The sticky rice cake brings back many memories of the third day of Tet (Lunar New Year) when I met my teacher.
She was my literature teacher for all four years of my junior high school years in my hometown. She was always patient with the mischievous antics of us teenagers, and she happily accepted the bars of soap and towels wrapped in gift paper that were precious gifts from us students on holidays. And she was also the first person who made me realize that I loved literature.
We left our hometowns, went to university, started working, and got caught up in the busy, new things of city life. It was a long, long time before we had the chance to visit our teacher again during the Lunar New Year – the third day of the year dedicated to teachers. Our teacher wasn't like peach blossoms or apricot blossoms, returning fresh and vibrant every spring. Age and time wait for no one.
That Tet holiday, I eagerly returned to my hometown, helping my father wrap banh chung (traditional Vietnamese rice cakes) and staying up all night watching the pot cook. These were the first banh chung I had ever made myself. On the third day of Tet, I excitedly brought the most beautiful banh chung to my aunt. Our conversations continued endlessly over tea, making it feel like we were only 12 or 13 years old, cycling to school every day along the tree-lined road of flamboyant trees in the summer, before her hair turned gray, her wrinkles deepened, and her lung disease coughs became persistent.
On the third day of Tet, we remember the last banh chung (traditional Vietnamese rice cake) we gave to our female teacher...
She hadn't unwrapped the sticky rice cake yet, but she was very happy to receive one from a clumsy student like me. She blurted out, "If you want the sticky rice to be really green, after washing the rice, grind some fresh galangal leaves, mix the juice with the rice, and then wrap it. Then, when the cake is cooked, it will be very fragrant and beautifully green when unwrapped…"
I shared her experience with my father. The following Tet holiday, my father and I began experimenting with a new way of wrapping banh chung (Vietnamese rice cakes). We picked fresh galangal leaves, the kind that are neither too young nor too old, ground them into a paste, strained the juice, and mixed it with the washed glutinous rice. The first batch of cakes made this way was unexpectedly delicious.
Peeling back the banana leaves, the sticky rice cake was still vibrant green, fragrant, and looked incredibly appetizing. Eagerly, I picked up my phone and called my teacher, arranging to visit her house on the third day of Tet (Lunar New Year) with a freshly made cake. But all I heard were long beeps, no response… The sticky rice cake I was supposed to bring to her on the third day of Tet hadn't arrived yet.
The family gathers to wrap banh chung (traditional Vietnamese rice cakes), the rice is mixed with fresh galangal leaf water so that when the cakes are cooked, the sticky rice remains a vibrant green.
She had lung cancer. Cherry blossoms bloomed brightly along the city streets. She too was carried away by those petals, far into the distance. Her name was Tuyet (Snow). But she passed away while spring was still here…
In subsequent Lunar New Year celebrations, my father and I would make sticky rice cakes (bánh chưng) every year. My father even planted several ginger bushes in the corner of the garden, just to harvest the leaves at the end of each year, to mix with the rice for making bánh chưng, as my aunt had instructed.
My teacher, who left us unexpectedly one day, but the way she made the banh chung (Vietnamese rice cake) always green has stayed with every member of our family and has been continued in the way many relatives and friends make banh chung. Everyone's banh chung is always a vibrant green. Like the most beautiful memories we have of our school days, our school, and our teacher.
I realized that when you truly love someone, the best qualities about them will never fade away, even if they are no longer with you…
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