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| The house with the number year engraved on it is located in Thanh Trung hamlet, Thanh Duc village, Xuan Quang 3 commune, Dong Xuan district. Photo: MANH HOAI NAM |
The year number is engraved in a prominent, solemn position on the front, so that everyone can easily notice it.
The house's "birth year"
The house of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lien in Thanh Trung hamlet has the year 1994 engraved on it. The engraved number is located under the upper gutter in the middle of the house, exposed to the sun and rain, time has left its mossy mark on the number. Mrs. Lien confided: On the foundation of this house, there are 2 layers of houses. At first, the house was built with buried horse posts and earthen walls, then it was converted to a level 4 house with bricks and cement with the year engraved on it. Inside the house, there are columns, beams, and loose pillars forming a frame called "cage" supporting the beams, purlins, and roof tiles.
According to Ms. Lien, in the countryside at that time, if a couple worked hard and saved up their whole life to build an L-shaped house, they would be very happy. The year was engraved to remember the time of construction, which was the "birth year" of the house.
Below Mrs. Lien's house is Mr. Vo Muoi's house, with the year 1977 engraved on it. Mr. Muoi said: The house was built of bricks and cement on the outside, and wood on the inside, so at that time there were two groups of workers, bricklayers and carpenters. The carpenters worked by hand, from planing to sawing, chiseling and mortising the beams, which took a whole day to complete. To build a level 4 house, it took several months, and the homeowner saved up a few barrels of rice to feed the workers. That's why there is a saying: "When the workers leave, the barrels are turned upside down".
Also the house number is engraved with the number five, but Mr. Muoi's house did not build a pair of L-shaped houses but built a convex room. "The year the house was built, the mason discussed, the house has a convex room looking over. The convex room is usually used to place a round table, a tea set to receive guests. To build a house with a convex room, the cost of building the foundation to the roof gutter and canopy had to be borrowed from both the paternal and maternal sides, then tried to grow sugarcane and cassava for 2 years, earning money to pay off the debt," said Mr. Muoi.
This hamlet has 10 houses with years engraved on them, the oldest being 1977, the next one being 1996, and the ones after that have not been engraved. The houses with years engraved on the walls are usually understood to be the oldest houses in the hamlet, the year the house was built is engraved or embossed on the wall to record the time of construction, that is, the “year of birth”.
Mr. Vo Muoi, in Thanh Duc village, Xuan Quang 3 commune, Dong Xuan district
According to Mr. Muoi, this area was the cradle of the revolution. Before liberation, the enemy bombed and the people in the hamlet evacuated, so the houses at that time were made of horse-tied houses and temporary mud walls. After 1975, the country was completely liberated, and people built houses and stabilized their lives. This hamlet has 10 houses with years engraved on them, the "oldest" is 1977, the next is 1996, and until now, no numbers have been engraved. The houses with years engraved on the walls are often understood to be the oldest houses in the hamlet. The year the house was built is engraved or embossed on the wall to record the time of construction, that is, the "year of birth".
Mr. Muoi also said that he had the opportunity to travel to many places but rarely saw many houses with the number year engraved on them like in Thanh Trung hamlet.
Family Achievements
Building a house with the "year of birth" engraved on it is like a person, after birth, they all have a name and an age. That number grows bigger every year with the maturity of each person. Mr. Bui Van Sam, also in Xuan Quang 3 commune, said: When I was young, I often had the opportunity to go with my family to the ancestral temple in my paternal hometown on the other side of the river. As soon as I arrived at the beginning of the alley, I looked up at the wall above, right in the middle of the house. There was the number 1977, the "year of birth" of the house, which was 10 years older than me. That number was embossed, in a beautiful and solemn green and yellow background. Since then, every time I come back, I look up to admire the "cute" number engraved on the upper gutter. On Tet holiday, when all the children and grandchildren come home, the uncles and aunts compare the age of the house with the age of the family members: "This house was built when you didn't have one yet", "When this house was built, the children's mother had not yet married into this family"...
Talking about the house with the number five carved on it, Mr. Vo Hung Lai in Xuan Quang 3 commune shared: The ancestral house that my grandfather left behind is a house with the number five carved on it. Every time we sit in the house with the number five carved on it, on the occasion of Tet, everyone wishes each other a new year with more business and more money like the house with the number five. Through the Tet greetings, we, the descendants, can also see the joy of a large family in the area for having built a house with the number five carved on it over a long period of time, a place for family reunion.
“Over the years, I have always kept the habit of bringing my family back to the ancestral house on death anniversaries or Tet to meet relatives. The couple and their children all take the opportunity to stand in front of the porch, taking a series of photos, only accepting the number of years in the house. Next door, there is a newly built house with modern paint, but no one pays attention to stop and take photos. The children check-in at the old house and post it on social networks, getting many likes and comments,” said Mr. Lai.
According to sociologists, Vietnamese people believe that settling down is the only way to settle down, but building a house is not a simple matter. Many people save their whole lives to have enough money to build it. Therefore, once the house is completed, it is a great achievement of the family's life, a source of pride that the owner wants not only himself but also his children and grandchildren to remember. Therefore, many houses built before the end of 1996 have this "year of birth" detail. The number is always painted and embossed in a prominent, solemn position on the facade, so that not only the family but also guests can easily see it, gradually becoming a characteristic feature in the culture of Vietnamese houses in ancient times.
Source: https://baophuyen.vn/xa-hoi/202505/xom-nha-co-khac-so-nam-bce1e93/
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