Who sells and buys in the old market?

(Baonghean) -This afternoon, while preparing the New Year's Eve offerings, I heard people calling each other to go to the year-end market. Suddenly, my heart sank and I was filled with longing. A fragrant yet very strong and spicy scent of incense made my soul throb. Old memories appeared, sometimes faint, sometimes clear, about the old markets with their undulating carrying poles and the sound of my grandmother chewing betel, I thought they were echoing somewhere.

She used to seem to count each day, each week waiting for the market. When the market opened, she was busy preparing from dawn, worrying about everything from the small basket to the brown shirt, from the head scarf to the sandals she bought when she was a young girl and married, which she cherished all her life, and when going to the market she would always put them in the basket and not dare to take them off. In my vague memory, I still remember her radiant face, her small figure, slowly and slowly walking out of the house when the sky was still foggy, hurriedly walking on the winding dirt road through green fields and thatched roofs that were still sleeping and not yet giving off the smell of kitchen smoke. It was not until I was six or seven that I was able to follow my grandmother to the market. How much excitement and anticipation, how much strangeness, that first time! From childhood until now, I have only known to hang around the kitchen, the thatched house, and my universe was wrapped up under my grandmother's old worn-out apron, so the market became very big. In my eyes back then, nothing was better than the market, and I assumed that everything in the world came from the market.

Going to the market with grandma - Photo: Internet

The market is really fun! From adults to children, from men to women, everyone finds their own joys. I love the times when my grandmother gives me a coin to buy snacks, but I don’t eat anything because I’m too busy looking at the clay toys, the whistles, and blowing out clear, enchanting sounds. I often secretly turn my head to look at the children being led by their grandmothers and mothers to the tray of toys at the market gate, buying one for themselves and blowing the whole market. Now that my dream has been fulfilled, I timidly hand out my coin to the old man with a kind face, as if not only his toy but he himself had been breathed into life from the earth, and then happily receive a small, pretty whistle, hesitantly bring it to my lips and blow gently, startled by the clear sound that echoes in my ears until now. She is busy buying bunches of green bananas to decorate the altar. Nowadays, when we go to the market, we often feel absent-minded for a few seconds when passing by the stalls selling offerings, remembering the old lady who spent hours to choose a bunch of fifteen bananas, to burn incense to make it fragrant and fragrant. Now, who still remembers, who still takes the trouble to count and search like that? Pity the bunch of bananas hanging on the stall, she is no longer there, who still cherishes and carefully preserves it with all her faith and respect? While the ladies are busy buying offerings and betel and areca nuts, the men are engrossed in the animal stall, arguing loudly about how this pig with a yin-yang spiral is very good, that buffalo has long and curved horns, a slim belly, and wide hips, it is truly a beautiful buffalo, and it is not expensive to buy it at that price. The little boy was taken to the market by his grandfather, not paying any attention to the "wise" conversation of the adults, because he was busy teasing the bewildered calves that were wandering far away from the yard and garden for the first time.

The old markets were always noisy and crowded, because the market did not meet every day, but had to have a session, with a proper routine, usually on the second, seventh, twenty-fifth, twenty-seventh of every month. Partly because in the old days, people were poor, so their whole lives were spent on the pig trough, the vegetable garden, and the small rice field. Life revolved around only those worries, and it seemed like a whole day was not enough. Where was the time and money to shop and enjoy? Secondly, the old production method was small-scale, self-sufficient, so each family had to worry about their own food, and only rarely did they have to go to the market to buy things they could not make themselves. But perhaps that was why the market session became precious, worth looking forward to, a sacred ritual, a festival full of color and sound. Thinking back now, we see how lovely the seemingly simple and rustic things of that time were. I suddenly fell in love with the people in wrinkled clothes, hurrying to carry their shoulder poles from early morning to come here to the market from everywhere, their stuttering voices clearly indicating that they were from the countryside, clearly showing the hardships of working in the sun and rain, the years of working hard to sell their faces and backs to the heavens and earth. I also fell in love with the women selling chickens and ducks, plump figures, who looked heavy, but turned out to be quick on their feet, quick on their hands and quick on their tongues. Their hands kept kneading the gizzard of this chicken, lifting the neck of that duck, while their mouths were full of praise for the delicious chicken and fat duck to the customers. And then, when the chicken was safely placed in the basket dangling from the buyer's hand, both sides were smiling happily with their purchase. We love the small baskets, woven very skillfully and evenly, still smelling of bamboo and rattan, we love the big fish splashing in the water, bringing back the salty smell of the river and sea, we also love the stalls of Dong Ho paintings, the printed colors seeming still wet on the roughened Do paper, on which are scenes of coconut picking, mouse weddings, pig mothers and children, or colorful Tet market scenes, forever vivid in our minds as if someone had just painted them yesterday.

Oh, my old market! Where can I find it now? Dust has filled my memories, the afternoons of the 27th of Tet rushing to catch the last market of the year, bustlingly bargaining in one corner of the market, bustling with people going to see kumquat and peach blossoms in another corner. Are the hands of the old lady selling the pretty banh chung still as tight and fragrant as in the past? Are the whistles that we used to love still warm with the warmth of newly baked clay, are their voices as clear and far-reaching as modern toys? The old scholar with his toothless jaw, leisurely holding a mat, a pen, and an inkstone, are his eyes now dim, his hands weak, or is it that the spring in me does not sprout, bloom, and I keep dreaming in the faded red of the Tet couplets of years past? Sitting absent-mindedly on an afternoon near Tet, seeing that the wind is less cold, the rain is less drizzling, the peach blossoms are much less bright than in the old Tets, I suddenly remember some verses of Xuan Dieu and shed tears:

"I want the sun to go out
Let the color not fade
I want to tie the wind
Let the fragrance not fly away"

Oh Xuan Dieu, oh Xuan Dieu, the old springs have been tightly wrapped in our memories, but how long will the heavens give us our youth? When spring comes around and the earth and sky turn, who knows, will we be different? Will the lovely and precious springs of the past live forever in our hearts, or will they also fade in color and fragrance over the years? The old markets will also become the past. The markets are now open all year round, so easily and routinely that they have become obvious to us, no longer worth looking forward to, no longer worth cherishing. We are no longer eager to find the grocer with the pretty smile and flirtatious eyes, or to stop by the green tea stall of the old lady with long hair and black teeth, who is always chewing betel and chattering about the old days. We don't have time to remember or cherish those simple joys, if we have the time, maybe a quick five or ten minutes to stop by and buy a bunch of vegetables or a few ounces of meat after a day of struggling with the worries of food, clothing, and money. Moreover, those people, now do not know where to go? Or are they also chasing rice prices, gasoline prices, chasing profit and loss calculations, how to buy well and sell well, but how many still care about the nostalgic customers.

This afternoon, my mother sat holding her grandchild in front of the porch, slowly singing a lullaby with the words I had vaguely heard in my childhood dreams: "I am a country girl, I have always kept the trade. From the river to the source, each season has its own produce, I can sell to people...". Suddenly, I heard my mother sobbing, pouring out her heart and singing sad notes. This year, my mother and I did not go to the market to shop, but went to the supermarket, to the shopping mall, where there is an escalator to the second and third floors, where the goods are "tested, ensuring food safety", where the electric lights are bright and warm, while outside it is raining and windy. But is that place the place my mother has always been attached to and waited for since she was eighteen or twenty until she became a young woman singing lullabies by the cradle, and even now, when she has become a grandfather and grandmother? So while those of us with green hair are still awake, missing the old markets, those of our mothers' and grandmothers' generation must miss them five or ten times more. How much can we miss them enough, the markets are over, now there is no one left to buy from?

Knowing that modern life can only move forward and not back, at some point, we will have to give up familiar and beloved things to move towards more advanced and convenient things. But is it necessary to turn our backs so cruelly, only to find ourselves feeling lost and bewildered, missing the old place and people so much? If only we could still innovate and modernize but somehow reconcile the old wine in new bottles, retain some of the old features, surely our hearts would be somewhat lessened, and our descendants in the future would still know about the traditions and ancient cultures and not be "brainwashed" by foreign cultures. Therefore, business models with the idea of ​​returning to the past, to the distant days such as restaurants with delicious dishes from three regions, traditional craft villages that have been restored such as pottery villages, painting villages, bamboo and rattan handicraft villages are truly welcome. Although we know that we cannot find that eternal antiquity, but recreating some of the rustic, rustic features of the past in the midst of the vastness of modernity is enough to soothe our nostalgia, enough to remind us of our grandmothers, our mothers, to rekindle our hearts and emotions, instead of being cooled and hardened by the hustle and bustle of modern life. But there are not many such models and how many people can see the precious value of those humane businessmen? Speaking of this, we suddenly feel heavy-hearted and extremely tired. Is it because we are old that nostalgia comes flooding back, blowing such coldness into our souls? Or is it because we know that our longing and longing are hopeless, when everyone is still busy chasing after money, rice bowls and a luxurious life rather than cultural values?

Hai Trieu (Mail from Paris)