'Flower Road' on the street

(Baonghean) - As a man, I rarely go to the market. And I almost only "spend" time on that job during the Tet peach market. In fact, it is not "going" to the market in the usual sense, but actually "playing" at the market.

Every year, from the 26th to the 30th of Tet, the peach blossom market area is very noisy and crowded. Most of the people who go to the market are men. They also look around, criticize, praise, and bargain wildly, creating an exciting atmosphere. This year, I also joined the crowd to find a bit of the traditional Tet flavor through spring peach blossoms in the narrow streets. And it's also strange, in Vinh there are nearly ten peach blossom and flower markets, but every year I just drive my motorbike along Lenin Avenue to Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street to "hunt" for peach blossoms. It's as if this road creates an attraction that makes it difficult for people to leave every time Tet comes. I call this traffic route "the flower road" even though on normal days it is just like many other roads in Vinh's inner city.

Lenin Avenue (Vinh City). Photo: Sy Minh

For 3 consecutive Tets, I met that peach-selling family and for 3 consecutive years, I bought peaches from them. The husband's name is Nguyen Van Thanh. He said that his house is in the suburban commune of Nghi Duc and for many years now, every year the whole family gathers on Le Nin street to sell peaches. Thanh followed his neighbors and friends to the northern provinces such as Moc Chau, Dien Bien, Son La or to the western districts in the province such as Ky Son, Que Phong, Tuong Duong to buy peaches to sell for profit.

Mr. Thanh honestly shared: “Selling peach blossoms may not be profitable but it is rare to lose money. I buy 1 and sell 5, or even 10. It also helps to cover transportation and travel costs. Actually, selling beautiful peach blossoms at high prices helps to cover losses for branches that are picky about customers.” Every year, Mr. Thanh’s family, from boys to girls, young and old, come to the Lenin “flower street” to earn extra income during Tet.

My family moved to live near Lenin Street 31 years ago. At that time, this place was a production field of farmers in Hung Dung Commune (now a ward). Moving from the central area of ​​Vinh City to the suburbs was a big event for a 10-year-old child like me. Who could have guessed that one day the entire rice fields, peanut fields, and wild swampy ponds would become the inner city as it is today?

It’s been more than 30 years! However, at that time, after the initial confusion when I first moved here, this land became extremely interesting to boys who had just entered their teenage years like me. From school in Le Mao ward, I was forced to transfer to study in Hung Dung. Children easily get used to and adapt to new environments, so it wasn’t difficult for me to integrate with my friends. The only thing is that most of my new friends were from the Red village, so their accents were heavy, and their tones and intonations were not much different from those from Nghi Loc.

Spring outing on Tet holiday. Photo: Nguyen Book

Since moving to a new place and new school, every day after school I would go to the fields to play. The fields used to stretch from Hecman Street all the way to the current Hung Dung Market. There we had many opportunities to experience the lives of farmers in the suburbs of the city. In fact, many residential areas in Hung Dung in the past were never considered purely agricultural. The people of the Red Village worked in handicrafts. They weaved mats, worked as bricklayers, builders, did mechanical repairs and civil carpentry. And the fields mentioned above were just an “addition” to their lives.

I still remember that before Lenin Avenue and the new urban areas, Hung Dung field had terrible cemeteries and graveyards. Occasionally, our new residential area was disturbed by funeral processions in the fields. However, the best thing was that the children of the "contributing people" like me could freely go to the ponds in the middle of the fields to fish and drain the ditches. Since moving to the new place, I have also learned many ways to catch fish. Such as casting sharp nets, setting up night fishing lines, casting long lines, casting long lines, casting traps, nets... even catching fish with just a rope. In the summer, we fished for snakehead fish, in the winter, we set traps for eels, and used lights to catch cod. When it was sunny, we used nets, when it rained, we put up nets, cast nets...

Among the grouper-loving children, I was considered the one who "killed" fish the most. And the funniest thing was that no one in my family ate freshwater fish. So we caught fish and put them in two concrete tanks, then in buckets and basins. Since we didn't eat them, my sisters and I would take them to the market to sell. Actually, we didn't get much, we mainly gave them to neighbors. But despite the fact that no one in my family liked to eat fish, I still loved going to the fields. On dark, windy nights, the cemetery in the middle of the field would light up with terrifying green will-o'-the-wisps. I overcame my childish fear to step over low graves that had been unattended for years. My mother said that will-o'-the-wisps were gentle and there was nothing to be afraid of, and that every time I stepped over the cemetery, I should say a few "nominal" sentences to ask permission from the souls lying deep in the ground. I listened to my mother and steadily walked through my childhood in the middle of the windy fields.

Going out on New Year's Day on Lenin Street. Photo: Sach Nguyen

By the 90s of the last century, there were big changes taking place in the fields. Few farmers sowed rice, planted sesame, and beans on the high-altitude fields anymore. People used bulldozers to gradually fill in the canals, ponds, and lakes. My sisters were lost in thought, regretting the purple water lilies that were broken under the buckets of excavators and grabbers. The cemetery, which was usually the training and shooting place for new recruits of Unit H83, located right next to the fields, had to be relocated. Then the chicken farm of a state-owned enterprise standing in the middle of the deserted fields was also disbanded. A new, wide road running across the fields connecting Nguyen Phong Sac Street to Nguyen Sy Sach Street erased the old traces. That is the present-day Lenin Avenue...

Since the new road was built, there has also been a convergence of new urban areas, residential areas, agencies, units, and schools. There are no traces of the former agricultural production area, the new street has become the most important traffic route in Vinh, connecting the city center with the airport and down to the coastal town of Cua Lo. On the road are a series of salons, showrooms displaying and selling cars of famous brands. However, for me, the most impressive thing is that the road has become a peach blossom market every time Tet comes. On the days before Tet, many farmers in the suburban communes such as Nghi An, Nghi Kim, Nghi Duc, Nghi Lien suddenly become "traders". They buy peach blossoms from all over the northern and western provinces of Nghe An to sell to people in the city. It is not clear how the gains and losses are, how the buying and selling are, but it is very fun and exciting. I keep thinking, if there were no road, how sad the spring in the city would be.

On the afternoon of the 30th of Tet, for the last time, I drove my motorbike along Le Nin Street to Nghi Phu Commune. I had bought peach blossoms, just looking for a little more feeling on the last day of the old year. Suddenly, I saw Thanh - the person who sold me peach blossoms. He said he was also looking to buy peach blossoms? "All the branches are sold out. Now I have to go buy some to celebrate Tet. I must have a spring peach blossom branch. I must have it" - Thanh smiled happily in my surprise. Surely his family had a very warm Tet by now.

Van Nhi