The small hamlet is nestled deep in the remote countryside, far from the noise of cars and the hustle and bustle of shops. A few scattered houses are nestled amidst the vast expanse of green trees and grass. The road into the hamlet, during the rainy season, is a muddy, swampy mess. Every time I ride my motorbike out of town, everyone turns to look because it's covered in thick, reddish mud. Several times when friends came to visit, they all asked: "Aren't you bored living here?" Well, at first I was a little bored, but I got used to it, grew fond of it, and even fell in love with it without realizing it.
Honestly. I really miss it. After a long day at the office, all I want is to rush home, breathe in the fresh scent of the plants and trees, feel the cool breeze on my face, and listen to the sounds of my little village. I don't know when I became addicted to listening to the sounds of this small, remote village. There's nothing particularly special about it. Just the sounds of chickens, dogs, birds, children playing, and the wind.
Every sound has its own charm, something you have to listen to repeatedly, year after year, to truly appreciate. Take the sound of chickens, for example. You can hear the chickens from the third watch of the night. The roosters in the neighborhood crow in unison, calling out the day. On sleepless nights, lying there listening to the chickens makes you feel warm and comforted. It feels like you have company and companionship. After listening for a while, you can distinguish the sound of your own chickens from those of Mr. Muoi, Mr. Tu from the west, or Mr. Sau from the ditch. Each chicken has its own unique crow, with varying pitches. Older roosters crow clearly, long, and high-pitched. Younger roosters crow in a funny way, like a child playing a banana leaf trumpet. When you hear the chickens crowing loudly, you know it's already four in the morning. Earlier, the chickens crow individually, not in a chaotic chorus. When you hear the chickens crowing mixed with the chirping of birds, you know it's already past five o'clock.
Lying under the mosquito net, wrapped tightly in blankets to keep warm, listening to the sounds of the early morning: roosters crowing, birds chirping, motorbikes swerving, dogs barking… A cacophony of sounds mingling together, heralding the start of a new day. It's quite enjoyable, isn't it? A pleasure only country folk know and cherish; city dwellers don't appreciate these rustic sounds at all…
The neighborhood is no longer small. So many new houses have sprung up, built close together. Since the land boom, people have been dividing the land into plots and selling them. People from all over have come to build houses. Each house is built on a single 12-square-meter plot, with a high gate and a fence. Neighbors live side-by-side, but you can't see each other's faces clearly, know each other's names, and if you happen to mention someone, you only say something like, "house painted yellow," "house painted gray," "house painted blue"... Everyone is busy working all day and goes home at night, each living in their own house; there's no interaction, so how could you know each other's names?
Since the neighborhood became more populated, new sounds began to appear. Portable loudspeakers blared music, mostly bolero, around midday. Then, in the afternoons, countless singers would sing karaoke until late at night. In the early mornings, you couldn't hear any birdsong, only music. You just had to put up with it; what else could you do? The neighborhood also saw an increasing number of businesses and services. Shops and restaurants were right in the neighborhood; you only needed to walk a few steps to buy anything. The road into the neighborhood was paved with smooth concrete, so there was no more worry about muddy conditions in the rain. If you needed anything, there were trucks delivering it right to your door, which was very convenient.
At the beginning of the street, right next to the paved road, two large coffee shops opened. They offered live music. By dusk, they were packed with customers, mostly middle-aged men and women. Dressed in dresses and ties, they took to the stage, microphones in hand, and performed like professional singers. After singing, someone would come up to give them flowers. The music was live, not just some cheap, portable speakers. You could register to sing a song, but you had to arrive early, as the shop only allowed registrations for 30 songs. That's why in the afternoons, the men and women would rush to the shop for a date, finishing their dinner early. It became a habit, a trend. Eventually, during the morning tea breaks, all you heard was stories about how they had sung together the night before.
The children shrugged and thought, "Let Mom and Dad go and see the world. We don't have many years left to live anyway, so why stop them? It's a harmless pastime. We've worked hard all our lives, so we might as well enjoy ourselves for as long as we can."
So the small village became noisy from dusk. Frogs and toads still croaked, but it wasn't as pleasant as it used to be. Every evening, we closed the doors tightly to avoid the noise. Eventually, all we knew was television and the electric fan. On days when we craved the breeze from the fields, we'd lie on the porch and wait, and occasionally a little wind would blow through, mixed with the smell of sewage. Suddenly, we felt sad, longing for the cool, refreshing breeze of the past, fragrant with the scent of freshly sprouted grass.
I wish I could go back to the time when the village was still small, the roads were still red dirt, and the wind still blew coolly from the fields…
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