Through the land of yellow flowers and green grass

On a free Sunday, I took my wife to Tuy Hoa to handle some work. Every time I go to the land of yellow flowers and green grass, I remember the saying “a cow swimming across the river will kill a buffalo” (floating - PV) which is very typical of the land of Nau.

I had to find a hotel to rest because my work was not finished. There are many beautiful hotels along Tuy Hoa beach today. Among them, Sala Hotel Restaurant Complex is a place worth stopping to watch the sea.

The owner of the complex is from the North, but the staff are all from the Nau region, so they talk openly and pleasantly. While Quang people tend to pronounce a as oa, cafe da as “cafe doa”, and ma as “moa”, here the a sound is often pronounced as e, “ca pho de”, the ao sound is often pronounced as eo… and that makes you laugh. Honestly, I really like that rustic, simple accent of the Nau region. Flowery words often hide an unfathomable amount of falsehood behind skillful tongue twisting that many people mistake for logic. “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty” as the poet John Keats once sang, each person should be their own version.

At lunch, I stopped by Thien Huong chicken rice restaurant and saw the small words “heaven-sent flavor” written below, as if to intentionally explain the restaurant’s brand. Is it possible that the products born in each region are imbued with a special temperament that brings a very unique flavor to that place? Then I looked over to this side of the wall and saw the words “since 1967” written next to a photo of an English newspaper article emphasizing “walking-chicken” many times. I thought to myself, “walking chicken, free-range chicken or garden chicken…” are not as important as “chickens aged since 1967”. For more than half a century, the “walking chicken” of the past has been preserved without bothering to upgrade to “chickens that drive cars, chickens that fly planes, chickens that wear diamonds…”, cutting corners to get rich quickly. Subtle but not weird, it truly has lasting value.

For dinner, we changed to duck porridge on the Nguyen Cong Tru sidewalk. The rice grains, shrimps, and prawns from Tuy Hoa fields were transformed into sweet, soft, and delicious duck meat served with herbs, cucumbers, pickles, and a spicy ginger-chili dipping sauce, creating an unforgettable rustic flavor. It has been over 30 years, and looking around, we don’t see the words “since…” like at Thien Huong, but over all these years, this restaurant has never lost its original flavor.

“I see yellow flowers on the green grass”, the film adapted from the novel of the same name by writer Nguyen Nhat Anh, has main scenes filmed on the land and people here, captivating visitors. Green rice fields, small village paths, wild flowers along the rocky slopes, nets full of fish and shrimp along the lagoon shore, white-capped waves along the winding coastline… And perhaps most of all, the innocence, kindness, simplicity, and honesty of the lives and people in Phu Yen have bloomed enchanting yellow dots in me.

While going around Mui Dien towards Thach Bi mountain, where more than 500 years ago King Le Thanh Ton pacified the Cham people and went up the mountain to write a poem to establish the border marker of Dai Viet, the sun was shining on Mui Dien lighthouse - the place that welcomed the first sunrise on the mainland of the Fatherland. The sky was clear, the clouds were gone, Da Bia was shining brightly, I took a few photos into my camera to caption the song: "Afternoon clouds cover Da Bia/ Da Bia is covered with clouds, that woman lost her husband". Then I thought absentmindedly: I wonder if in the future I will still have the opportunity to enjoy "coffee with coffee" to find the little bit of yellow flowers and green grass left in the current widespread urbanization storm?

THE HAO

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