The devastating flood of 1904

Báo Thanh niên•13/05/2023

In his unpublished posthumous work, *To Man Hoa Tung Dinh*, scholar Vuong Hong Sen devoted many pages to this event. First, based on the documents of the historian Viet Cuc from Go Cong, he recounted the story and offered insightful and captivating commentary. However, that was not the most noteworthy aspect; what remains most remarkable, something previously unmentioned, was the account given by the scholar Vuong Hong Sen's mother.

Mrs. Hứa Thị Hảo (1878 - 1913), originally from Tài Sum village, also known as Xoài Cả Nả village in Sóc Trăng, was the person Mr. Sển always remembered with the deepest affection. He recounted: "When my mother passed away, the thriving business in the house suddenly came to a halt. There was no one to manage the household, and I was incredibly sad. I was fascinated by Chinese novels and had the fanciful thought of committing suicide to follow my mother. This vague sadness arose from there."

Trận lụt kinh hoàng năm 1904 - Ảnh 1. — Old Go Cong Market

When the 1904 storm and flood devastated the South, Mr. Sển's mother was 26 years old. During their intimate moments together, she recounted her experiences to her son. In this posthumous work, Mr. Sển recorded much information that we should also know today to understand the thoughts of the people of the South at that time in the face of this great disaster. For example: "The tail of the dragon of the Year of the Dragon (1904) swept from Gò Công along the entire southern coastal region. The provinces of Tiền Giang from Mỹ Tho to Hậu Giang (Sóc Trăng, Bạc Liêu, Cà Mau…) were all affected. The old people at that time were simple and naive, believing many Chinese stories and old-fashioned reasoning, believing that dragons truly existed. They thought that any year with the word "Thìn" (dragon ) would have heavy rain and strong winds, but this Year of the Dragon (1904) was the most disastrous. They called the storms and gales 'the dragon's departure,' 'the dragon's rise'…"

Following the flow of the story, Mr. Vuong Hong Sen continued: "That year, I was only three years old, and I didn't know anything. My mother later recounted that the storm raged all night, with strong winds and torrential rain. Lying in my mosquito net, I heard sounds like loud gunshots. The most terrifying thing was that the wind didn't blow in one direction but kept shifting back and forth. Even the biggest trees couldn't withstand the storm. The row of tamarind trees in front of my parents' old house were all uprooted. The tamarind tree in front of the house, with a trunk so large it took a man to embrace it, fell completely onto the roof. Luckily, the newly built house had a sturdy roof that could withstand the weight of the tree. The next morning, the construction department sent skilled workers to cut each branch, and a truck carried away the tree stump. The avenue in front of the house, formerly called 'Tamarind Row,' was later renamed 'Star Row Road' and then 'Dai Ngai Road'."

That's the story in Dai Ngai village (Soc Trang), but what about Go Cong?

Based on Viet Cuc's account, Mr. Sen recounted the story of an old man who witnessed it: "On the 15th day of the third lunar month, it rained and blew from noon until evening, getting heavier and stronger... My father saw a very strong east wind, hitting the walls and tearing down the doors, the thatched roof flying around. My father was very scared, so he took planks from a wooden plank and used them to prop up the door, tying them up very carefully, but the wind kept blowing. At first, it tore down the walls and bent the house pillars, then a whirlwind came, blowing away half the roof, and the other half collapsed and fell on the rice granary. In the panic, we heard many loud shouts from the head of the village: 'The water is overflowing! Oh my God! Which way to run?'"

The entire horrific sequence of events that followed is recounted in many detailed pages; here, I will only quote the passage from the following day: "On the afternoon of the 16th, the survivors, a group, went searching for relatives. The water was still knee-deep, bodies of people and animals floated on the surface, belongings lay scattered all over the fields, and the once bustling villages were now reduced to just a few standing pillars…"

On the morning of the 17th, the floodwaters receded considerably, and people searched everywhere for corpses, looking for wives, children, relatives, parents, and siblings. Some families were completely wiped out, not a single person left behind. Bodies lay scattered everywhere. It wasn't until the 19th that they organized the burials, burying the bodies wherever they found them. Here is a poem that goes like this, which I will transcribe here:

Let's all crush them to pieces!

Bury them wherever they come from; no one is allowed to carry them.

Even after death, the body is never at peace.

And for the survivors, where would they get the rice and money to eat?

Returning to the story told by Mr. Sển's mother, we know that his childhood home was on Đại Ngãi Street, now Hai Bà Trưng Street. Mr. Sển stated that in the early 20th century: "This road ran straight to the Đại Ngãi estuary, with a 'water hyacinth' pier from Mỹ Tho carrying official documents and letters, called a 'postal station' of the state from Saigon and other places. Now, terms like 'glass carriage, paper carriage,' and the driver called a 'xà ích' (from the French word 'saïs' borrowed from the Arabic, meaning donkey driver, horse carriage driver) are no longer understood by younger generations and newcomers, and are necessary to read ancient texts and novels found here."

Mr. Sển was absolutely right. The way people in the South described the 1904 flood contained words that we might not understand today. For example, at that time: "The dead must be buried immediately," the custom was "Death immediately, burial immediately." There was a saying:

March brings deadly storms and devastating winds.

The month of May was just as chaotic.

Because relatives were not allowed to hold funeral rites to show filial piety, such complaints arose… Today, in Go Cong, the custom of commemorating the storm on the 16th of the third lunar month is still observed, and even in the fifth month, some people still return home to mourn the deceased (according to Viet Cuc).

So, how should we understand this correctly?

According to Mr. Sển: "Searching in the Huình Tịnh Của dictionary, the Lê Văn Đức dictionary, as well as in the dictionary of the Hội Khai Trí Tiến Đức ( Hanoi ), I couldn't find the word 'nhộn' to refer to death. So, I suggest adding this meaning to our language to enrich it. Generally, regarding illness, we have long had customary superstitions. For example, with smallpox, we use mild terms like 'rising fruit' and 'good fruit' to indicate a mild case. Death is referred to as 'dead' or 'gone'... Even with epidemics or seasonal diseases (peste, cholera), to avoid the gruesome term 'immediately purged,' we use the term 'death' here, meaning 'unusual symptoms, abnormality.' I hope the wise will understand." (to be continued).

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