Birds leave the nest

The haunted road at Hai Van Pass, with "traces" of a shrine built on the roadside. Photo: HXH

Flight paths in opposite directions

Surprised by the image of the "calligrapher" from Quang Nam in "Tet Saigon", a photo book by photographer Tam Thai published in 2011.

The author reveals that Saigon is a city of exile, the homeland of "union provinces", that Tet here is the Tet of three regions, everyone has a homeland to remember...

And as a deliberate arrangement, the author posted a photo of two old men wearing traditional Vietnamese dresses and ao dai and wrote a few lines of six-eight poetry to reveal information about the characters. Here are two quotes:

The old man from Quang Nam came here.
Sell ​​a hundred Chinese characters, fly back outside…

(Ibid, Tre Publishing House, page 45).

“Flying back outside again”, meaning in a few days the Quang Nam scholar will return to his hometown after a “provincial union” Tet season. And who knows, he might meet other fellow countrymen who are traveling in the opposite direction to the South…

Now, it is the end of January, the trips leaving home after Tet to earn a living or to return to university have also decreased. But you can easily see that if the afternoon of returning (before Tet) is as exciting as the afternoon of leaving (after Tet) is just as heavy. Who does not feel anxious when having to leave their hometown?

After the Lunar New Year of At Ty 2025, one morning while sitting outside a coffee shop, I saw my neighbor scrolling through her phone for a while, then turned to whisper to her husband: "Our Cu Win has "flown" to Nha Trang!".

The couple is infertile, and now their child is studying far away in Ho Chi Minh City. The child's departure from home after Tet has left the mother bewildered all morning. With the Flightradar24 application, every "movement" of the flight taking off from Da Nang airport is clearly displayed on the mother's phone screen...

The burden is not only on those who leave, but also on those who stay.

"Softening the heart" of the Central region

The ancient capital of Hue has been welcoming generations of students from the provinces and cities in the Central region to come and “study hard”. For a long time, the journey back to school for students from the Northern provinces seems to be “easier”, because they only need to cross Ngang Pass. Many people choose the train, Vinh - Quy Nhon route. Just need a small bag, with some hometown gifts, and leisurely board the train. The peaceful Hue station is waiting…

Peaceful night at Hue station, waiting for passengers to get off the train. Photo: HXH

But for students from Quang Nam, a few decades ago, when there was no tunnel through the mountain, things were much more difficult because the Hai Van Pass was towering and haunting.

After the Tet holiday, many students stay in their hometowns longer. Just thinking about having to stand on the side of the highway waving to catch a bus, or seeing the car break down along the way… is enough to make them feel sick.

In those days, the winding mountain pass was always a fear for both drivers and passengers. Every time the car slowly climbed the mountain pass, the bus conductor stood right next to the door and held a piece of wood in hand, in case the car brake failed, he would jump down and support the wheel. Sometimes, seeing a bus in trouble lying precariously on the side of the mountain pass, looking at the license plate, the passengers were shocked to realize that it was the bus they had just missed catching a few hours before.

The children kept their worries to themselves, but the mother always had a premonition. As soon as her children left home, the mother quietly lit incense before the family altar.

It was not until she received the news that her child had returned safely that she finally stopped being dazed. But back then, there were no smartphones for quick interaction, no video calls on smartphones to see the other person's face clearly, and no flight tracking tools like Flightradar24...

All connections had to be made through a public phone booth, dialing a neighbor's number and asking them to "tell mom that I've arrived."

The child who often went to the phone booth to call home back then was me.

Love constant

Time gradually passed so that the children far away from home back then became fathers and mothers, and they had to say goodbye again when their children left home after Tet to go to school far away.

Time has also helped things change surprisingly. Roads are wider, there are more vehicles, children leaving home do not need to bring too many belongings… The worries of those staying behind, therefore, are also somewhat reduced.

Suddenly remembering the artist Quyen Linh choking up when recounting the story of leaving his hometown to go to Ho Chi Minh City to study acting. The night before his son left, his mother stayed up all night to patch up the mosquito net that had hundreds of holes in it, and in the basket of mattresses, there were also a few liters of rice and a pot that had been thoroughly cleaned.

The child sneaked out behind the house, opened the rice jar and saw that there were only a few grains of rice left. He asked, “What will mom and the kids at home have to eat?” The mother assured him, “Don’t worry, there are still some cassava tubers in the garden…”

Artist Quyen Linh once wished that when he had money, he would make his mother a beautiful ao dai, so that she would be like a queen in his heart.

“But by then my mother could no longer wear it because her back was hunched,” he said with tears in his eyes on the TV show “Happy Memories” season 3.

The journeys of people who go far away to earn a living or pursue their studies are different day by day. But the flight path of the birds leaving their nests is always imprinted in their memories. And the love of those who stay behind, of their fathers and mothers, never changes, remains constant.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/chim-roi-to-3150114.html