Hung's House

Hung’s House
At 11:00 on Saturday, Hung picked us up and took us to his home for his grandmother’s anniversary of her death. It was one of the most interesting things I have witnessed, ever. I had heard, vaguely, about the whole Buddhist practice, (his mother lived in a pagoda until she was 16), but had never witnessed it firsthand.

His home is beautiful, as is his family. His mother greeted us with a huge hug when we arrived and made us feel loved and welcomed. We sat in the living room and chatted and tried some new fruits that we’d only seen in the market.


Hung’s father is in the background. This fruit was Anthony’s favorite of the bunch. It has a thick purple shell with white garlic clove looking fruit inside. It’s a bit sour, which is why he liked it.


While we were chatting, his mom, aunt, etc. brought out boxes of ramen and started bagging them to give to the poor. Hung had created 50 ‘tickets’ with his signature and given them out to a line of poor people earlier in the morning. Somewhere between 1:00 and ?? they would return to get a 5 or 10 kilo bag of rice and a bag of ramen noodle packages. I helped stuff bags! I should have taken a picture of the stack of bags of rice. It was pretty amazing.



I was really impressed with the very personal, relationship-like way of helping the poor. I think that Americans do a fabulous job of helping the poor as well, don’t get me wrong. We are an incredibly generous country. We have amazing food banks and so many (maybe too many) government programs to help the indigent. I was just impressed with how personal this system was compared to our more institutional way. By word of mouth, the jobless and starving in the neighborhood found out that today was the day for a hand-out at Hung’s house, and when the time came, Hung’s mother honored her dead mother by handing out the food with the help of her family. It was quite touching. I think Hung’s mother is quite an impressive woman.


In addition to the rice and noodles, those people who didn’t (or did, it didn’t matter) get a ticket could still get something. She prepared 3 huge trays of snacks and money to put out on the street beforehand, somewhere around noon. I donated and American dollar bill for good karma. I guess it was a big hit outside. I didn’t get to see the melee; there was a bush in the way. I kind of wanted to take a picture, but felt that it would be rude, imposing. The people who came for the food, however, were very, very, very poor, and many were handicapped mentally or physically. As I said, it made a lasting impression on me. I certainly won’t forget it. I have always appreciated what I have in my life, but this made me even more grateful.

We ate with Hung’s family. The food was amazing. I seem to be saying that a lot around here. This was particularly interesting, though, as it was all vegetarian, but looked like meat! re
I thought the little shrimp looking things were the most interesting, but even the ‘meat’ that accompanied the vegetables looked authentic.
All in all, this was an amazing day for so many reasons. Anthony says: it’s like they’re trying to give those poor people a good impression of the person who died. Like how since they are giving food to the poor in remembrance and honor to the person who died, they give an impression to the poor that she did the same thing when she was alive, and they are just carrying out her tradition.
Nicely said, I think. We also appreciate our lives just a little more, too.