ABSTRACT
We’re in Vientiane, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the video recording begins. It’s 19 April 2006. With the morning sun streaming through an opened window behind her, PhaaKung, my wife’s aunt, kneels on the floor of my wife’s wooden house carefully folding banana leaves into small cones. The cones will hold offerings of money that we will present to the seven Buddhist monks who are due to arrive shortly. PhaaKung spent much of the morning making the elaborate pa kwan flower arrangement that will stand at the center of the day’s spirit-calling ceremony. In a few moments we are joined by the in-law of PhaaKung and both women spend the remainder of the morning fulfilling the role of maternal aunts, guiding my wife and me through an elaborate ceremony to prepare our newly remodeled house for use.
