The sound of a falling mango, seemingly simple, yet it preserves a bygone era of verdant youth that seemed to have long since vanished.
Even in folk rituals, Vietnamese people have the habit of listening to or "watching the falling fruit." This is not only to preserve the sweetest, most fragrant parts of the local fruits, but also as a silent ritual to understand the laws of nature. In Central Vietnam, people consider a betel nut falling at the time of a wedding ceremony as an auspicious sign. In Southern Vietnam, mangoes, plums, guavas, etc., when they fall, are reserved for making jam or desserts, as a way of preserving the most natural things. Fallen fruit is a gift from the earth and the sky. Those who bend down to pick them up, cherishing and preserving them, are grateful for the harvest and understand the natural order.
I grew up in a garden full of seasonal fruits that fell to the ground. There was a small mango tree in the backyard, called "muỗm" or "quéo" in the North. Where I lived, there was a mango tree in the middle of the yard, gnarled but resilient, appearing only after a rain shower, stretching its green leaves and casting its shade through the years. My mother said that kind of mango had small fruits, thin flesh, and large seeds; when eaten unripe, it was so sour it made you grimace, but when ripe, it was as sweet as forgiveness. That sweetness wasn't sold in markets or supermarkets with labels and barcodes. It remained in the foliage, in the yard, present in the corner of the garden, in the sleeves of the children sitting under the tree, eagerly and silently waiting.
Back then, I believed that ripe mangoes only fell at noon. When the birds had stopped chirping, the sun was no longer scorching, and the sky seemed to have taken a moment to rest. I used to sit motionless like that, watching a mango fall, imagining it as the stirring of a season that had just passed its prime.
Some people pick fruit while it's still green, forcing it to ripen the way they want. It's as if life itself must follow the hurried pace dictated by humans, rather than the silent laws of nature. They begin something when their hearts are still restless and end something else before they are calm enough to look back.
I've seen many mangoes fall after summer. Some fall whole, intact, golden yellow. Some crack open, revealing ripe flesh. Or, further away, some still have sun-tanned skin, a few drops of sap oozing from the stem. Waiting for a hand to quietly bend down and pick them up. I used to sit motionless like that, watching a mango fall as if I had never seen a season of falling fruit in my life, even though my whole childhood was spent under the trees, with fruit falling all over my head. Every season, my siblings and I would lie there waiting, longing for them.
I don't remember how old I was the last time I sat under that mango tree. All I know is that later, when I returned, the tree was old, its trunk hollow, its leaves sparse, and my old friends had all gone their separate ways. We no longer had the joy of waiting for a mango to fall, shouting with excitement as if we had just caught summer in our hands. The neighborhood kids are so tired of eating them now that they don't even bother looking at the mangoes that they pick from the tree, so nobody bothers to collect fallen mangoes like we used to.
Thanks to advanced technology, mango trees can now bear fruit several times a year, thus increasing income. However, the image of children waiting under mango trees to pick the fruit, their laughter echoing, is gradually disappearing, and the season of falling mangoes is fading away. Nowadays, such childhood gardens are becoming increasingly rare. Children grow up surrounded by more phone calls than the midday cooing of birds, and the scent of ripe fruit. Everything is being replaced by nameless rushes. Because fruit is now mostly harvested while still unripe, carefully wrapped, and refrigerated. People no longer have time to wait for something to happen naturally. Only that sound of falling remains. Because somewhere, someone still cultivates a small mango tree in their garden, to hear again the silent sound of a life that was once so real.
They say that a person's memories are like slow, falling notes. I'm not entirely sure about that, I only understand that there are things that cannot be held onto, nor can they simply disappear. They remain there, silently, like the sound of a mango falling in an empty yard, like the earthy smell after the rain, like the sunlight drying up a time of childhood... This afternoon, I hear the sound of the old year falling again. No children run out to pick them up. Only I sit quietly, listening to something honest in the garden, which is currently fragrant.
Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/vuon-xua-mua-trai-rung-post326367.html
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