MSC in Vietnam and Beyond: Mark Hanns MSC
At the request, encouragement, prompting and arm-twisting of our Provincial superior to go to Vietnam to run a retreat and summer school for our seminarians, and despite my protestations that I was lacking the necessary qualifications, I surrendered to the superior’s sacred summons, and Fr Chris McPhee and I flew together to the newest sector of our province via Singapore on 2 June.
In the first week when we left Australia we visited Singapore. What a place! It’s like living in the movie The Truman Show. It’s perfect! Everything is clean, manicured and perfectly thought-out and well-ordered. I think every city and shire councillor, and every parliamentarian should go to Singapore to learn how to plan and organise and get things done. The people are friendly, and smile and say “G’day” when you pass them in the street, much like Tasmanians do… except Singaporeans don’t actually say “G’day”. They say something else that’s not Strine. Our main purpose in visiting Singapore was to visit our recently ordained Krish Mathavan’s mother and father as there are no other MSCs in Singapore. Krish is currently PP of Moonah, Hobart.
When Chris and I arrived in Vietnam I travelled six hours up north of Saigon to the mountains and a retreat house with 14 of our men, those who were post novitiate and not yet finally professed. It’s beautiful up there. Every second mid-afternoon, the annual rainfall of Hobart fell upon us. We were at a Salesian retreat house at K’Long. The retreat house director knows a few of our Salesian priests and brothers in Australia and even here in Tasmania. He even knows Boys’ Town in Engadine, in The Shire where I grew up. Small world, huh?
People crank their lives up at about 4.30 am there. Churches ring their bells at 4.00 am. On the retreat we took it a bit easy and didn’t get ourselves up till 5.30 am! But a siesta is customary every day. That’s a priceless part of the culture which I applaud! I think the retreat went well. I read their evaluations. They went gently on me. Actually, they awarded me a high distinction. After all that trepidation it is satisfying to know that the retreat hit the mark.
They’re a superb group of men. I’m greatly impressed with them. It’s great to actually know them now. It’s their custom of respect to address an elder in position or age as “Uncle”, and so they did with me. That was a reminder of my age! They professed their vows on the Friday, and then on the weekend we travelled out to Long Hai near Vung Tao for their holidays and summer school which I had to lead. I fumbled through it. I’d never done this stuff before. I’ve learnt it, but never taught it. Oh well, another life experience. I gave them a taste of the practice of spiritual direction.
Ho Chi Minh City is bustling with motor scooters and bikes. There are millions of them. And it seems that the road rules are just guidelines, really! While they ride and drive on the right side of the road most of the time in principle, they weave in and out on the wrong side too, and up on the footpath when it suits,… and no-one crashes! Everyone makes way for everyone else. But they blow their horns constantly to let each other know they’re coming. One bike will carry Mum, Dad and two kids. Another shopkeeper will carry everything for his store on his bike, the load bigger than his entire family! I rode with great trepidation on the back of a scooter on the first ride, then decided to trust the protection of the patron saint of travellers - St Christopher, Jesus Mary and Joseph, and God the Father (gotta have big back-up), and the rider, and the 750,000 other riders…. And survived! But I’m not up to doing it myself.
Vietnam is quite lovely, as are its people. They are immensely considerate and kind. When I walked anywhere around Saigon and Long Hai, I was the one and only Gringo, and an object of curiosity to them until I said hello, and then they’d break into a smile and say Hi. "Sin chao" is "hello". The kids love to shake hands and speak as much English as they can, and draw it out of this foreigner. There seems to be real harmony, too, among people and religions. In one street there’ll be a Catholic church and in the next street there’s a Buddhist temple, especially in Saigon and surrounds. The government has softened its stance against the Church over the decades and now it is quite tolerant, yet still with limitations.
For my birthday four of the seminarians drove us from Long Hai down to Vung Tau and climbed the two mountains with the huge statues of Christ the King and the Virgin Mary, similar to the statue in Rio, Brazil. We swam at Vung Tau where I taught a ten-year-old boy to swim. His mother saw me swimming and decided I could teach him, so we did. That was satisfying to see a kid go from not swimming to swimming in half an hour. When we arrived home, the lads had organised a birthday bbq, cake, beer and sparklers. Great blokes and a great day. It’s damned hot there. 31 degrees and 80% humidity. Sweated buckets climbing the mountains.
Almost every house there has a small industry in the front of it and every tenth house is having a makeover or re-construction. People are really industrious. The country is obviously prospering. Good luck to them. One shop will repair motor scooters next to another shop selling bridal-wear next to a barber shop next to a karaoke bar. It’s all very eclectic. And every other house has a life-sized statue of Mary at the front. Vietnam reminds me a lot of Mexico. It’s hot and humid, and the houses are all narrow concrete houses like the Mexicans’. On the highways they have open-walled cafes with plastic chairs, and the owners lie around in Mexican-style hammocks until someone comes. And there are hammocks for the weary travellers. The food’s cheap and tastes superb. (How did we survive our childhoods on bangers and mashed potato?) My mandatory gut infection only lasted forty-eight hours on the first round. Then again a couple of weeks later. No big deal. It was gone by the following night. The beer’s cheap there too.
I went to the old South Vietnamese Presidential palace in Saigon. You may remember that news footage in some documentaries of the last helicopter lifting off with all those people on board and the thousands more on the roof of the building and around it on the last day of the war when Saigon fell to the northern troops. That’s where I was. That, and the war museum were unimaginably haunting, the latter being gruesomely upsetting. The war museum is presented in a very even and measured way, and it’s as I remember the news reporters reporting on it.
A few of us, including Fr Bogey (Provincial) and Fr Nords (Novice Master) from the Philippines, travelled down to the Mekong Delta before we continued to Long Hai, and some Sisters of Providence there organised a boat trip on the Mekong for us. Again, the kindness and hospitality of theirs was outstanding.
Leaving Vietnam at the end of the month I travelled to Korea and visited the DMZ. (That’s dee em zee for Koreans and Americans, but dee em ZED for Australians!! Point emphasised!). I planned to lean across and shake hands with young Mr Kim III. (He sent his apologies that he couldn’t meet me. He was still recovering after meeting the US president at the DMZ). Being there was historically fascinating, especially as I was accompanied by a veteran of the Korean War. He didn’t have the same fascination as I did. At ninety years old and feeling exceedingly fatigued after the drive, he said, “Yep. Been here before. I’m tired. Let’s go home,”… ninety seconds after our arrival.
The Provincial superior of the Korean MSC province, Fr Benedict Ko was very excited to meet with another MSC all the way from Australia. The sense of brotherhood was spontaneous. We travelled over to the MSC formation house near Incheon and received a truly enthusiastic welcome there and joined in the monthly Mass in honour of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart attended by three hundred people. Fr Benedict included me in the celebration and introduced me to the congregation and invited me to address them from the pulpit. Following the Mass we joined the core group of organisers for a magnificent Korean BBQ at a restaurant. Again, Asian hospitality has raised the level of hospitality to a higher level. I’m so pleased to have had this encounter with our MSC brothers and sisters in Korea. In a small way it strengthens our MSC brotherhood/sisterhood internationally and interprovincially. And importantly the Vietnamese and Australian links are strengthened.
After an overnight flight home and every day since, I’ve had the long awaited Vegemite on toast and real leaf tea in a pot.
