Spring Wharf

(Baonghean.vn) - The Spring Water Wharf is where children go to get water on the first morning of the year. It is also from this place that a boy suddenly realizes that girls and boys belong to two separate, fascinating worlds and cannot be separated from each other.

Having become a daughter-in-law nearly twenty kilometers away from her old village, Mrs. Lo Thi Lan, Hong Dien village, Don Phuc commune (Con Cuong) still cannot stop remembering the old water wharf. The place where her girlhood passed like the gentle flow of the water.

The stream next to the village is a very familiar image to the highland communities. The stream not only brings life but also stays with people throughout their lives. Photo: Huu Vi.

Almost all mountain people have been attached to a water station. Mrs. Lan's old hometown is in Yen Khe commune. She still clearly remembers the day she left her village, leaving the old water station, feeling like leaving a close friend. Because when she was a girl, she was so attached to the clear water of Ta Bo stream, which has now become a famous landscape of the mountains of Nghe An.

The ancients counted age by the number of farming seasons. Mrs. Lan counted her age by the number of times she went to the stream on the morning of the first day of Tet. She first went to the stream on the last morning of the year when she was 4 years old. From her childhood, through her girlhood, until the day she moved to another village to get married, she still kept this custom on another stream. However, her most beautiful memories are still of Ta Bo stream, where the water gushes from the ground, crystal clear as a filter.

From here, every afternoon, ferries dock. Photo: Huu Vi.

She said: When I was little, my father told me that whoever caught the first stream of water in the new year when it gushed from the ground would have good luck for the whole year. People called it water from the fairyland. In that land, there were tiny people so small that they could reach the eggplant plants with their bare hands, and had to use a pole to pick them. There was a festival all year round. Life was forever carefree.

On the first day of the new year, the fairies open the fairy stream. Just for a moment, the water brings luck to the people. That moment is the first rooster crowing in the new year. Those who are diligent and hard-working will have the luck to encounter the fairy stream water.

Almost all the children believed in this story. On New Year's Eve, no one dared to sleep. They just waited for the rooster to crow, then took the bamboo tube to the stream to scoop up lucky water to bring home to cook the first pot of water for the new year. Before going home, no one forgot to drink a sip of the fairy water, wash their faces, hands and feet to be clean, and wait for the morning to go out to celebrate Tet. Then the endless days of Spring passed. No one cared anymore whether the fairy water really brought them luck. On New Year's Eve the following year, they eagerly waited for the rooster to crow to mark the new year. They went to the stream again.

On the last day of the year, the wharf is peaceful and quiet. Photo: Huu Vi.

On the stream, there is not only the story of the lucky water from the fairyland, it is also the place that witnessed the most memorable changes in life. Children realized that they were about to become boys and girls. A young boy did not understand why one afternoon his neighbor friend, who usually played with him, suddenly separated to bathe in another part of the stream.

From that day on, her eyes became strange, both distant and dreamy. Then one afternoon, after returning from the river, the young boy's heart suddenly ached when he saw his friend carrying a basin full of clothes to the stream to wash. It was a strange feeling for the first time in his life. From then on, on the way to school, the young boy felt shy and did not dare to hold the hand of his friend of the same age. The stream opened a door to a strange world, helping the young boy grow up and understand that boys and girls belong to two different worlds, but are not separate from each other.

A peaceful scene on a river wharf in the mountains. Photo: Huu Vi.

The last days of the year, the stream takes on a different look. It is no longer just a place for bathing and washing. The stream seems quieter but still bustling. People wash dong leaves to prepare for making banh chung. Household items are also washed. For the new year, everything must be clean.

Mrs. Lan has turned sixty this year. Besides the stream from her youth and the stream in the village where she married into her family, she has also known many other rivers and streams in other lands. However, in her dreams, she still remembers the old stream. No matter which stream she welcomes the New Year at, on the first morning of the new year, she still keeps the habit of scooping up the first tube of water for the new year and bringing it home. The old stream is now different, but at the end of the year, people still see the faint shadows of a few old women washing dong leaves to prepare for the pot of banh chung on the 30th of Tet.

You Wei