A Man Named Melody
I could tell he was a character from the moment I saw him. As he boarded the boat with the aid of his walking stick and a crew member to keep him steady, he exclaimed (in very good English) at the fact that today our boat had tables and bench seats (an upgrade from yesterday’s boat where we just had old recycled car seats for the 9.5 hour journey). Today is the second day of a two day boat journey up the Mekong River from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai. We spent last night at a guest house in Pak Beng – the half way point of the trip.
After settling into our “booth” that somehow reminds me of a booth from Cobb & Co (for those kiwis that are the right age to understand this reference), I was writing in my journal when the old man came up and asked me if I was a writer. He wondered if maybe I was writing my impressions of his country, in which case he would be very interested to hear them. I explained that I was just writing a personal journal, but suggested that if he would like to tell me his story then perhaps I could write about it. He told me that he was “just a carpenter” but I assured him that was ok and with that I took my journal over to his table and settled in to hear Melody’s story. Although he did have a hearing aid that he put in for our chat, every time I asked a question he complained that it didn’t really work, so I was destined to hear his life story as he wanted to tell it – with little opportunity for questions along the way.
Melody was born on January 1, 1941 to Vietnamese parents in the Xiangkhoung Province of Laos. In 1942, at the time when Laos was under French rule, his parents went to Luang Prabang in search of work. In typical Vietnamese style, his mother carried a pole on her shoulder with a basket hanging off each end – with him in the front basket and their belongings in the back basket. In 1950, he learnt to read and spent a lot of time reading stories to his illiterate mother. Then in 1954, he began to learn carpentry and three years later in 1957, he went to Vientiane to become the best carpenter in the capital. As he said this he put his hands together in prayer position and made a humble apology for his lack of modesty!!
It seems that “Melody” got his nickname for good reason. His eyes lit up as he told me how he loves to sing – especially at wedding ceremonies where he can get up on the stage and get everyone dancing – although according to him he cannot dance!
In 1969 he married his wife and after a stomach operation left him unable to work as a carpenter for a while, they opened a coffee shop called “Melody Fair” which then became known as “Melody Restaurant”. They had a lot of travellers coming to their restaurant by word of mouth, however, after the revolution came communism which meant that after 1975 travellers stopped coming to Laos, and to Melody Restaurant. This was a very hard time, and many people were leaving Laos for other countries in search of freedom, but Melody loved his country and decided he would never “run away”.
He later opened the “Melody Carpentry Shop” and people came from all over northern Laos as he was one of the only carpenters that could provide a written guarantee for his work. He even got a visit from the Vice President of Laos who invited him to “work with the government”. Later he took on carpentry students with whom he travelled to participate in “Asian Skills Competitions” in Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. He mentioned multiple times throughout our conversation how proud he is of his profession, always with utmost humility as he put his hands together in the prayer position.
Melody had six children between 1969 and 1978 – a doctor, a pharmacist, a carpenter that has gone on to be a shopkeeper, a baker that trained in Thailand, a musician who got a scholarship to study classical music at the Arts and Music School of Michigan, and a hairdresser. He is very proud of all of his children, and he has gone to great efforts to teach them that “happiness is not according to the money” – that young people must work hard and not be lazy so that they can have a good quality of life, but ultimately it is not money that will bring them happiness.
He also spoke of his wife with the same sense of humble pride with which he spoke of his children. He said that he is proud that God offered him such a good wife, as she is a hard worker, is very strong and looks very young (for someone who was born in 1950)!
Melody then went on to reflect on the poor condition in which he had seen some people living in Pak Beng – the riverside village where we spent the night last night. It is obvious that he looks at his fellow countrymen with compassion, and wants to help them as he has been in their situation before. He commented with regret that not many people speak English, that he sees foreigners always reading (probably because all the ones he sees are on holiday, but a good observation nevertheless!) and that Lao people do not read like this. He himself reads in English, Lao, Vietnamese and Thai.
In 2013, Melody and his wife went to Europe for the first time. He spoke with deep compassion as he recalled the homeless people that he had seen in Budapest and Paris (you don’t tend to see homeless people in Laos). He also took on a very nostalgic tone as he spoke of the wonderful old books that you can buy from book sellers on the banks of the River Seine in Paris.
At one point during our conversation, Melody put his hands together in the prayer position and told me there was something that he wanted to show me. He then took my pen from my hand and proceeded to show me the best way to hold my pen so that I didn’t hurt my neck when writing (I was doing it all wrong apparently). He also threw in at that point that he had been a primary school teacher for three years from 1976 to 1978, so I guess he had taught plenty of people how to hold their pens before me.
Melody is now retired, and his six children support him and his wife with what he referred to as a “salary” which allows him to do things like taking a boat trip to the north of Laos, somewhere he hasn’t been before. After being born into very poor conditions, he is proud of the fact that his family all makes decent money. He explains that they are not rich, but they have enough money to live comfortably, and he is particularly proud of the fact that he has two doctors in his family.
At the end of our chat, I asked Melody if I could take a photo with him, which I did and then he pulled out his iPad (!!) to also take a photo. This led him to show me videos of the local ceremony he had been to the night before in Pak Beng where he appeared to have made a lot of local friends over local whiskey!! He’d also taken photos of the local village street life “to show his friends that have never been there”.
And now as I sit here writing this all up while it’s fresh in my mind, I turn back to glance at him and see that he is sitting cross legged at his table with his eyes closed in a meditative state. I realise that the backdrop to this life story that I have just heard has been the Indochina War (a.k.a the Vietnam War) during which the most bombs were actually dropped in Laos. He did not speak of this war, but has obviously lived through it, and so I can only begin to imagine there are many more stories where this one has just come from, but he has not chosen to tell those ones today.
