( Quang Ngai Newspaper) - At night, the wind was cold and the sky was dark. The lights in the center were still flashing. The bright signs seemed to add to the bustling atmosphere of the city at the end of the year. December hung over the streets with hurried steps. After the night shift, Tinh drove Nam through several busy streets. The spinning wheels dragged many worries behind. Crossing Thu Thiem Bridge was the deserted boarding house. On the twenty-fifth of December, several students were eagerly taking the bus home for Tet. The street vendors had also returned early after a year of hard work in the city. The boarding house had only a few rooms with lights on. The remaining people were probably because they had not received their salaries or bonuses, and partly because they had registered to work extra in restaurants and eateries that were open during Tet. The rest were people like Tinh, like Nam, or Phuong, and Xuan. Those who are calculating and living within their means, hesitating with the little money they have saved after a year of low salary.
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| MH: VO VAN |
The suburban boarding house is located next to a canal bank with endless reeds. Low-income workers often move to boarding houses near the inner city to save money. The first residents pick up the next residents, and gradually there are boarding houses that are all people from the same hometown. Like the boarding house Tinh is living in, out of the twenty rooms, fifteen are rented by Quang Ngai people. At first, there were only two or three rooms, but then people started to pull each other into a boarding house with a "pure" Quang Ngai accent, to the point that every time there was a storm or flood, the whole boarding house would be in turmoil. A Mo Duc kid asked a Binh Son kid, a Tra Bong kid sat with a Son Tinh kid, a Nghia Hanh kid advised a Minh Long kid. Just like that, the boarding house residents huddled together to get through the difficult days of the city. There was little work, and the word unemployment hung in the air, so on a rainy afternoon, the boarding house residents sat looking out the window at the city and sighed at each other. Or should they go back? Nothing is as good as the countryside. Someone's question made the rain like whips lashing the hearts of those who were far from home to make a living, missing their homeland.
Every child of Quang who comes to this city carries a dream. Some dreams are lit, but some dreams are still struggling to find their way to blossom. Then, as the years go by, the dream begins to shrink, and can be summed up in two words: to live. To live means to have a stable job, to save a little to send back home to support the family. This year, the city's economy is in difficulty, so at the end of the year, when you open your hand, you still see that there is no money left.
That's what Tinh told his friends. The boys sat on this side of Thu Thiem, right on the grass field in the cold December wind, looking over the city center and sighing. Their hands were rough with the traces of the ups and downs of this city. Their hands carried heavy burdens of food, clothing, and money. Their hands were blackened by the sun and wind of the South, which had darkened their youth. Four guys from four places in Quang Ngai, met in this city, in a boarding house full of people from the old country, suddenly one day hearing the December wind made them long for their hometown, remembering Tet.
***
Nam, a native of Binh Son, came to this boarding house when he was a student, and after graduating, he stayed in the city to make a living. Phuong, a native of the Sa Huynh salt fields, chose this city to seek knowledge and pick up new technology. The children of salt farmers need to change so that the salt-making profession cannot remain isolated in the scorching sun, even their lips can lick the salty taste of sweat. Xuan, a son of Sa Huynh, also followed Phuong to the city to study medicine. The day Xuan received her university admission letter, the whole village was happy. Sa Huynh needs a few doctors. Doctors treat the salt fields so that the harvest is plentiful every year. Doctors treat the salt workers so that their health is like the sea, like the waves, like the sun, which for hundreds of years has been beating down on the lives of salt farmers.
Tinh was the last one to return to the four-person dormitory. That year, after the company's turmoil, the production line was broken, the partner did not invest, Tinh was unemployed and wandering around, then applied for a part-time job four hours a day and night at a company specializing in clean agricultural projects for Japan - where Nam was working as a technical supervisor. Looking at the new employee with dark skin, a height of 1 meter 80, and a cold, somewhat dry face, Nam thought that he could not expect any attachment from this employee. But after about a month, Tinh's productivity target was equivalent to those who worked eight hours a day. Nam began to approach and discovered the country accent on a rainy city night, patting the factory's corrugated iron roof. The Quang accent traveled everywhere, but even if it was changed, it was still heavy, making anyone who heard it recognize it.
Tinh was having trouble with the lack of money for a room. Nam sighed and decided to follow Nam back. This city still had a Quang Ngai boarding house on the outskirts. It was the same everywhere, living with people from your own country was the best. We could help each other through the difficulties. The boarding house was big enough for four people from then on. From then on, Tinh applied to work officially for a company. Tinh studied agriculture, traveled a few places but couldn't stay because this land wasn't easy to live in, a person from a distant valley searching for a dream that was always precarious with the hustle and bustle of the city. Once, some of the people who were staying with him asked Tinh, how far away was Ren Valley? Why couldn't even the people of Quang Ngai imagine where it was when they mentioned it? Tinh laughed nonchalantly. Very far! So far that people who came once sometimes didn't want to go back. Because to go back, they had to go through five or seven forks, three or four directions, and there were difficulties with vehicles and roads. So once they got there, they stayed there forever. The friends did not believe it, shook their heads, and made an appointment to go to Ren Valley one day to see how enchanting that small basin was. And if it was so enchanting, why did Tinh leave? The question drifted into a quiet night in the city. A sleepless night. Would Tinh go or return? In his dream that night, Tinh saw Ren Valley with undulating mountains and hills. The basin was filled with seasons of heavenly flowers.
***
The twelfth lunar month was almost over, the city was bustling with excitement to celebrate Tet. After the last working day, Tinh and Nam returned to the deserted boarding house. A few days ago, the four of them sat together to discuss going home. Nam hesitated because if he went home and then came back, the money for gifts would be several million dong. Nam was still paying off the debt for repairing his parents' house. Phuong and Xuan were also hesitant because if he went home it would be expensive, but if he stayed, they would apply for a job in a supermarket, a day's wages would be five hundred thousand, which means working ten days during Tet would be half a month's salary. Tinh didn't know whether to go home or stay. This year's Tet bonus was only half. He was considered luckier than the tens of thousands of unemployed people in the export processing zones at the end of the year. As long as there was work, there would still be money to be made. Lung Ren was far away, the trip back and forth would take four days, there weren't many days left to celebrate Tet. The older people got, the more they considered their trips home, even if it was a family reunion. Because money is always the thing that makes those who live far from home and wander the city feel pain, especially when earning money is so difficult.
On the twenty-eighth night of Tet, four guys rode against the current of Thu Thiem through the central area to watch people bustling about shopping for Tet. Many buses left the city, bringing their children back to their hometowns. Passing by those buses, the hearts of the Quang people felt like a breeze was blowing in. The whole group slowly walked into the spring flower festival of this city. Filled with flowers. Bustling with the Tet atmosphere. It felt like their hearts were also excited. Several flower sellers came from all over the region. The kids wandered along the length of the spring flower market in a foreign land and thought back to their own country. Surely this season, the spring flower market in Quang Ngai city is bustling with shoppers.
Sold out, it's Tet, sold to go home, profit or loss, we must have a family reunion meal. Suddenly, the boys heard the Quang Ngai accent haggling with customers. That was a flower stall selling the Thien Phuc trees with brilliant pink-purple lights like falling fireworks. They were really Quang Ngai people. The boys ran to see, Thien Phuc flowers were truly beautiful, nowhere is more beautiful than Quang Ngai. Withstanding the sun, the wind, and the barrenness of this land for generations, so that every time the wind changes, Thien Phuc flowers will bloom and sparkle. Tinh's eyes were red as she asked the old man with the Quang Ngai accent selling flowers. Quang Ngai, everyone. Are you guys back yet? Are you going home tomorrow afternoon to clean up the stall and go home together? There's still room in the flower truck. Go home, going home is Tet. If someone in the family is missing, there's no Tet. The old man with the Quang Ngai accent spoke with a calm smile, but the hearts of the four boys were filled with the Tet wind.
On the twenty-ninth night of Tet, people saw four boys helping to clean up the flower stall of an old man from Quang Ngai. On the car full of flowers, there were also some sparkling purple and pink Thien Phuc plants, the boys sat holding their backpacks. The car headed towards the highway to Quang Ngai. Leaving the city behind, the boys returned following the Tet flower season. The four of them promised to go to Ren valley, to bathe in Lac stream, to lie in the middle of the basin watching the immense Thien Phuc flowers bloom. Whether near or far, people's hearts are in the spring!
TONG PHUOC BAO
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