Nguyen Sinh Sac Street: A street from a "gateway"

(Baonghean) - Vinh City does not have a gate, but the ancient citadel still has the national relic gates called Front Gate, Left Gate and Right Gate. Connecting from Right Gate to the edge of the ancient citadel, there is also a gate called Lock Gate (now gone). Deep in the memories of the elderly, from today's urban space, we can think of a silent gate of the past. "That gate" is the starting point of Nguyen Sinh Sac street today.

Nguyen Sinh Sac Street is more than 1.5 km long, coinciding with National Highway 46, starting from the point connecting Vinh City with Ho Chi Minh Road, at the intersection with Dang Thai Than, Phan Dinh Phung and Tran Hung Dao streets, up to the end of Cau Duoc market connecting to Kim Lien Street at the border between Cua Nam ward and Hung Chinh suburban commune. Nowadays, when the summer sun is blazing, this street is also "heating up" with the construction progress of the city's first overpass; which, when completed tomorrow, will create a new modern architectural feature for Vinh - a class 1 urban area. But perhaps, when April is gradually coming to an end, the scent of red cotton flowers and trumpet lilies is receding, the fragrant lotus scent of May is the emotion that overwhelms us when we step into that street...

Nguyen Sinh Sac Street

In the hustle and bustle of the streets with people passing by every day, there are pilgrimages from everywhere to the sacred Sen Village, the birthplace of the great son of the nation - President Ho Chi Minh. Surely in the familiar feeling of the bustling new street rhythm, the mind will begin to calm down with the calm reflection of Cua Nam Lake and the scent and color of the vast, pure lotus pond in front of Can Linh Tu (Su Nu Pagoda), a national historical and cultural relic. The thousand-year-old pagoda built in the pre-Le Dynasty was visited by two Nguyen Dynasty kings, Tu Duc and Bao Dai, and the name Can Linh was changed by King Tu Duc himself from a scroll given to the pagoda...

View of Can Linh Pagoda on Nguyen Sinh Sac Street

Nguyen Sinh Sac Street was newly named after the decision to upgrade Vinh to a first-class urban area in 2008. Surely, the urban managers when choosing the approval to name the street were very intentional with sacred associations. Imagine that on that "gateway" street, in 1895, Mr. Nguyen Sinh Sac led his wife and children, carrying a load on his back, walking from Lang Sen - Nam Dan to Vinh, starting the thousand-mile journey to the capital Hue. That was also the first time that the second son Nguyen Sinh Cung began to know the vast outside world; until 62 years later (1957), for the first time after a period of wandering to find a way to save the country and bring independence to the nation, "Mr. Cung" returned to visit his hometown as President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. His feelings of returning must have been filled with the image of the lotus pond, the fence of Sen Village, Hoang Tru Village from the moment he left Vinh Town at this "gate"?

On both sides of Nguyen Sinh Sac Street, many services have sprung up next to old and new state-owned and private offices and small enterprises. But when asked about that alley, that house... Vinh people are still used to pointing to the areas named Cay banyan chao long, Cau Duoc, and Cho Duoc, which were named decades ago... The bridge and market have been rebuilt to be spacious, the banyan tree is still there. The people who came from several generations ago to become urban residents, living behind the street, are still familiar with the rustic, friendly rural lifestyle. Newly arrived, familiar with the land name, imbued with the people's affection, fell in love with the street without realizing it, even the young generation now also have many memories of the street. The Dien Bien veteran, who was part of the first class of small traders in Vinh Street, after the war moved several times, finally chose the street as a place to settle down, saying that his children went to the countryside, built villas, bought apartments in new urban areas and begged him to come back to live. But he could not leave the small alley filled with the remaining countryside love, or the corner of the market where the buying and selling scene was every morning and every evening. His family had been close since the spring roll and bean sweet soup seller was a young woman with green hair, now with gray hair, and his paternal and maternal grandmothers still knew each person's preferences and way of eating.

My colleague, a journalist, was born in the 80s and settled here with her parents when she was young. Now she left the city to follow her husband, but she still reminisces about her teenage years with the windy moonlit nights in the fields outside the city, the friendship and camaraderie of the old days when the city still retained its rustic customs, always like a comforting and soothing force that calmed the hustle and bustle of life... The place where Cay Da Chao Long is no longer the famous porridge shop, but the shops around there still have a rustic and somewhat chaotic style in both service and culinary style. The customers are mainly workers, or customers who come through the "gate" and miss their meal. Duc Market is still mainly the main point of consumption of products from the suburban communes and farmers of Hung Nguyen and Nam Dan, with the same buying and selling habits as before. This area also has many mechanical shops, mainly manufacturing and repairing agricultural tools, rudimentary machinery and equipment for agricultural production and carpentry, construction...

This summer morning, I passed through the ancient citadel through that “gate” and walked on Nguyen Sinh Sac street, hoping to feel the soul of the old town. Suddenly I realized that I was already a familiar person of the town, because I had passed by here many times to return to the sacred Sen Village – Kim Lien every lotus blooming season in May.

Article and photos:Sam Temple