That's when Tuệ decided to become a YouTuber, naming his channel "Tuệ Pleiku Travels and Tells Stories," primarily to share general knowledge about the folk culture of the Central Highlands that he had experienced and researched for a long time.
The K'nia tree – one of the symbols of the Central Highlands – PHOTO: VAN CONG HUNG
I was taken aback. Yeah, it's been a long time since I last saw K'nia!
I remember when we first came to the Central Highlands in the early 1980s, there were a few things that we newly graduated literature students all tried to find out about thoroughly. First, there was Mr. Núp, also known as Hero Núp, who was then the Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in Gia Lai - Kon Tum province. Second, there was the xà nu tree, because almost everyone in that generation had studied " The Xà Nu Forest" or "The Nation Rises Up ," and third, there was the K'nia tree.
When I published it in the newspaper, that pine tree was simply a... pine tree, which can be found almost everywhere in our country. But now, in the place where the work " The Pine Forest " was written, it's very rare. And the village of Xô Man from that work is now somewhere else, and under the scorching sun, there isn't a single pine tree, which shocked quite a few people. A highly regarded literature teacher told me: "In front of my classroom is a big pine tree. Every day during recess, I sit on a stone bench under its base to rest, but I didn't know it was a pine tree."
Well, what can you do? Just like the K'nia tree, it's not a "specialty" found only in the Central Highlands; it's very common in the lowlands. It's called the cầy or cay tree, depending on the local name.
So why has the K'nia tree become a symbol of the Central Highlands, like the Xanu tree or Mr. Nup? Because it is a character in works of literature and art. The poet-musician duo Ngoc Anh and Phan Huynh Dieu together breathed life into the K'nia tree, making it immortal and a specialty of the Central Highlands, through the song "The Shadow of the K'nia Tree ".
Ngoc Anh was an active officer in the Central Highlands battlefield before 1975. At that time, among the works "sent from the South," the song " Bong Cay K'nia" was listed as: "folk song, collected and translated by Ngoc Anh." Later, his fellow soldiers vindicated him, all confirming that it was originally composed by Ngoc Anh, but he attributed it that way to make it more accessible to the general public.
I remember when poet Thanh Quế was editing a book about poet Ngọc Anh, I was asked to interview and write about Mr. Ksor Krơn, then the Secretary of the Gia Lai Provincial Party Committee, who had previously directly treated Ngọc Anh when he was burned by a kerosene lamp in the Kon Tum war zone while preparing for a cultural performance. Mr. Ksor Krơn told me in detail about Ngọc Anh, especially about Ngọc Anh's final days. And also the rather intriguing story of later searching for the remains of the fallen soldier Ngọc Anh.
It can be said that there are two types of trees that literature and art have transformed into specialties of the Central Highlands, forever unique to the Central Highlands, a fact that no one can dispute, even though they can be found in many other places in our country. These are the Xa Nu tree and the K'nia tree.
In Ngoc Anh's poem, there's a line that says, "Where do the tree roots drink water? They drink water from the northern springs." Later, someone jokingly said that the roots of the K'nia tree are the longest of all trees. But it turns out, once when I went down to Chu Prong District, to a cemetery, I saw the roots of a K'nia tree, and they really were long.
K'nia is a plant with long, taproots - PHOTO: VAN CONG HUNG
That's the village's secondary "water droplet," a section of which has eroded, revealing a very long K'nia root, several meters long and still not finished. A tree expert told me that K'nia is a taproot tree, and the root length is proportional to the height of the tree. If the tree is 1 meter tall, the root is already 1.5 meters long; if it's 2 meters tall, the root is 3 meters long.
There were three-tiered secret tunnels, all built using the taproots of K'nia trees as supports. If the taproots were accidentally severed, the K'nia tree would die immediately, revealing the secret tunnel. Therefore, our cadres always followed the tree's roots to dig the tunnels. K'nia trees are incredibly resilient. Even when entire forests were burned or destroyed by Agent Orange, the K'nia trees remained green and healthy.
The largest K'nia tree in the Central Highlands has a diameter of about 1 meter, and if cut close to the base, it will sprout again. K'nia wood is very flexible and hard; when sawing it, the saw blade often has to be dipped in water to be able to cut through it. However, after being cut down and left for a while, it becomes hollow immediately, and it's unclear why.
In the old days, we went down to the village (a term now commonly used to refer to fieldwork or field trips) by bus, bicycle, and even... on foot. The locals showed us that if we walked, we should look for a tree with an egg-shaped canopy, standing alone in the middle of the road or field, and try to reach it to rest. That was the K'nia tree; it didn't blend in with the forest, it didn't grow indiscriminately, but stood alone, proud and confident. And if the spirits were kind, we might even find K'nia seeds to eat there.
It was around that time that the artist Xu Man – a figure also considered an "eccentric" of the Central Highlands – explained the K'nia tree to me while we were cycling together.
From Pleiku to his village, 40 km away: The people of the Central Highlands carry K'nia seeds in their baskets and travel. When they get tired, they sit down to rest, take out the K'nia seeds, and crush them to eat. Some seeds might slip and fall out, and sprout into trees. Therefore, when walking, whenever you are tired and hungry, you will encounter a K'nia tree appearing, providing shade like a special blessing from heaven bestowed upon humanity.
And indeed, during the war, many of our officers and soldiers used K'nia seeds as a substitute for food. And since the B3 front (Central Highlands) was very famine-stricken at that time, K'nia seeds became a special blessing from Yang (the supreme deity), which is understandable.
I remember once I suggested to a leader in Pleiku City that they plant K'nia trees along a newly opened short road called Hero Núp Road. He was very enthusiastic, but somehow, due to a lack of consensus within the "leadership collective," it didn't work out.
K'nia trees are becoming increasingly rare in the villages of the Central Highlands, except for Dak Lak, where there are still quite a few ancient K'nia trees. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, its "practicality" is not high; the wood is not widely used in daily life. Secondly, a friend of mine, an agricultural engineer, said that charcoal makers really like this type of tree because it produces a very good product. So, it has to be cut down for charcoal production.
Just recently, while visiting a resort owned by an acquaintance with a beautiful and spacious yard on the outskirts of Pleiku City, I had the idea to plant a K'nia tree in the middle of the yard, add a few clumps of wild sunflowers, put up a big sign, and sure enough, many tourists came to check in. Indeed, many people who come to the Central Highlands want to see K'nia trees with their own eyes, but they are so rare now; without a local guide, you'd be missing out.
To be fair, it's difficult to grow K'nia trees in the city. If you plant a small tree, it takes a very long time. In Gia Lai, a forestry engineer once tried to "get ahead" of K'nia by propagating the tree, but very few people bought it, so he gave up. I once bought a two-year-old tree from him and sent it to a high school in Thanh Hoa at the earnest request of the principal. I wonder how big it is now?
As for planting large trees, they need to be transplanted, and as mentioned, trees have very long taproots, making transplanting a tree with its roots intact very difficult. However, a forestry engineer recently stated that with current techniques, it's possible to create new roots instead of having to "attach" the entire taproot for planting.
Furthermore, some argue that planting them in urban areas results in many seeds falling, sometimes causing injuries, and requiring sweeping. But then, I saw K'nia seeds being sold at a fair the other day. If that's the case, then the seeds could be a significant source of income, couldn't they? It's known that in medicine, K'nia seeds are excellent for extracting medicinal properties. Here's a medical website describing K'nia seeds: they contain 7.5% water, 67% natural oil, 9% carbohydrates, 3.4% protein, 61.4 mg iron, 103.3 mg calcium, and 37 mg of essential vitamins...
The K'nia tree, though famous, is of little practical use to pragmatists. Perhaps its only remaining value is its heritage and cultural significance. Similarly, the banyan tree, the riverside, and the village communal house, for example, are merely echoes of a bygone era for the Vietnamese people, yet they have shaped the very soul of the nation.
Now, with the tourism and check-in trends booming, and tourism as the spearhead and pioneer, if each highland city had a cluster or range of K'nia trees, for example, it would undoubtedly attract crowds and lead to the development of legitimate services to sustain tourism.
And then I remembered, as if I had a premonition that the K'nia tree would disappear, a long time ago, decades ago, I spent a whole month searching all over Gia Lai for K'nia trees to photograph. In Krong Pa district, the most remote area of Gia Lai, in the courtyard of a school there was a very large K'nia tree, its shade covering the entire yard, but I heard that it's gone now.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/hoi-cay-knia-185250619020226282.htm
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