Monsoon season in my hometown

My hometown, where there are six months of fresh water and six months of salt water, every year on the 15th day of the 11th lunar month, the salt water season begins and lasts until May of the following year, the remaining half of the year is the freshwater season. In the freshwater season, people grow rice, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, they sow the seedlings and wait for transplanting. When the rice is blooming, the fields are full of perch. When the rice is standing, waiting for the monsoon to produce panicles, the perch eat the fallen pollen and become plump and fat.

Another privilege that nature has given to my hometown, the chopsticks also wait for the season to bloom, the clusters of pure white flowers swaying and mixed with mischievous buds like us innocent children back then. In the early morning, the clusters of flowers that were still buds yesterday afternoon have now bloomed, fresh and still covered with dew, gentle and shy, revealing clusters of pure yellow pistils. My sisters and I are very fond of the honey sac located in the sweet and fragrant flower calyx, my father did not let us climb so he made a long pole with a hook to pick the chopsticks flowers. Uncle Bay Long and Uncle Ut Tho climbed up the tree to choose the freshest clusters and picked them all down. Little Ngoc Nhi held out her conical hat to catch them, I loved picking the chopsticks flowers with the pole, I loved looking up to admire the blue sky with white clouds gently drifting and the beautiful chopsticks tree canopy from leaves to flowers, swaying... swaying...

Uncle Bay Long was one year older than me, he often played many tricks that my sisters and I loved. He took us and Uncle Ut Tho to find yellow ant nests to get the eggs to lay as bait for fishing for perch. He used a long bamboo pole to poke the yellow ant nest, a conical hat tied to a string and hung upside down on the top of the bamboo pole to catch the ant eggs. Uncle Bay Long held the pole with the hat hanging on it and poked the ant nest from below, shaking it slightly, the ant eggs would fall into the cone hanging below, the yellow ants would also fall down, sometimes we were bitten painfully but still enjoyed poking the ant eggs, when the cone was lowered, Ngoc Nhi and I had to quickly shake off the big ants, otherwise it would take all the eggs away, Uncle Bay Long took the spoils home to roast with bran to make it fragrant, stuffed them with cold rice and rolled them into balls to use as bait for fishing, ant eggs were very sensitive bait, perch really liked it.

When the sun rose about a sao, Uncle Bay Long took all of us kids fishing. I had to beg my mother very hard to let me go. The fishing season had also returned with the monsoon. In the fields, the water receded, the fish followed the water to the canals to prepare to enter the ponds. At the heads of the canals and the dams, the fish bit their claws like boiling rice, the water surface rippled with circles that spread continuously. The villagers caught fish in many ways: by spreading nets, by setting hooks, by making pits, the pits were dug to catch the flow of fish from the fields to the ponds. Sometimes the water receded so quickly that the fish could not get down to the canals in time, and they lay there gasping for breath in the middle of the fields, so everyone went fishing, which is called shallow fishing.

Because my father did not let us wade through the mud to catch dry fish, he was afraid that we would step on the thorns or barbs and cut our hands, so Uncle Bay Long took us fishing, fishing was cleaner and more leisurely than catching dry fish. Two fishing rods, a small bunch of roasted yellow ant eggs. After baiting, hook the bean-shaped egg bait, put it on the rice bushes and wait for the buoy to move, the buoy made from the stem of a garlic bulb. Uncle Bay Long and Uncle Ut Tho fished, my three sisters and I carried a tin bucket to hold the fish, our eyes wide open watching the fishing line that had just been dropped, the fish bit the buoy and jerked the tip of the rod, each time we jerked the hook, the golden perch would curve its body and flail in the air, we would cheer in victory, Uncle Bay Long was the one who removed the fish from the hook, each time he jerked the bait, a part would dissolve into the water, stimulating more fish to come, the fish bit the hook continuously, besides the perch there were also climbing perch and a few snakehead fish. I longingly begged Uncle Ut Tho to let me hold the fishing rod for a while, I also caught some perch, I was very excited but had to let Ngoc Nhi fish too, Ngoc Nhien was too young so she couldn't fish, her face was so sad she wanted to cry... I felt sorry for her.

With Mom's "royal" cooking hands, the sumptuous meal of the monsoon season was served with steam billowing. Braised perch in a clay pot, spicy chili peppers, a bowl of sour soup with water mimosa flowers... One day Mom made crispy fried perch, garlic chili fish sauce, sweet and sour lemon, and boiled water mimosa flowers, which were also delicious. Those flavors blended together and were deeply imprinted in my memory.

Besides the delicious dishes of the monsoon season, I also crave the coolness of the countryside, the white storks flying, the starlings perching on the dike... and the wind, the monsoon wind of the pine trees of my hometown.

LE THI NGOC NU

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