Cu Thon - the beauty of Vietnamese villages

(Baonghean) - Only about five or seven kilometers from the noisy city, Cu Thon - a name that sounds as beautiful as in poetry and music - possesses many of the peaceful, old-fashioned beauties of a Vietnamese village.

You may not believe it, but a little bit of dreaminess left in me urged me to return to Cu Thon, just because I heard the village name like in a poem or in an old dream.

Cu Thon is located in the flood-prone area of ​​Hung Loi, Hung Nguyen, about five or seven kilometers from Vinh, but just by passing the Ta Lam dike, you can get lost under the bamboo shade, lost in the small alleys with the chirping of sparrows and warblers, lost in front of the river shimmering with the golden light of a bright sunrise. That is, you are lost in a past that you thought you had forgotten to sleep.

The peaceful alleys in Cu Thon village. Photo: PV

Leading us around the village that day was Mr. Nguyen Sy Kiem - a resident of Cu Thon village - a person who lives right behind the pagoda named Phuc Tai. The pagoda dates back to 1013, after the destruction of war, floods and humans, the pagoda only has the old ground left.

Then, also from the initial appeal of Mr. Kiem's ​​family, the pagoda, the spiritual support of the villagers, was restored in 2013. The pagoda is located at the end of the village strip, adjacent to the vast corn fields. Also in that peaceful space, under the shade of the banyan tree in front of the pagoda gate, Mr. Kiem told us about his village of Cu Thon.

Cu Thon used to consist of 6 hamlets, now it has been separated into 3, the administrative names are hamlets 1, 2, 3, but people usually call them Na hamlet, Chua hamlet, Hoi hamlet. Cu Thon has about 400 households. Most of the people are farmers, a few are fishermen along the Lam River.

Mr. Kiem showed us the banyan tree in front of the temple gate, a tall, luxuriant tree: “This is a new banyan tree, and this one is hundreds of years old, because of the storm and flood in 1982. The ancient banyan tree is the soul of Cu Thon village. The children, and even the adults in my village at that time, wanted to look at Vinh street sparkling with light, so they climbed up this banyan tree.

Wherever we went from the village, when we returned, we looked for the banyan tree. Looking at the banyan tree, we knew our village was there. The banyan tree at that time had a diameter of 5 meters. The children often hid and sought each other, played marbles in the hole, some even fell asleep there during the summer afternoon… The tree was very tall, hundreds of meters. It gathered many birds. The children used slingshots but could not shoot the birds, because the bullets could not reach the branches.”

Then Mr. Kiem also told us about the ancient trees in his village. The banyan tree is 2-3 hundred years old, the eggplant tree next to the Nguyen Dinh family temple is also hundreds of years old...

Cu Thon still retains hundreds of years old houses. Photo: PV

Continuing the story, Mr. Kiem led us to Mr. Nguyen Dinh Huynh's house, the house led by two rows of straight areca trees. Mr. Huynh's house is located right behind the Nguyen Dinh family temple. Who would have thought that the family temple located quietly in the corner of Chua hamlet contained so many tragic historical stories.

As a family with many great contributions, this church has kept many royal decrees. In the years 1930-1931, communists, most of whom were children of the Nguyen Dinh family, chose the church as a place for secret activities.

After the French colonialists discovered this facility, they burned down Nguyen Dinh church (in 1941). Mr. Nguyen Quang, Nguyen Binh, Nguyen Hieu, Nguyen Dai… of the family were arrested and exiled to Buon Ma Thuot prison…

In 1950, the family members decided to rebuild the church, first in a thatched house. Over the years, the church was renovated and repaired to be more presentable. Mr. Huynh is currently the person in charge of the church.

After being discharged from the army as a disabled soldier, Mr. Huynh returned to plowing and hoeing as a farmer. He said that he could not leave his homeland for life or death. He said that his homeland was very “spiritual”. Look, the ancient banyan tree, although half of it looked withered, still sprouted green branches on its dry, skinny branches… Mr. Huynh’s house is also one of the few houses in Cu Thon that has kept the old house style of hundreds of years old.

Speaking of ancient houses, Mr. Kiem led us to Mrs. Duong Thi Que's house. Mr. Kiem said that, in addition to the pagoda, the ancient trees, and the bamboo hedges, the ancient house is also one of the special assets in Cu Thon.

Mrs. Que's house is said to have been there for 300 years. Mrs. Que (born in 1930) is now alone in this house because her husband has passed away. However, one of her children still lives nearby and often visits. Five generations have been born and raised under this roof and until now, Mrs. Que's children, although most of them have lived far away from home, are still determined to keep the house as it is.

The 300-year-old ancient house of Mrs. Duong Thi Que. Photo: PV

Only Phan Dinh Thao (born in 1960) remained in the village. He said that he and his five other siblings were born here, just like his father and his great-grandfather..., attached to the house that seemed to be weighed down by the sun and rain, the ironwood and rosewood doors where they hid their joys and sorrows, the rice-storage beds where he slept.

Also here, he witnessed the American bombing in 1968, many of his house's roof tiles were broken. At that time, his father was in the army, only his mother and children were at home, holding each other and avoiding the bombs. His mother was seriously injured by the bomb, and one of his sisters passed away forever...

It was also this house that, in 1978, he witnessed the biggest flood in which the water rose up to the roof... Yet, through the bombs and floods, the houses, the people, and the trees of Cu Thon village still steadfastly survived, still grew green... The harvest season was still noisy, the smell of honey candy was still fragrant, and the fishing nets were still clanging...

We walked along the country road, feeling as if a part of the old Cu Thon was still here, as if it had never been covered with dust by time. Life was peaceful as if there had never been storms or floods, there had never been cruel wars or bloodshed.

Peaceful countryside scene in Cu Thon village. Photo: PV

In the middle of the ancient village of the lowland area of ​​Hung Nguyen district, I felt like I was lost in the past, like the wind playing on the old roofs, penetrating into each bamboo shoot, each root of the hundred-year-old tree still embedded in the deep soil of Cu Thon, into the walls, the roofs of the houses covered with green moss after hundreds of years of ups and downs and countless floods.

I felt like I belonged here, my soul became strangely pure. And for a moment, seeing the sunlight shining through the bamboo shoots seemed to also contain in it the hardships and poverty of the generations born and raised here, the nostalgia and desire to keep the old scene to remember and reminisce about the past.

The past is not only built by the presence and continuity of many families, by customs and regional cultures, but also by the blood and bones of children who fell in bombs and bullets, by families who hid revolutionary cadres, by the efforts to preserve and restore ancient relics in the village by people like Mr. Nguyen Sy Kiem...

Thuy Vinh