Tue Tinh Street - Green Street Corner

(Baonghean) - Among the streets of Vinh City, there are streets with their own characteristics. There are streets whose names, when read aloud, seem to match the scenery, the people, and the typical activities of the street. Gleaming with the sun and capricious autumn rain, passing through the streets, you know autumn has come, to reminisce, to feel nostalgia... Come and slowly feel the green color of the street on Tue Tinh Street...

Tue Tinh Street

At first, it must be said that on this street there is Nghe An Traditional Medicine Hospital. Then there are many pharmacies concentrated at Hung Dung market at the beginning of the street (intersection with Nguyen Phong Sac street) and then gradually spread out to the end of the street deep in Nghi Phu commune bordering Hung Loc land (the end point connects with Truong Van Linh street). The provincial Traditional Medicine Hospital is hidden behind a wall embracing the campus with thick canopy of ancient trees, its quiet appearance is of course suitable for the elderly to rest and receive treatment. Then I wonder if the traditional medicine and western medicine sellers have ever paid attention to the fact that they are practicing a profession that requires virtue on the street named after Tue Tinh - the founder of the country's pharmaceutical industry? But, I have also walked on that street many times, whether through the hustle and bustle of a market or the many offices and houses on the street built spaciously, I still unconsciously have realistic associations with the street name.

Only about one and a half kilometers long, Tue Tinh Street has witnessed a rapid transformation of the street surface over the past decade. But the impression is the green color of the sidewalk with trees and grass. Zen Master Tue Tinh has a saying that is passed down as "Southern medicine treats Southern people", expressing a dialectical view on the close relationship between humans and the surrounding living environment to build an independent, autonomous medical perspective, close to the reality of the ancient Southern country (Dai Viet) which had a strong will to resist the assimilation of the North. In his medical theory, Tue Tinh did not put "metal, wood, water, fire, earth" first but put trees and grass (medicinal materials) first. So, do you think that the intention of naming the street sometimes created a characteristic green color of trees and grass on this street?

Now it is Autumn. The trees will shed their last sap to begin the season of shedding leaves. Just like that, all the plants and trees will naturally shed their leaves, show off their buds, and display their flowers... but the "herbs" on Tue Tinh Street are still imbued with the "autumn spirit" as a memory of a street that forces us to remember and ponder. I remember the street when it was still a path in the city, not letting people think it had been "plasticized", because of the patches in the long process of urban traffic restoration after the war. The whole route, including the Hung Dung market, was a street with bamboo trees and dense wild trees along the fence. Going all the way to the end of the street at the Provincial Military School, there were a few old casuarina trees on the grass bordering the road with the green rice fields of the young season.

However, if we want to talk about a green color, the old people in the street, if reminded, will also "yes" to "compromise" that the street was honored to be chosen to house the C20 Military Uniform Factory, which is now a joint stock company with a facade that has opened many services. But more than ten years ago, it was still crowded with boarding houses for contract garment workers, and shabby shops selling military uniforms. Next to that, Hung Dung market, which had not yet been newly built, was also green with rows of vegetables and fruits stretching out onto the street. If it weren't for that market, perhaps the whole first part of the street wouldn't have had the connecting section that makes Tue Tinh Street wide and beautiful, with some parts bustling and some parts quiet like it is now.

At the beginning of the intersection of Nguyen Sy Sach Street and Phung Chi Kien Street, running parallel to the two banks of the North Canal, is the Provincial Party Committee Bridge. The land where the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee once stood behind the Provincial Traditional Medicine Hospital running to the North of the street was later divided among the residents who were cadres and employees, contributing to the creation of the "official's house" area along with the western side of the street belonging to Ha Huy Tap Ward. Due to such residential conditions, the alleys leading to both sides of the street, whether wide or narrow, are all taken care of with a clean, beautiful standard and harmonious green color of meticulously trimmed ornamental plants, many places are covered with yellow, purple, red climbing plants that linger in the heart of people. Each sidewalk, therefore, becomes like a small green natural landscape, depending on the homeowner's preference, clinging to the green color of the newly planted trees of the Green Park Company.

Many streets in Vinh City are planted with parasol trees. There seem to be several types of parasol trees. But perhaps the type planted on the sidewalk is the one that poet Bich Khe created a masterpiece in Vietnamese literature: “Oh, sadness lingers on the parasol tree/Falling gold! Falling gold! Autumn is immense”; or in literary allusions, the two sentences are often mentioned: “Ngo dong nhat diep lac, thien ha cong thien thu” (Translation: one parasol leaf falls, everyone knows autumn has come) to describe the scene of separation or the scene of autumn coming, bringing with it the melancholy of “autumn heart”… Well, because it is autumn now, I want to mention the parasol trees at the beginning of Tue Tinh street. There are 3 parasol trees at the beginning of the street opposite Hung Dung market and a few trees in front of C20 Garment Factory, not mixed in with the green trees on the sidewalk like in other streets, nor do they have many branches, but are strong and show off their thick, sharp thorns, standing alone like sentinels reminding people in the crowded street to protect the green nature. Parasol trees "port" to the sidewalk of Tue Tinh street, as writer Bang Son wrote about the Hanoi banyan tree, that trees are also "citizens" of Vinh street.

I wonder if the saint of traditional medicine - the famous physician of the past and present, Tue Tinh, ever "soured" some of his herbal prescriptions with insects that thrive on the dew of plants and grasses? But on Tue Tinh Street in Vinh City, a year later, a drinking place has opened... insects! Crickets, grasshoppers, stink bugs... processed with chives, lemon leaves, Vietnamese coriander, lemongrass, betel leaves... to make a spicy dish that is of course delicious! Ah, but strangely enough, the owner of that drinking place, a very young math teacher at a central college in the province, opened a drinking place to eat insects but also loved to sell clean vegetables, melons, eggplants, salt... just displaying them abundantly on the sidewalk to sell, people in the street flocked to buy more confidently than packaged goods from supermarkets. So, I don't know if that "teacher" chose the street or the street chose him, creating a street feature that makes passersby associate with the street name of the saint of traditional medicine, Tue Tinh.

Sam Temple