To The Moon and Back

The Man on the Moon

By Amy Friedman. Published on uExpress.com on October 9, 2005.

Look up—there, in the moon, is a spreading banyan tree and a young man. The man’s name is Cuối, and when he was young, long before he lived on the moon, he was a regular boy who lived on Earth like other boys. And like many boys, Cuối liked to tell little white lies, and sometimes he told big lies, too. As time passed, he became known as a troublemaker.

One day, when Cuối was supposed to be tending the buffalo of a rich farmer, he decided he would rather play. And so, as he often did, he escaped into the forest where no one would find him. He soon forgot about his chores and tasks. Instead he wandered, staring idly at the footprints he left in the damp earth as he walked.

When he grew tired, he lay down beneath a banyan tree and squinted up at the sun and at the birds dancing in the cool autumn wind.

Presently a whimpering noise coming from a nearby thicket attracted his attention. Cautiously he stood up and tiptoed toward the sound. He pushed aside some leaves and spotted four little tiger cubs lying there.

Cuối knelt down beside the cubs and began to play with them. He tickled their bellies and chins; he laughed as they tumbled and rolled over each other.

And then, because he so loved pranks, Cuối began to tease the cubs. He lifted one of the little creatures high into the air, dangling him over his brothers and sisters who stared up helplessly.

Just then Cuối heard something padding through the undergrowth and a low growling sound. Frantic, he dropped the cub to the ground, where it fell with a thud.

Knowing what would happen if the mother of the cubs found him, he raced to the banyan tree and scrambled up the trunk. Just as he reached the top, the tigress appeared, and when she discovered her injured cub, she growled in anguish.

High up in the tree, hidden behind the spreading leaves, Cuối could hear sorrow and fury in that growl. He held his breath and sat as quietly as he could, terrified she would discover he was the culprit who had harmed her cub.

But then the tigress did something strange. She turned around and walked to a small banyan sapling growing close to the tree in which he hid. Cuối trembled as she bit off several leaves, but apparently she did not see or hear or smell him. She simply began to chew upon those leaves, and then she walked to her cub and placed the matted leaves inside the cub’s mouth.

Cuối watched in amazement as the lifeless cub opened his eyes, and within a few minutes, got up on his own and began to run about. Cuối let out a small sigh of relief, for the cub was healed.

So those leaves are magic, Cuối thought. I could do many things with such a tree.

When the tigress saw that her cub was well, she carried all four into the forest to find a safer hiding place.

Cuối waited until nightfall, when he was certain the tigress and her cubs were far away, He climbed down the tree. He grabbed the slim trunk of sapling banyan nearby, pulled it up by its roots and hurried home. There, beside his house, he planted that tree.

The next day Cuối cured one of his friends of an illness no one could cure simply by offering him some banyan leaves mixed in a cup of tea. And after he had cured many sick people, he became famous throughout his village and elsewhere for his ability to heal even the most difficult cases.

Meanwhile, the little sapling flourished and grew rapidly in size. As time passed, Cuối became quite prosperous and acquired the title of “miracle doctor.”

Some years later, when he revived the daughter of a village leader, he asked the hand of the daughter in marriage, instead of a fee. The daughter was overjoyed, for Cuối was thought by everyone to be a young man of great promise. And so they married. The trouble was, Cuối had not changed altogether, and after a while his wife became annoyed at his lazy ways and at the tricks he still played. She became frustrated, too, by the love he lavished upon his tree. He seemed far more attentive to it than to her.

One day as Cuối was leaving to pay a visit to a sick neighbor, he turned to his wife and said, “Make certain you take care of my tree while I’m gone.”

This was the last straw. The moment Cuối was out of sight, his wife carried a huge bucket of soapy, dirty water to the tree and poured it on the roots.

The tree began to shake and shudder, and she was alarmed to see, in the next moment, the tree tearing itself out of the ground. Up and up it pulled, and the roots rose out of the ground amid a shower of dirt and pebbles. Cuối happened to return just at that moment, for he had forgotten something, and there was his precious tree, beginning to rise into the sky!

“Stop, stop, you mustn’t leave me,” Cuối cried. He knew if he did not have the magical banyan, he would lose his status and respect. “Wait,” he cried, and he ran as fast as he could toward the tree and grabbed onto its roots. But Cuối was not nearly heavy enough to hold that tree to the ground, and so it carried him up and up, all the way into the sky and onto the moon, where he and the tree live to this day.

Some people in Vietnam believe that each autumn a few leaves from that banyan tree fall to Earth. They say whoever is lucky enough to find one of those leaves will be able to heal sickness just the way Cuối did so long ago. And so, if you are walking along and a leaf lands on you, be careful with it. It may be a leaf from the tree on the moon.

Meanwhile On Earth…

I remember my father while he still lived in the house. I remembered the musk of the Dunhill cigarettes still clinging to the couch; the embers glowing like the coals over which he cooked spare ribs on the Fourth of July; the piano standing along a wall in our two-story home. I never quite remembered him playing that piano. His musical talent would only be known to me when I became old enough to attend all of the family weddings on his side of the family: almost every year an aunt, uncle, or older cousin betrothed to their new spouse. And my father would sing, play the guitar, or act as the emcee, or even the Vietnamese version of the Best Man. I remembered that short period when he lived in the house. And then my parents divorced, and he left. He visited us probably once every few months, and then those months stretch into once every year. Then as I moved to Southern California for college, I almost forgot about him.

Many years later, as I became a man (or so I would like to think), I paid him a visit at the house of the friend he was staying with. His face showed his age; a skin as ashy as the Dunhill cigarettes he continued to smoke; the lines emanating from his eyes like the estuaries of the Mekong delta. He told me about his early years, when I was a baby, and even before I was born, how he met my mother: a house party where, apparently, my mother was fooling around with a drum set just banging out a cacophony, whereupon my musically talented father came in and taught her the basics of rhythm.

He was a deep thinker, a philosopher of sorts, eventually becoming a talented engineer. He organized the Vietnamese New Year Festival in San Jose for several years, and was very involved in the community. Even though he had no money, some of the wealthier friends would help pay for my parents’ wedding, because they believed in him. He showed great promise. My mother thought she was a very lucky woman. Unfortunately, he had a fatal flaw, one in which she would later uncover: he was a gambling addict.

Now, gambling isn’t a problem if you can be honest with yourself. But he had an ego. He never admitted to having a problem. And then he started borrowing money to feed his habit. Naturally, this propelled my mother to file a divorce. At least he was a man and allowed my mother to keep all of the property. He told me that he really thought that he could rebuild his life by his own talent. He could have, if it weren’t for his Achilles’ heel.

In a way, he’s almost like Cuối: a mischievous boy who would become the pride of the community. But so engrossed was he with his own pride, he neglected his wife, and eventually floated away to live by himself.

They say the purpose of the lanterns that children light during the Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival is to help Cuối find his way back home. While talking with my father, he told me about the meaning of the Mid-Autumn Festival in his wisdom: the reason why the festival focused on children; how the event coincided with the seasons and agricultural lifestyle; and of course, our mutual desire to reinvigorate the beauty of this event. If I could rekindle the beacon of light for the Mid-Autumn Festival, I would surely hope my father, the Cuối that he is, will find his way back home with his children.

Reviving The Festival

Although there aren’t too many authoritative sources on the origins of the Mid-Autumn Festival, many literatures on this say that the event relates to the lunar calendar, as well as being around the time of the seasonal harvest. But as Vietnamese (as well as Chinese) modernize, and a growing number population left the agricultural profession, the event is beginning to lose its meaning as a harvest event. This is an identity problem.

The notion that the event is for the children is shrouded in mystery, but one theory put forth stipulates that because of the harvesting season, parents were often busy reaping their crops to tend to the needs of their children. Once there was plentiful food amassed, a celebration ensued, and children were brought to the center of attention. And to this day, people still think this event is strictly for the children. I still smirk at the memory of my father who lectured (not necessarily to me but against what he believes is a popular misconception) that this event isn’t just for the children, but rather a return to our youth. The lanterns that children light at night for Cuối is for all those who have lost their way, preoccupied and engrossed by their status, wealth, immortality, etc.

I’d like to put forth a novel idea, one that maintains the essence of this festival in the face of our growing distance from our agricultural roots, and that is if this event is about a return to youth, then can we not consider our children as the fruit of our labor? If you wish to have prosperity for one year, you grow wheat. If you wish to have prosperity for ten years, you grow trees. But if you wish to have prosperity for a hundred years, you grow people. Children are the seeds of a kind of social farming in a way.

Another form of harvest for the urbanized lifestyle is the cultivation of culture, such as the arts. Summer should be the most prolific period for artists to produce works that reinforce the identity of our community in beautiful or original ways. Or perhaps the event can symbolize the cultivation of our businesses, marking a period of substantial growth. In this light, no longer are we allowed to remain stagnant with our businesses making ends meet; like our ancestors who raised enough crops to last through the winter season, we too should desire to create a surplus to last us through our rather predictable economic rainy days.

I can’t flesh out everything that this event should be, since doing so would take the fun away from others from discovering their own insights on how the Mid-Autumn Festival would be meaningful and applicable to us. But I hope what I have presented here provides a good framework on how we can go about reviving this event. Contrary to popular belief, there is no reason why this event can’t be as large as the Lunar New Year. If New Year is the yin, then Mid-Autumn is certainly the yang.

ToTheMoonAndBack

To The Moon and Back

The Man on the Moon

Meanwhile On Earth…

Reviving The Festival