The cries of memories
When I was about 8 or 9 years old, there was an old Chinese man in the neighborhood who sold steamed buns and rice cakes. His calls were a mix of Vietnamese and Chinese accents. He would often shout, "Panh pao, panh po…", which actually meant "steamed buns, rice cakes." That call echoed through the small alley every afternoon. The box of buns was carefully wrapped in plastic. Whenever someone called, he would open the lid and use small tongs to pick up a bun and put it in a bag. Some evenings, seeing that his box still had many buns left, I would beg my mother for money to buy more, hoping he would sell them all so we could go home early. A few years later, I heard the adults in the neighborhood say that he had passed away one winter due to old age and illness. But the sound of his "panh pao, panh po" seems to still linger somewhere in my childhood memories.
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I also remember the ice cream vendor in Nha Trang. Every time I heard the jingling bell, the neighborhood kids would rush out into the street. Colorful ice cream cones were piled high in his small cart. I remember the vendor was very cheerful, with the sturdy, healthy build of a Central Vietnamese, his skin tanned by the sea breeze. A few years ago, when I visited home, I saw an ice cream cart pass by. The vendor was an old man with a hunched back, a toothless smile, and a face etched with the hardships of a lifetime of struggle. I stopped to buy some ice cream for the children and casually mentioned the old vendor. My mother looked at me and whispered, "That's the old ice cream vendor, my child." I was stunned. Time had passed so quickly.
My mother also told me about my maternal grandfather in Hanoi in the 1930s. He was orphaned at a young age, and his great-grandmother toiled to raise him by selling black sesame sweet soup, a traditional Chinese vendor's work, walking and hawking her wares through the freezing winter streets. Some nights, when sales were slow and the pot of soup was still full, she would quietly carry it home. The next day, the two of them would eat the hot soup instead of rice. Those stories reminded me of the song "The Street Vendor's Cry": "There's a street vendor's cry that sounds so lonely amidst the bustling afternoon streets… There's a street vendor's cry like my mother's voice, like my sister's voice. Carrying the homeland on her thin shoulders…" The street vendor's cry in the song is similar to the street vendors' cries in real life. It's not just the sound of making a living, but also the story of hardworking people, carrying their whole lives along the streets.
The sounds of childhood, of homeland.
Those street vendor calls sometimes spread in unexpected ways in the age of social media. Recently, the news featured the story of Ms. Mai, a fruit vendor on the coast of Nha Trang. From a short video of her calling out in English: "Mango, pineapple, banana, watermelon…", an international artist remixed the audio, and the video quickly attracted tens of millions of views on YouTube. But when asked, Ms. Mai just smiled and said that she still sells her goods as she has for decades. For her, the most important thing is still making a living and having pleasant conversations with tourists.
Every summer when I return to Nha Trang, I hear those familiar calls: "Hot tofu here! Hot tofu for sale!"; "Hot steamed rice cakes here!". These simple sounds warm the heart of someone far from home like me.
When I first moved to New York, food carts were my first "friends." In my early days at Brooklyn College, during lunch breaks, I would often line up to buy tacos from the carts outside the campus. They were delicious, cheap, and quick. Students lined up in long queues, especially during peak hours. Gradually, I became familiar with the cart owners and chatted with them about life away from home. Many of my former students still return after graduation just to say hello. Some who moved far away from the city still ask if the carts outside the campus are still selling. Those carts have become a part of many New York college memories.
Every time a New York winter night arrives with its biting cold, seeing the brightly lit cart in the deserted street, I catch a glimpse of the old man who used to sell steamed buns, the ice cream vendor with his tinkling bell, and the familiar street vendors on the coastal streets of Nha Trang. Those calls might seem out of place amidst the bustling city, but for many, they evoke memories, childhood, and the spirit of home.
PHAM BICH NGOC
Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/sang-tac/202603/ky-uc-tieng-rao-onha-trang-df3420d/
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