When I was a child, whenever I heard about the village, I was filled with joy and excitement. Because at that time, the village was still a remote place, with vast rice fields and high blue skies. It was a place where I could follow my friends to pick each fragrant yellow duoi fruit or pull up each wild galangal bush to chew to see the whole cool, blue summer sky. There, in my first year of school, I was still a short, spindly child, carried by a big kid across the swollen stream after a heavy rain to sneak into the bushes around the village temple to pick the fruit and eat it until my tongue turned purple... It was the time when I asked the teacher to let me go out in the middle of class to take care of urgent personal matters that could not be delayed. A few small classes were located far from the main school, the "toilet" was a vast sandy field behind which there was a lot of sun and wind, full of wild pineapples and sim and moc. Wandering around for an hour for a need that should have only taken a few minutes, was a whole world of fun for the village school children.
Those children are now grandparents, with wrinkled skin and gray hair, wandering to faraway places but their hearts are always anchored on the shore of their homeland. Then they bring their nostalgia into every moment of everyday life, bringing the color of bamboo and banana to green every corner of the garden and yard. The scent of marigolds and trees lingers in the streets on days with a cool breeze changing the seasons...
The city expanded, reaching out to embrace many neighboring areas to expand its shape and stature. The village has since then begun to have a city feel, but still retains its rustic character with many trees and flowers all year round. The villagers work hard to make ends meet for their children and grandchildren to keep up with modern living needs. The rustic, thrifty, and neat way of life is still somewhere in the pots that make use of straw and dry leaves in the backyard, in the jars that collect rainwater at the end of the porch or at the top of the kitchen...
Life racing with the speed of modern conveniences has made people sometimes feel the need to stop to slow down and relax, to breathe in the fresh green space of the village. People like to quietly watch the way the villagers walk, talk, and work. Starting a new day with the sound of chickens and returning to the sound of birds chirping in the afternoon. The sound of children laughing in the yard, the sound of buckets rattling by the well, and the village meal with lots of delicious vegetables and pickles will be the delicious end to a day of hard work.
Villagers rarely care about the market, except on days when they are called "working". In a flash, the garden is full of things, full of hands, full of baskets. Better yet, there are ducks and chickens. When it rains, along the banks and ponds, there are more fish, mackerel or mullet with full bellies of eggs. And, the kitchens are filled with the warm smell of fish stewed with chili, nettle leaves, ginger leaves in the early cold of the season, still lingering in the garden smoke mixed with the scent of areca, the smell of straw and the smell of cow and buffalo dung...
Villagers like to talk, and are used to talking loudly and laughing loudly. They also talk about cattle, death anniversaries, weddings... Everyone in the village knows the names and faces of everyone, including their children and grandchildren, and their in-laws. Therefore, it is easy for the village leader to ask for a house or find someone in any corner of the village, and sometimes they are even enthusiastically taken to the place.
Villagers like to share love, like their neighbors to be close and intimate. Although there are some houses with their gates locked, most of the houses have their gates inside and outside left open, and when the owners are home it is like they are away. Neighbors look at each other all their lives, so what is there to be afraid of? Therefore, when it rains, floods or storms, hearing the calls to run out, receiving a bunch of vegetables from the neighbors with a warm and happy heart is also... a normal thing in the village. When leaving the village to visit someone, they choose the biggest chicken, the biggest fish in the herd, the most delicious bunch of bananas to feel at ease. Gardeners eat deep-fried areca nuts..., leaving the fragrant part for others like that.
All year round, burying their faces in the garden and fields at noon, the villagers then and now are still the same, their simple dreams do not go beyond the distant horizon behind the village bamboo fence. But their belief in heaven and earth and ancestors is absolutely cherished. During spring and autumn festivals or village festivals, they clean and tidy up the temples, and they wear traditional long dresses and pray with all their sincerity in the lingering incense smoke, just asking for peace to raise their children well, bringing back a glorious reputation for the village.
Simple and fragile like that, but that invisible thin thread has kept the village community together forever as the origin of generations, the starting point of each person, whether still working hard, struggling or already famous and going everywhere...
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