" (john 14:2)
lower text: "waiting for the day of resurrection"

ix. jesus falls down to the ground for the third time

he said he'd come back and he did!

xii. jesus was born (into another life) on the cross

from the church, you can see the kitchen interior of the kindergarten.
sơ (nun) and other staff are preparing lunch for the children.

"what's up, jesus!"

the 10th commandment: thou shall not covet

text on the left: "loving mother"
text on the right: "the righteous one"

"the righteous one"

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven." (john 6:51)

the gate that leads to the kindergarten, also one of the entrances to the church

this middle school is another entrace to the church

the gate's intricate design gives me brain orgasms

we're not christians, but our family usually visit the church when christmas comes. a lot of non-christians do this, if you wonder; we just come to enjoy the cave, the light, and the festive atmosphere. I grew up going to school around the area: my primary school, and the schools where I had piano lessons and took english lessons before ila are all from here. when christmas time comes, people put on the lights up and riding bikes beneath those lines is just simply magical. sometimes, my dad would even give me a few more rides around the block and we often got home late because I wanted to see the lights.

not a photo from where we live but it looks somewhat like this

the church near our home during christmas time

bonus: the church near my grandparents' home
my grandma is a catholic, I stayed with her one last christmas before studying abroad.
here's also where I heard of another interpretation of the christmas tree: the tree itself is the tree of knowledge, the ornaments are the apples, and the strings are the snakes. it is colorful to lure humanity back to the trodden road.
moral of the story: don't trust flashy things.

facing the church is the market. although my family do most of our shopping in supermarkets, the market near the church still plays a role in my childhood in one way or another. whether we're just passing it by or when I need to eat breakfast or something before taking piano lessons and learning english nearby, I've eaten in at least some, if not all, of the food places opposite to the church. my favorite remains bánh ướt minh tú and phở bắc hà.

phở 24 was also nearby in some corner that I can't remember. however, it was closed off long ago. now that I think about it, I realize that small family businesses, when strategically placed in cultural and high-traffic areas - where parents pick up their kids, go to church, go to the market - is that they stay in business, as they have returning customers. when you have a business that is still standing after so long, you have not simply been an exchange act where people give you money and you give them the thing, you've become a part of their memory. or at least that's what these stores are to me.

not just market places, though, grocery stores are our frequent stops where my dad would by me milk and as I go to evening lessons and diapers also for my sister when she's still a little baby. I lived through marketing campaigns where vinamilk would hand out magnets of different countries or 3D models and every single kid I know (including me) would beg our parents to get us those. after all these years, it's always the little things that get remembered in some special space of our memory.

the magnets that we would get

and the 3D models

chapter 2. primary school

in one strange way, lots of friends that I have from middle school also went here but moved somewhere else or vice versa in their five years. whatever the case it, people seem to have spent an amount of time in this school. we don't really keep any photos back in the day, but I still remember the name of my first grade teacher and how parents were lining outside the classroom looking at their kids on the first day of class.

this is also where I had my first crush. I still keep in touch with a friend that went to the same kindergarten and primary school as I did (we rediscovered one another despite going to different middle school and high school thanks to the gifted english students program). but no that person was not the crush, although they stood together for most class photos. the crush had the same first name as my grandpa and a poet that he loved. he loved literature and poetry a lot. I used to hate that shit and could not compose past the first page whereas he would fill the fourth page. shoutout to khoa: "wherever you are, I hope that you're happy with your life. too bad I can't even remember your middle name and last name. but yeah I did write I love *insert your full name here* on one of my notebooks and my dad asked me about it."

one urban legend that I believed as much as I believed jesus lived in the cells and chambers next to the kindergarten church was that in the storage room, there lies the corspe of lê văn tám. lê văn tám, as I learned out later, is not a real person, like so many figures of revolution that we learned in our vietnamese textbooks (which are updated these days and have less of those stuff). the origin story was that a child drenched himself in gasoline, burned himself and ran to the gasoline depot of the enemies and destroyed everything, as he loved the country. the real story is that the depot somehow burned off, and a professor made up a story with a boy and gave him the name lê văn tám. lê and văn because these were popular last and middle names, and tám (means 8, also means gossip in slang language) because it links to august revolution (in vietnamese we call months by numbers). yet we believed in his existence and my friends had rumors that they hid his body in there.

like the memes on the internet, as I graduated from the school, it got a fucking pool and other facilities, which was built where they had the storage room. guess they moved the corpse elsewhere.

in one of those drawers lied a cursed cup of water that tilted over and wetted my "ethics" textbook

what are those little chairs for?
in vietnamese public schools, we have a period called "saluting the flag" where we sing the national anthem and other songs every monday. the thing that follows is school-wide games for students. students are responsible for arranging the chairs and stacking them up afterwards.

the corridors that I ran in when I was a kid. I was chubby at the time and boys in my class loved playing a game called "getting chased by (my nickname)." I played that game for so long until I realize that they were making fun of me. breaktimes after that, I'd run quickly to a toilet, hid for a bit then go elsewhere after they lost traces of me. the game dissolved around grade 3 or 4 as we mix and mash different classrooms together.

look! that. is. a. fucking. pool.
I didn't get to use it even once but my sister got to.

the original color scheme is brown and mustard yellow. it got repainted a few years back. the new color scheme makes it look like a pagoda. every time we drive past this I'd joke with my sister saying that hey look that's the pagoda.

beside churches and markets, another prime place to start a business is next to schools. open something specialized in stationeries, printing, or just selling food and drinks and I swear by my honor that you will NEVER go out of business (except for summer months, probably). students are always hungry, thirsty, and forgetting school supplies or need some sort of paper or basketball for an upcoming project or physical education. how'd I know all that? I was one of them. before the age of smartphone, we'd spend forever look at toys at nearby stores.

my peers back in the day had daily allowances. not much as I think back at it. about 1 or 2 dollars so that they can get breakfast and/or lunch. some skip meals to get toys or whatever. I was not one of them, as I had homecooked meals (took me so long until college to realize that this was a fucking priviledge). cause I did not have money, these things seem even more unattainable to me than to my peers. many years have passed. still, walking past the stores these days still awakens within me the sensations of enchantment by little toys that it had. it's a wonderful place, the traditional toys and stationeries shop.

chapter 3. extracurriculars-supermarket complex

I can't remember I started which first, but I do know that I started taking both of these classes in first grade. they were quite closed together. I'd take piano lessons on monday, wednesday, and friday around 6pm to 7pm and english lessons on the weekends. for tuesday and thursday, I took practice english lessons, where they'd give us sentences to translate to english, vietnamese, or something and other exercises (for every sentence we get wrong we copy 5 times). now, this may seem like a lot, but it was actually really chill. I came to them pretty willingly. I didn't really feel forced to or have any pressure to compete. I had the priviledge of never going to extra classes of any other subject except for english all my student career. if you're an average child living in vietnam, it's quite normal for you to start going to extra classes starting primary school or middle school for core subjects such as math, literature, english, physics, chemistry, etc.

the road to take piano lessons is a very quiet and tranquil one, as it's placed in a uncrowded neighborhood. I didn't really pay much attention to music theory at the time, which I regret now. I know how to read notes but not much about the rhythms and all. the books that I learned were methode rose and czerny. my progress was quite slow compared to friends as I did not have a piano up until 2016 or 2017. after this performance, I study for a year or two more then stop it completely.

it was once nhất tâm piano, but was later renamed to mystic garden later on.

when waiting for my dad, I'd usually read the many books and comics that they have. I've read the comics about the life of the buddha, doraemon, even vietnamese textbooks for 3rd graders. there's one story about a mother's adventure to take her child back from death in the 3rd grade vietnamese textbook. she hugged some spiky bushes and bled. she cried until her eyes fall for the lake. all of this for directions. it scared the hell out of me and many of my peers. it was originally andersen's the story of a mother. sometimes it would rain and my dad would be late and remembering the story scares me even more. one time he took so long to arrive that I stayed, ate some cheese sticks that my teacher prepared (she's in love with candy crush saga), and one of the teachers ended up taking me home.

a long text like this is often divided into different parts so that student can take turns to read.
the last and 4th part reads:

the moment he saw her, death was surprised, he asked:
- how could you even get here?
to which the mother answered:
- because I'm a mother. give my child back to me!

the english place is now a grocery store. the english center went out of business end of 2015. it's unclear if they still have any center in the city, but a few left in provinces like cần thơ. I met so many cool people back then, but we didn't have any social media back in the day to stay in touch after the whole thing collapsed and dissolved. 

this is also where I got my first english name: mary. strange, huh? I changed my name into sakura and all sorts of stuff as I watch naruto and grow up (I was even lily at some point). lyss, if you know me in high school. dea was a name that I planned to used in college, but now that I'm comfortable enough with my own name, I just go by sang. I did not like sang as a vietnamese name as it gives off male connotations (people still call me mr sang on phone calls because of my voice and name). however, I like sang as an english name and french name as they both have meanings in those languages and are very easy to pronounce. condolences to the phúcs, their name gets pronounced like "fuck" in english.

the business model is a bit strange. most centers have laptops and tablets for us to study, yet this place have a collection of computers with a bunch of games in it. the goal is to make as little mistakes as possible so that you can finish early and enjoy the games in the computer. some classics that I've played on window xp were chicken invaders and bejeweled 2 deluxe.

this is also where I had my first encounter with 18+ stuff. I knew it from boys' word of mouth about some "suspicious online naruto comic" and the rest is history.

the logo the center used back in the day

probably the only photo I have in here. taken with my mom when I first got my movers certificate (english A1, only higher than starters, which is not even existent on the scales). 

chicken invaders, but in fact we just called it game bắn gà, or "shooting chicken game"

bonus: some other games that I plaed back in the day at my grandparents' home
(talismania, plant vs. zombie, feeding frenzy)

the neighborhood changed, too. this was a boba shop called "hot and cold" back in the day. as I did not have any daily allowances, I could never get a drink. however, one day my friend (1 year older than me, we shared many of her snacks together) picked up 10k or 20k someone left on the floor and said she wanted to get boba. I don't remember if I drank it with her but I felt a very strong sense of guilt for using that someone's 10k or 20k afterwards.

as the place closed off, I started studying english at ila in aeon. in case you don't know, aeon is a japanese mall, and strangely enough it was featured on top 5 destinations to visit in tân phú by the district's website for the tourism campaign "tân phú - a walk to remember" beside the tunnels and the pagoda that I mentioned. I continued studying at ila until 2020 when covid hits. I was glad to have met cool teachers and teaching assistants there that I still keep in contact until this date.

I had many memories with this mall even pre-ila times. the mall was opened the start of 2014, 10 years ago, and I first set foot in here when mom rewards me after I nail that starters or movers test. we ate in pepper lunch, bought some dorayaki from the dorayaki factory, and mom bought me 6 comic books that I still keep. I don't know how I could remember so much despite having no photos, but I think it all has to do with the lack of smartphones back then.

books I read keeps referring to this idea: "attention is the most basic form of love." when you pay attention to something, you get familiar with it. you remember it. that's how I remember the roads to most places. and when your remember something, growing to love it is only a matter of time.

the first room that I ever studied in was occupied at the time.
this is the room next door with a similar view. tables were all blue back in the day.

the last room that I studied in before leaving. it's now a storage area kinda thing.

it took me so long to understand the importance of having a world map in a classroom.
for most vietnamese classrooms, we don't have a map. and even if we do, it's usually the map of vietnam. having a world map widens your horizons and give you a more nuanced understanding of the world.

whenever I see this block I start daydreaming about climbing to the top to watch sunsets over the city.

you can see the faint shadow of landmark 81 from afar

this photograph shows that liminality is not only a place but also time, weather, and the combination of those three

I personally find empty restaurants and convenience stores at night to be more unsettling than car parks.
the faint color of fluorescent lights that I often associate with consumerism and an overworked capitalist economy doesn't make it better. everything is neat and ready as if it's waiting for someone. but sadly, that person is godot.

chapter 4. middle school

lê anh xuân (lax) is a 10-minute walk from my house. in most vietnamese public schools, school starts at 7am, and the school gate closes at 6.55am. it's recommended that you get there around 6.45am so that you can get to class and chill out before classes start. because of this, I didn't really walk to school but had my dad ride me there instead. there are two gates, one at the front and one at the back. the back are mostly for students' bikes. that gate closes at a later time, so when we're so late my dad would just eject me right there so I could make it. for times that I couldn't, we try our luck with the front gate. if we're truly desperate and out of luck, then I'd have to have my name noted down by the cohort supervisor and points would be deducted from my class (collective punishment). I find it amazing that I stayed up until 12pm or 1am on some days to do physics homework and would still be able to wake up and go to class.

but you don't always go to class in the morning. for 7th or 8th graders something, we go to classes in the afternoon. however, we still have extra classes to attend to. for example, you're a 6th grader and your main classes will be in the morning. however, on several days you'll have to attend extra sessions in the afternoon to do more practice problems.

I joined the school's english team for the gifted at the end of 8th grade and managed to get to the district team and eventually won some prizes. most of my friends from middle school that I know and still keep in contact with these days are from that team. securing a slot in the district team also means that we get to go to đà lạt together, but sadly I no longer keep most photos. when we get to grade 9, the class got mixed so that the top students are in the first five classes. I was in one of them.

throughout year 8 and 9, homeroom teachers are sort of stunned by my high tech rizz. I got exploited by the 8th grade teacher (who got unfriended by almost everyone by now) to do slides for a competition that she joined (it's call "the good teacher" competition whatever). I did a ton of powerpoint and design and video editing all those years. my design charisma came from days doing ila projects, and with these it really gave it a boost. if you're interested in one of the movies I directed and edited, go here (viewer discretion: cringe content).

by the time we get to grade 9, everyone usually has a dream high school in mind. I feel like the phrase "dream high school" in vietnam resonates with "dream university" in the us more as people don't have to worry about adulting just yet. my dream school started off as trần phú nearby, then higher ranking schools and ended at lê hồng phong. I went to an international school eventually, but the decision caused me much stress during the time. now that I think about it, I feel like a bastard for breaking the system one way or another. while my peers studied their ass of for high school and university entrace exams, I just skipped it or suffer with college board instead.

the center of the circle once stood the flag where we would salute to every monday morning or afternoon

one of my favorite photographs thanks to the contrast and color chemistry.
the person walking is holding a golden statue of hồ chí minh.

heart of lax,
this used to be my facebook background for a while.
I didn't take this photo, I got it from google maps.

our school was once visited by a famous singer, orange, famous for the song người lạ ơi (hey stranger).
she's an alumni from lê hồng phong. if you look closely enough, you might see my bro phúc.

'tis the damn (curtain washing) season

so many legends sat in this table

my seat arrangement for most of 9th grade: the lowermost, left-hand corner in the classroom,
with a view overlooking the bike park and clouds.

the poem I made since 2019 is still hung up there, although people changed the class number from 5 to 6.

photo credits to thiện phúc my comrade

this classroom was used as a test room for the university entrace exam.
pov: it was 2nd june and you were getting tested on ethics with 50 minutes to complete the exam.

my bro standing next to the glass shelf that he once broke as his chair tilted backwards.
he had to pay to repair it rip.

the day we visited, lots of room were not locked (doors were tied together with a string). even the laboratories. it makes sense cause it was curtain washing season. and tbh there was nothing to steal in those rooms. the only room that was locked was the chemistry laboratory supplies room. 

this is the auditorium. it's considered an honor if you have to spend time up here because that means you're the top student in gifted teams.

phúc, myself, and others passed many time in this room mostly fucking around and laughing before important selection exams. we didn't really study lol.

after procrastinating for long enough, we finally met one of the teachers that taught us lol

that one friend that forgot to bring cash, had dying phone and had you pay for everything </3
but he did pay me back guys he's responsible

from afar, you can see the top of the pagoda that thích nhất hạnh built

chapter 5. "in my backyard" gems

so far it's been places that I've been to before. below are new places that I've been to for the first time thanks to strava and google maps.

below is trần phú, a school that was once my dream high school for a brief period of time before getting displaced by nguyễn thượng hiền and eventually lê hồng phong. this could be where I'd go to high school in an alternate reality. lots of my friends do end up going here and they are amazing. I feel at home in here.

biometric fingerprint attendance system

view of thích nhất hạnh's pagoda, pháp vân, from trần phú.
it is also joked as trần phú II, an alternative to the orignal trần phú once you're sick of studying. 

this brings us to our next location, pháp vân pagoda. pháp means dharma (right way of living) and vân means cloud in sino-vietnamese. so welcome to dharma cloud. I think I've been in here once years back for vesak (buddha's birthday). I was climbing the tower and I walked pass a famous singer called phương mỹ chi. this pagoda was built by thích nhất hạnh in 1965. it is currently home to 3 records in vietnam: pagoda with (1) the biggest standing bronze statue of bodhisattva guan yin with thousand hands and thousand eyes, (2) the biggest pair of marble nian (means year in english) beast, and (3) and the biggest carving of the vietnamese translation of prajnaparamita sutra by thích nhất hạnh on golden oak wood doors. I didn't take take photos of all of them, but I had the 2nd one photographed.

cute lil nian beast

nian beast (photo credits)

 the bronze statue of bodhisattva guan yin with thousand hands and thousand eyes :O (photo credits)

the color scheme of the ceiling reminds me of tibetan sand mandalas (photo credits)

carving of the vietnamese translation of prajnaparamita sutra by thích nhất hạnh on golden oak wood doors (photo credits)

pagoda football pitch kinda slaps

sal tree flowers.
thích nhất hạnh and his disciples wrote many plum village meditation songs,
thích pháp thiên wrote rừng sa la thu, or "autumn sal tree forest"

cute lil monk

cute lil elephant

before our tour ends, let's visit one last destination, the phú thọ hoà tunnel system. I've been to those in củ chi a few weeks before this one. compared to củ chi, it is obviously smaller in scale. I'd go to củ chi for the full experience. however, phú thọ hoà tunnels are good alternatives if you don't want to travel far, pay entrance free, and prefer less hardcore choices because they offer the bare minimum tunnel experience. the tunnel entrance are also larger than those we have in củ chi.

these tunnels are called địa đạo in vietnamese. địa = earth, đạo = way, địa đạo = earth way = tunnels. it's not only an earth way but also a way for revolution, as tunnels back then are how vietnamese guerillas hid from american troops. they are meticulously designed so that people could live underground and fight off enemies. a team of tunnel diggers consists of 3 people: one digs, one pulls earth up, and one discards earth elsewhere. people even let couples dig from 2 opposite directions to use their love to fuel the digging. tunnels these days are about 110cm tall for tourism purposes. back in wartime, they're 70cm or 80cm tall at most. in order to not attract unwanted attention, the digging job usually starts around 10pm to 3am in the morning. a tip that they've learned is that americans never bomb the same place twice, so most tunnels are dug right where it was bombed as those places are the safest. the other trick that we had was to wear sandals the other way around so that dogs coudln't trace our directions.

the most important element of these tunnels are obviously the ventilation system, which allows food to be cooked and let air in to breathe. to not be noticed by dogs, a spicy mixture was prepared to disturb the dog. however, the smell soon fades. the more sustainable alternative was to cut dead american soldiers' clothes and mix it with dirt so that the dog mistake the vent system for their deceased masters and leave.

students from my old middle school paying a visit to the tunnels.
crazy thing is that after all these years it's still the same tour guide that I saw on that day.

epilogue. having eaten the apple

credits to austin kleon's show your work

having been at the 8th stage of dan harmon's story circle, it was interesting for me to see things through a new pair of eyes. being from different schooling cultures and moving every few years means that I can self-distance myself and my past to see things that I didn't see back in the day. sometimes I feel like I've eaten the biblical apple, but not everyone did. everything changes through time, but the acceleration stays with me. the more I know and realize, the more responsibility I feel like I should have with what I know.

my education career has been fragmented and scattered in different places. and while I won't find a person that can relate to all of this, I'm glad to have people that I've listened to my story, and hopefully find themselves in here.