Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam [Hardcover]

This book is a window into a Vietnamese culture that is almost an alternative reality. Quang's extraordinary journey is a chronicle of war, folk medicine, encounters with spirits and ghosts, narrow escapes, mentorship with his healer-father, and tutelage under martial artists, sorcerors, and cave hermits. The report is so persuasive and lucidly written, I needed to frequently check the validity of my own (Western) version of the objective world as I read the book.
Quang learns Chinese medicine and pulse diagnosis from his father, and spells, charms and incantations from other teachers. The magic Quang learns or witnesses with those teachers is fascinating. The magic proves to be an effective manipulation of the physical world, altering events, demonstrating uncanny powers, and curing or creating illness. I realized our Western science is just another kind of magic, a magic that has been codified and generalized. This is reflected in our version of the objective world.
The wonder of this book is the humble and gentle way, through Quang's story of growing up in Vietnam, it presents us with an opening into seeing the world as truly a more varied and mysterious place than we had previously imagined.

First I have to claim a bias: I've known Dr. Quang for several years and have been his patient. He's truly one of the most remarkable people I've ever met--compassionate, simple in the sense of having nothing unnecessary in his life and surroundings, and quiet with silence that arises from the core of his being. We in the West, when we go to doctors, are looking to be repaired, and believe that when something goes wrong with us, it's somehow an isolated event affecting some part of us only, rather than an expression of our overall being, a disorder of our universe. When I first visited Dr. Quang, I had a worrisome condition that caused me a great deal of fear. When I asked him why this was happening to me, he smiled kindly and said only, "Everybody gets sick." It was a turnaround point for me, in that it took me out of myself and connected me with all of humanity. I immediately relaxed, and the greater part of the fear was gone, which put me in the place where real healing could begin. When I read this book, I found it filled with such moments, and with tales of a place and time when a people lived day-to-day with wonders and miracles and the understanding that all we need or could want is already there, within us, waiting.

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain -- A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam reveals a world that has all but disappeared in most of Asia, a world where Buddhas, earth spirits and shamans are as real as the food you eat and the bed you sleep in. The book itself opens in a trance, where Quang addresses the "flesh-eating sun" and makes the clouds "bang into each another." When I lived in Taiwan 25 years ago I had watched the shamans invite the earth god into their bodies, swallow ash, moan, jerk, swoon and beat themselves with red maces, write holy charms, and spray the afflicted with cascades of tea and saliva as fine as an evening mist. I was an outsider looking in. Quang's book, however, helps me see and understand what the shamans see. He writes from the perspective of an insider looking out, where it is the outer and not the inner world that is out of balance.

The imagery in this book is rich and yet the writing is clear and light. Arranged into short chapters, each story unfolds, offering at times distant and at others close, a perspective on the many people key in Quang's life. Their stories weave in and out of one another, each carrying his or her own yin and yang of energy. As one of the other reviewers commented, it is a pity that the Vietnamese names were transposed into American name order as this makes it harder to recognize and remember the identities of the personalities. Also, some of the Vietnamese terms were mispelled. However, these are issues that can easily be corrected in future editions of the work. What Nguyen Van Quang and his co-author Marjorie Pivar should be remembered for is their tireless devotion to revealing with loving detail the flowers, fruits, flavors, and fauna that make Vietnamese life so distinctive. These are the things that their "translation" of events make so alive and captivating.

Like the sweet smell of sandalwood incense, the story of Nguyen Van Quang's life transports the reader to that point in time and space where the spiritual and the material converge. In scene after scene he introduces the people who have changed his life. One after another he takes the reader to caves, temples, and street fairs to meet those that dwell within -- his adopted father, a Buddhist monk, who finds him as an infant abandoned in a basket on market day; Tiger, the truck driver who can outwit his competitors but not his own heart; Tattoo, the martial arts master who secretly teaches Quang the occult arts; and, many others, some that you will get to know but never quite "see."

This book is not just a well told collection of the remarkable characters in Quang's life. I have just returned from my third trip to Vietnam and Quang's quiet characterizations of the political legacies that constrain and drive Vietnam's modern life ring true. Chapter by chapter Quang takes you through the evolution of Vietnam's culture and drawing nearer and nearer, he reveals the sounds of that other world, the world of the dominating Chinese, the departing French, the opportunist Viet Minh, the conniving Viet Cong, the now-you-see-them-and-now-you-don't obliviousness of the American troops, and, the self serving fatuousness of the politicians of the South. Towards the end, as Khmer Rouge guerrillas terrorize the countryside and party politicians in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) neglect the very regions they had fought to liberate, Quang still hangs on. Despite the decades of war and centuries of foreign agression, he tells of another reality, where in his village near the Cambodian border Cambodians, Chinese, and Vietnamese trade, mingle, and marry one another, and how nearly all help each other, saving lives and suffering death together.

Quang's book is one that compels the reader to wonder what is more important in life and what is really real. Wile Quang seeks true realization in a cave apart from others, the outer world is lost in a cave of its own. He also reveals the rich world of Vietnamese spiritual and religious life, a world that values individual cultivation but for the benefit of society as a whole. As he grows older, Quang realizes that he can no longer live just in his small world of tigers, tunnels and charms, but go forth into the world of human relationships -- to meet the strong women and men of today who will become the Buddhas and memories that the shamans of the future world will call upon to guide, strengthen and heal.

If you want to understand Asian spiritual values, discover Asian history, or enjoy the tale of a life well lived, by all means read this book. This truly is one of those rare opportunities to view life not as an observer, but as a participant. Quang and Marjorie will truly take you down a path for which there is no map but for which there surely is a light.

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