Memories of Dinh Ca

By the time we young people realized that our homeland was a place filled with countless memories, the village had already undergone many changes. Memories of the place names and village names associated with legends only remained in the stories of the elderly. Only the image of the village communal house remained deeply imprinted in everyone's mind.

I heard that my village used to be called Tam Le village, formed from three hamlets: Le Nghi, Tan Long, and Thai Phuc. Le Nghi hamlet was the center of the community and had a large communal house called Dinh Ca - where the village held its grand ceremony to worship the deities Cao Son and Cao Cac, the most powerful and sacred gods, and also where festivals and community activities for the entire region took place.

The communal house (Dinh Ca) was built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries during the reign of Emperor Minh Mang (the exact year is unknown). The complex consists of three buildings: a three-bay rear hall, a five-bay central hall, and a five-bay front hall, all constructed of laterite stone and covered with scale-shaped tiles. Due to its proximity to the forest and wooden courtyard, the people of Tam Le built the entire communal house using ironwood, with the columns in the front hall having a diameter of approximately 0.50m. The communal house's architecture is considered sturdy and one of the largest in the western part of Quynh Luu district, and it is the only remaining communal house after the campaign to eradicate the remnants of "superstition" from the feudal regime...

Legend has it that in the 19th century, amidst the anti-French colonial resistance against the Can Vuong movement throughout North and Central Vietnam, a vibrant peasant uprising took place in the Nghia-Dien-Yen-Quynh region. Leader Phan Ba ​​Nien (1883-1895) used Dinh Ca as a gathering place for his troops and a training ground for soldiers. During the Nghe-Tinh Soviet period (1930-1931), the revolutionary organization led by Ho Dinh Gian, the People's Livelihood and Democracy Movement (1936-1939), and the Democratic Youth Union with Ho Dinh Loi as secretary, all used Dinh Ca as their "secret headquarters" for clandestine meetings and planning of action.

In the period leading up to the August Revolution (1945), relying on the newly formed Marxist youth group, the Viet Minh in the district directed the uprising to seize power in Tam Le. After three rounds of nine drumbeats from the communal house, thousands of people from the surrounding hamlets, carrying banners and slogans, streamed to the communal house for a rally and demonstration to seize power for the people on August 15, 1945. From then on, Tam Le village was renamed Quynh Chau commune, a name it retains to this day.

During the nine years of resistance against the French, following President Ho Chi Minh's call, the communal house served as a venue for literacy classes, illiteracy eradication campaigns, fundraising events to support the resistance, welcoming wounded soldiers back to the village, and peasant demonstrations against landlords, powerful figures, and reactionaries during rent reduction and land reform. In the peaceful years in the socialist North, the communal house was used as a primary school, providing initial education and guidance for young people like us.

For many years, the communal house served as the headquarters of the commune committee and cooperative. During the most intense period of the American bombing campaign in 1968, Quynh Chau commune decided to dismantle the two main halls of the communal house, the front and middle halls, to create a semi-underground "tunnel"-style meeting hall for wartime activities. The rear hall was later sold to boat builders in Dien Chau. The ritual objects, horizontal plaques, couplets, lion statues, and elephant statues were piled up and set on fire or left scattered in the garden, obliterating a famous communal house that was hundreds of years old. There are numerous terrifying stories about "retribution"!

Now, standing before the remaining plot of land, less than a hectare, of Dinh Ca, where a three-room tiled house now stands as the Cultural Center of Hamlet 6, I can't help but feel a sense of melancholy and regret. I think to myself: If only the temple were still there! If only the people of my village had the heart to restore and renovate it, Dinh Ca would be a spiritual place for people to visit. And with all the ups and downs of the village that the temple witnessed and protected, it would be a valuable source of information for a classified historical and cultural relic… But all of this is just nostalgia for a "spirit of the countryside" that is gradually being forgotten!

Le Lan