Magical and Fascinating | Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam

The best autobiography for my field! | Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam | Marjorie Pivar, Quang Van Nguyen

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	• Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam Marjorie Pivar, Quang Van Nguyen St. Martin's Press, 2004 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Long Dreamy Walk

The incredible story of a young man's life journey through the war-torn jungles of Viet Nam and Cambodia, learning from individuals who carry on their healing traditions amid chaos and change. The main character speaks to us as a child, in the "now", accepting every experience for what it is. His adventures, miracles and sorrows,are full of brilliant visions, taking you on a trip lit all the way by his magic "Shrew Stone". You will never forget it.

Magical and Fascinating

I came across this book by pure chance. I didn't buy it for the Buddhism or medicine interest. I bought it because it piqued my interest. This book is fascinating and I could hardly put it down. I was reading the biography of a true sorcerer. I loved it.
My only downside to this book I did notice a few small contridictions in the text.

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The best autobiography for my field!

So I'm a student in acupuncture as well a Vietnamese-American and this book hit home.

Alchemy, magic, spells, spirits, and monsters (to name a few), are all found in this book.

It's definitely a story that gave me goosebumps because of the fact that many or the supernatural stories are that in which my parents told me growing up. Also, if you're into acupunture/om you'll love this book for he gives a lot of insight to different ailments and Tx for them.

I think Dr. Quang Van Nguyen is a special person and Marjorie Pivar is generous to help him explain his story.

One of my top 5 books ever read.

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Medicine for Body, Heart and Spirit

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain -- A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam reveals a world that has all but disappeared in most of Asia, a world where Buddhas, earth spirits and shamans are as real as the food you eat and the bed you sleep in. The book itself opens in a trance, where Quang addresses the "flesh-eating sun" and makes the clouds "bang into each another." When I lived in Taiwan 25 years ago I had watched the shamans invite the earth god into their bodies, swallow ash, moan, jerk, swoon and beat themselves with red maces, write holy charms, and spray the afflicted with cascades of tea and saliva as fine as an evening mist. I was an outsider looking in. Quang's book, however, helps me see and understand what the shamans see. He writes from the perspective of an insider looking out, where it is the outer and not the inner world that is out of balance.

The imagery in this book is rich and yet the writing is clear and light. Arranged into short chapters, each story unfolds, offering at times distant and at others close, a perspective on the many people key in Quang's life. Their stories weave in and out of one another, each carrying his or her own yin and yang of energy. As one of the other reviewers commented, it is a pity that the Vietnamese names were transposed into American name order as this makes it harder to recognize and remember the identities of the personalities. Also, some of the Vietnamese terms were mispelled. However, these are issues that can easily be corrected in future editions of the work. What Nguyen Van Quang and his co-author Marjorie Pivar should be remembered for is their tireless devotion to revealing with loving detail the flowers, fruits, flavors, and fauna that make Vietnamese life so distinctive. These are the things that their "translation" of events make so alive and captivating.

Like the sweet smell of sandalwood incense, the story of Nguyen Van Quang's life transports the reader to that point in time and space where the spiritual and the material converge. In scene after scene he introduces the people who have changed his life. One after another he takes the reader to caves, temples, and street fairs to meet those that dwell within -- his adopted father, a Buddhist monk, who finds him as an infant abandoned in a basket on market day; Tiger, the truck driver who can outwit his competitors but not his own heart; Tattoo, the martial arts master who secretly teaches Quang the occult arts; and, many others, some that you will get to know but never quite "see."

This book is not just a well told collection of the remarkable characters in Quang's life. I have just returned from my third trip to Vietnam and Quang's quiet characterizations of the political legacies that constrain and drive Vietnam's modern life ring true. Chapter by chapter Quang takes you through the evolution of Vietnam's culture and drawing nearer and nearer, he reveals the sounds of that other world, the world of the dominating Chinese, the departing French, the opportunist Viet Minh, the conniving Viet Cong, the now-you-see-them-and-now-you-don't obliviousness of the American troops, and, the self serving fatuousness of the politicians of the South. Towards the end, as Khmer Rouge guerrillas terrorize the countryside and party politicians in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) neglect the very regions they had fought to liberate, Quang still hangs on. Despite the decades of war and centuries of foreign agression, he tells of another reality, where in his village near the Cambodian border Cambodians, Chinese, and Vietnamese trade, mingle, and marry one another, and how nearly all help each other, saving lives and suffering death together.

Quang's book is one that compels the reader to wonder what is more important in life and what is really real. Wile Quang seeks true realization in a cave apart from others, the outer world is lost in a cave of its own. He also reveals the rich world of Vietnamese spiritual and religious life, a world that values individual cultivation but for the benefit of society as a whole. As he grows older, Quang realizes that he can no longer live just in his small world of tigers, tunnels and charms, but go forth into the world of human relationships -- to meet the strong women and men of today who will become the Buddhas and memories that the shamans of the future world will call upon to guide, strengthen and heal.

If you want to understand Asian spiritual values, discover Asian history, or enjoy the tale of a life well lived, by all means read this book. This truly is one of those rare opportunities to view life not as an observer, but as a participant. Quang and Marjorie will truly take you down a path for which there is no map but for which there surely is a light.

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Esoteric Masterpiece

Old Asia hands, students of the Buddha, vets with old but vivid memories, practicioners who seek to heal both the body and the spirit...all will find familiar places, feelings, experiences in the pages of "Fourth Uncle in the Mountain." Vietnam is the most seductive and visceral place on earth. There, rarley is anything the way that is seems...the bizarre and uncanny are everywhere...irony is commonplace...and the spiritual world, though unseen, is omnipresent. Bac Si Quang knows...although he is in Vermont, his hands will guide me when I tend to the sick in Danang. With a bit of language practice and some Vietamese fonts, she will doubtless become the Umberto Eco of Southeast Asia.

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Set during the French and American wars, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is a true story about an orphan, Quang Van Nguyen, who is adopted by a sixty-four year old monk, Thau, who carries great responsibility for his people as a barefoot doctor. Thau manages, against all odds to raise his son to follow in his footsteps and in doing so, saves his son, as well as a part of Vietnam's esoteric knowledge from the Vietnam holocaust.

Thau is wanted by the French regime, and occasionally must flee into the jungle, where he is perfectly at home living among the animals. Thau is not the average monk; he practices an ancient lineage of Chinese medicine and uses magic to protect animals and help people.

As wise and resourceful as Thau is, he meets his match in his mischievous son. Quang is more interested in learning Cambodian sorcery and martial arts than in developing his skills and wisdom according to his father's plan.

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is an odyssey of a single-father folk hero and his foundling son in a land ravaged by the atrocities of war. It is a classic story, complete with humor, tragedy, and insight from a country where ghosts and magic are real.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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