Topics in Contemporary Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012. x, 244 pp. (Figures, tables, B&W photos.) US$49.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3598-9.
In an age marked by “post” and “isms” in anthropology, it is refreshing that ethnographies written with such clarity and theoretical precision are still being produced. Alexander Soucy’s fascinating book on Vietnamese (in particular, Hanoi-centred) Buddhist practice covers the gamut of indigenous definitions as to what constitutes Buddhism and its performance in everyday life. Soucy’s ethnography weaves history, personal anecdotes, anthropological musings, politics and theory in a manner that is accessible and highly readable. He populates his book with colourful vignettes and the voices of men and women who consider themselves Buddhists, to varying degrees. These interlocutors share their stories with Soucy and the reader gets a glimpse into their lives and the moment of interactive exchange between the anthropologist and his friends. By the end of the ethnography, the reader feels like he has been to Hanoi, entered the pagoda complexes, walked through the crowds of elderly women worshippers, heard their sutra chanting as well as the gossips, condemnations and irks that pepper the way some Vietnamese define Buddhism. An ethnography is the story of people and their lives encapsulated within a rich theoretical debate. Soucy’s book is a success on both these levels. It was a page turner and I found it hard to put down.
Soucy writes about the way Buddhism, gender, politics, power, spirituality, travel and Vietnamese notions of personhood are enmeshed in the contemporary practice of Buddhism in Hanoi. Although focusing on Sino-Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism, Soucy rightly points out the difficulties in thinking about orthodoxy and categories in a culture where Buddhism and popular spirit cults have often influenced one another. This dynamism is evident in the way people talk about their practice. Soucy’s ethnography focuses on the going ons at two pagodas: the large and nationally celebrated Quan Su pagoda and the smaller Phuc Loc pagoda. Yet, he does not restrict his analysis to these two Buddhist spaces but rather looks at the networks and connections people make with other Buddhist sites across the northern (and in some cases, southern) Vietnamese landscape. The study of religion in Vietnam has largely been dominated by works on spirit cults/possession rituals with little being written about the way Buddhism is lived in the country. Soucy shows that in many so-called “Buddhist” landscapes, Buddhism and spirit cults occur side by side. Yet, the complexity emerges in the way people define themselves as religionists, with some proudly proclaiming to be Buddhists by virtue of their religious practice while others—in particular, older educated men—tend to distance themselves from religious activities and focus on a more Confucianist foci of education and study. Then there is the influence of the Communist state with its long history of religious opiate. Soucy’s work comes at a time when anthropology has moved away from an earlier concern with the neatness of social categories to focus on the multiplicity of noisy voices that animate social and ritual realities. By the end of the book, the reader does not have an answer as to the question of what constitutes Vietnamese Buddhist identity. Rather, what emerges is a tapestry of identities defined according to gender, age, political association, social economic level and so forth. This is a refreshing take not only on Vietnamese religion but on the study of religious identities in many modern societies. As I read Soucy’s work, I could not help but think about my own research in a small Malaysian Thai Buddhist village, where similar type issues seem to be the norm. Here I would like to add a minor critique to the book. Although Soucy covers the Vietnamese material thoroughly, I would have liked to have seen more of an engagement with other societies—in particular, with other Buddhist societies that have emerged from long-standing political conflicts, e.g., Sri Lanka, Laos and Cambodia. To his credit, Soucy does provide us with cross-cultural comparisons but these are often relegated to minor points in endnotes. Soucy’s gaze (and he mentions this in his introduction) is very much directed at Hanoi and Mahayanist practice. Yet Buddhism in Vietnam is definitely more complex. Soucy writes of how one of his interlocutors preferred to wear robes akin to practitioners in the south rather than the common brown robes of the north. There was also a mention of Theravadism in the ethnography and much of what some of the older men told Soucy about Buddhist ideas seemed clearly derived from intellectual Theravadin debates. Here Soucy could have complicated his picture by showing the variants of Buddhisms in Vietnam and how these variants (and not just the spirit-side) were instrumental in forging the gendered and social identities that form the theoretical ballast of the work. Perhaps Soucy could engage more with his own earlier work on transnational Vietnamese Buddhism. Although he writes about pilgrimages and movement, and the sale of popular Taiwanese robes and wooden fish in pagodas, the reader does not get a clear image of the global scale of Buddhist practice in the region. Vietnamese Buddhism has had a long history of cross-cultural influences with China and subsequent movements and migrations of Vietnamese into diasporic landscapes. Adding this global dimension to the discussion would definitely enhance the scope of the work and its theoretical contribution.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Soucy’s ethnography. I particularly liked chapter 7, where Soucy writes about “conspicuous devotion,” an aspect of Buddhist practice that one rarely reads about in ethnographies. Most writings on Buddhist communities tend to eschew the negative, in part due to the anthropologist not wanting to create unsavoury images of the society and people he/she is living amongst. Yet Soucy does this with great tact and manages to show that many in Hanoi practice a form of popular Buddhism where public recognition is about the power to be included and excluded. This, like the ethnography, is a fascinating window into a little-known world. The Buddha Side has set the bar high for many an anthropologist interested in writing about Buddhism and Buddhist identities, both in terms of its rich theoretical content as well as its brilliantly composed ethnography.
Irving Chan Johnson
National University of Singapore, Singapore
pp. 641-643