Dien Van: A sedimentary region

(Baonghean) - The villages are surrounded on several sides by rivers and waterways, lush, fertile, and picturesque. The gracefully curved bridges connecting the banks cast their shadows in the summer sun on the small islets, which may have been ferry crossings or landings where people waded in the Bung River a hundred years ago, gazing at the moon and exchanging romantic words. This coastal area, nearly 2,000 years old, still gives Dien Van a cultural and historical allure with immense potential for further development...

A sudden summer thunderstorm swept through the coastal area. The afternoon sun slanted across the water, glistening the wet mangroves along the banks of the Vach Bac canal, like a green crown embracing the village. Hoang Ngoc Son, a young and enthusiastic cultural officer from the commune, enthusiastically led me across the small bridge to Xuan Bac hamlet to visit the temple of Sat Hai Dai Vuong Hoang Ta Thon. On the riverside land facing the sea, where the ancestors chose to build the shrine and tomb of Sat Hai Dai Vuong, his mother, and his two sons, a new temple has now been restored on the old foundation by the descendants of the family.

The once bustling temple, once filled with vibrant festivals of the coastal region, now stands desolate, yet it retains the melancholic atmosphere of an ancient site, evoking the legend of a naval general who made significant contributions to the victory against the Yuan-Mongol invaders at the Battle of Bạch Đằng, capturing the Ô Mã Nhi River in the year Mậu Tý (1288) and later repelling the Champa army in the East Sea. Mr. Hoàng Nam, the chairman of the Hoàng family council in Diễn Vạn, was meticulously cleaning the temple when he spotted the visitors and immediately greeted them, boasting: “Just recently, I hosted several central television crews who came to film! Everyone expressed regret that such a historical site, rich in historical data and legends, has been so slow to be restored!” Pulling me to sit down on the steps of the temple, which hadn't yet fully recovered from the passage of time, Mr. Nam spoke passionately about the concerns and dedication to restoring the ancient heritage of the descendants of Sat Hai Dai Vuong, a legacy that generations of his descendants are striving for today to be recognized as a "Culturally Exemplary Family."

The Hoàng Tá Thốn temple (Diễn Vạn - Diễn Châu) has recently been restored.

Pointing towards the Vach Bac canal, where it merges with the Bung River, Mr. Nam confidently asserted that this was where Mrs. Truong Thi washed the water-carrying pole with the hair of a golden buffalo attached to it, and then returned to conceive and give birth to the ancestral founder of the family (according to the legend of Hoang Ta Thon). Later generations believed this was a sacred place, a harmonious union between the village woman who sold water and the Water God. This means that, despite the vicissitudes of time, this land remains deeply connected to the sea, its spiritual life and essence deeply intertwined with the ocean.

According to the Dien Van Chronicle, the traditional fishing method in Dien Van has existed for a long time. During the time of the village's great-grandfather, Pham Kieng, a local militia member under the official Nguyen Xuan On, this profession flourished. According to Mr. Nam, the great-grandfather had the temple of Sat Hai Dai Vuong (Great King of the Sea) renovated and honored him as the village's guardian deity. Under the Nguyen dynasty, he was bestowed the title of Supreme Deity, and in the beliefs of the people throughout the North of Vietnam, he is considered a sacred sea god… Leading us to visit the family's ancestral temple in Trung Phu hamlet, Mr. Hoang Nam added: “Our Hoang family's ancestral temple is also several hundred years old; it has been dedicated to our ancestor Hoang Ta Thon and was once a sacred place with an upper hall and a rear sanctuary. However, in the early 1960s, American bombs destroyed it at the same time as the temple. It was rebuilt in 2003 as it stands today.” The three-bay temple still has a rear sanctuary, and despite being newly built, it retains many of the old architectural features of the coastal region. Every year, on the 15th day of the third lunar month, descendants of the clan from all over the country eagerly return to commemorate their ancestors. The Hoang clan of Sat Hai Dai Vuong in Dien Van now has only about 20 households, but thanks to upholding family traditions and taking pride in their ancestors, they are still considered a highly united clan with a very strong movement to build a cultural life in the locality...

Following the advice of the village's cultural officer, Hoang Ngoc Son, I sought out Mr. Tran Ngoc Canh, former Chairman of the People's Committee and former Party Secretary of Dien Van commune; a man with a deep passion for village history. Coincidentally, Mr. Canh was returning from giving gifts to the relatives of naval soldier Nguyen Van Loi at the DK1 Truong Sa platform, a native of Trung Hau village. He said that the matter was the responsibility of the village's Front Committee, but upon hearing the news, he rushed along to contribute a small gift to Loi's mother, a single mother living in poverty. It was touching that Loi had only a few months left of his military service, but when the situation in the East Sea became volatile, he immediately volunteered to stay and serve… Although retired for a long time, Mr. Canh was still very energetic and cheerful; as soon as I introduced myself, he immediately mentioned meeting me nearly ten years ago at a ceremony recognizing the rattan and bamboo weaving craft village somewhere. It turned out he was also a fairly close contributor to the Nghe An Newspaper. While preparing drinks for his guest, he said, "Even now, I still read every issue of the Nghe An newspaper. Thank you to the newspaper for publishing so many articles about Dien Van. Stay with me for a night, and I'll tell you plenty of stories."

Suddenly, Mr. Canh asked me, "Do you know about the story of Uncle Ho's childhood, when he followed Mr. Pho Bang Sac to Dien Van? Only I and a few others know the details of this story!" I said I had heard it from my journalist colleagues, though not entirely. Mr. Canh quickly rummaged through his belongings and handed me a yellowed notebook containing photocopies of handwritten notes, saying, "This is a photocopy of an unprinted handwritten memoir by Mr. Vo Mai, a former Central Committee official from Trung Hau village, my neighbor. It recounts Uncle Ho's visit to his house around 1904. The original is now kept by his nephew in Hanoi." I traced the memoirs of Mr. Vo Mai, which indicate that around 1904 (Mr. Vo Mai wrote 1901, but he probably made a mistake as Mr. Canh cross-referenced many historical documents about President Ho Chi Minh to confirm it was 1904), Mr. Pho Bang Sac took young Cung to visit Mr. Vo Mai's father, Mr. Vo Khoi, a scholar who had a close friendship with Mr. Sac. When Mr. Sac and Mr. Khoi went to pay their respects to Mr. Vo Tat Dac (Mr. Khoi's father, the District Chief of Quang Xuong - Thanh Hoa, possibly visiting his hometown of Dien Van at that time); young Cung was playing on the doorstep and said to young Mai (who was 5 years old at the time): "Go inside and see if your father has any books so I can borrow them for you to read"...

Later, embarking on the revolutionary path, Vo Mai met Nguyen Ai Quoc again in China, and following his advice, returned to establish the Revolutionary Youth Association in Dien Van. Mr. Mai passed away in 1985. His old garden remains, but his descendants have all moved far away, leaving only the small house where his maternal grandson lives and the tomb of Mr. Dac, a relic that is a source of pride for Trung Hau village, Dien Van. According to Mr. Canh, from the 1940s, there were over 40 offshore fishing boats here, each with 12 experienced fishermen. Until the 1960s, the fleet participated in transporting supplies to the Southern battlefield during the war against the Americans, and were gradually damaged by attacks. Some boats were captured by South Vietnamese soldiers and taken to the island for interrogation, but the fishermen refused to confess. They were later released and all affirmed that it was an island in the Hoang Sa archipelago, which was then still under South Vietnamese control. Of that generation of brave fishermen, only Mr. Ho Giap is still alive today, residing in Nghia Loc, Nghia Dan...

At this point in the story, Mr. Canh enthusiastically said, "Of course we're proud! Although the fishing industry is gone, the people still have a rich tradition of connection to the sea. Many households in Dien Van still engage in brackish water aquaculture, fish sauce processing, and grilled fish, earning a decent income." Perhaps half a century ago, when American bombs destroyed almost all the precious historical sites on the shore, and the powerful fleet of sailing boats from Dien Van commune, which had abandoned fishing to transport supplies to the southern front, was damaged and declined..., life in this coastal area foresaw great changes; yet, the enduring vitality of an ancient land, pioneered by our ancestors with countless aspirations for the sea, remains.

Following the village path, fragrant with the aroma of fish sauce and freshly grilled seafood, we arrived at the fish grilling facility of Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen Van Luong in Trung Phu hamlet. Their spacious house and large yard serve as a fish grilling workshop, providing regular employment for 10 workers, each earning between 3 and 5 million VND per month. Mr. Luong explained that they grill six to seven hundred kilograms of fish daily, which are then transported by light trucks to Thai Hoa market. This cycle lasts 30 days a month, with some years being good and some not, but they manage to make a decent living. His wife pointed to a young man carrying fish in the rain and said, “These days, the raw fish is expensive, so we only make a few million dong profit a month, but we still have to work, otherwise our workers will be unemployed. Like this young man, he has severe epilepsy; we feel sorry for him because he's poor, so we still employ him and just increased his salary to 3 million dong per month.”

Currently, about 30 households in Dien Van commune are engaged in this fish grilling business, providing employment for nearly 200 local people, all with the same sense of community and solidarity. Dien Van also has about ten households processing fish sauce, and the fish sauce making industry here is the origin of the famous Van Phan fish sauce brand. This is because Dien Van was the center of the former Van Phan district, and the Temple Festival (the temple dedicated to Sat Hai Dai Vuong) is a community cultural activity of the entire district...

I missed my planned overnight stay in Dien Van, to join Mr. Canh and the cultural officer of Hoang Ngoc Son commune in watching the sunrise from the bustling Lach Van estuary as the fish returned. I returned to the center of Phu Dien, walking alongside salt ponds shimmering in the sunset, passing through the "aquaculture village" with its twinkling lights like falling stars in the vast fields of Trung Hau and Trung Phu during the season when people come to the farms to release crab and fish fry; I bid farewell to Dien Van with a moment's pause beside the remnants of a centuries-old banyan tree whose roots and branches embrace the pillars of the three-arched gate of Ca Vu Temple (the Lower Temple, where the palanquin was carried during the old festival to meet with the Upper Temple, dedicated to Sat Hai Dai Vuong). The emotions I felt for the coastal region of Dien Van are deeply felt, and I plan to return someday...

Dinh Sam