One street, many paths of life

(Baonghean) - From the bustling city in the early morning, just a short distance away, the hustle and bustle has completely disappeared. It's not far, just separated by the Bac Canal, on this side towards Vinh airport is Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Avenue, on the other side is Lenin Avenue, but apparently, the countryside and the countryside are already shimmering, very different.

Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Avenue is about 4km long, stretching towards Vinh Airport, and is also called a street within a street. Because this place has formed its own unique features that are hard to be confused with. All the streets of life have come together here. In the early morning, walk on the street, contemplate your steps, to see the city more closely.

Soviet Nghe Tinh Avenue. Photo: Tran Hai

After traveling many roads, I named this road “Meat and Fish Road”. Very good, when it was not yet clear, the “pig ninjas” (I also named them for pork importers, or both mothers and calves) with their faces covered in both winter and summer were already galloping by. Behind the bike, large pieces of meat were hanging up and down in the flickering streetlights. Next were the fishmongers, in groups of three or five, pedaling loudly and chatting infrequently because they were still trying to pedal in time for the market, to make a living from the market. At 4am, the coastal women were cycling past the entrance to Nghe An General Hospital. The accent of Nghi Thuy and Nghi Thu was heavy. The baskets, covered with thin mats, smelled strongly of the sea.

This street can also be called "car street" because there are nearly ten dealerships of modern car brands. Crossing the North Canal, about a kilometer towards the airport is the Renault (France) showroom. Along the street, past Hospital 115, there are consecutive showrooms of brands: Huyndai, Vinh Ford, and opposite is Mitsubishi. Huyndai alone has a majestic facility with 3 showrooms selling passenger cars, trucks, and marine transport machinery. The end of the "car street" is the highlight on the side of the Airport Road with a complete system of 3 showrooms of Kia, Mazda, and another proud representative of the French City of Light: Peugeot. Surely in the past, when occupying Vietnam, building Vinh town to serve the exploitation scheme, the French did not think that one day their famous car companies would be present in the city that had once been brutally "scorched earth resistance" and then "still sprouting" and seeing "pink smiles in the rubble", tears and sweat building the prosperous foundation today.

Some people argue that this should be called “hospital street”. Yes, that’s right. Not as dense as Ton That Tung street, with Obstetrics and Pediatrics, Oncology, Orthopedics, Vinh Medical University Hospital, Cua Dong. Here, along the street are large hospitals, containing within themselves so much suffering, pain and kindness of doctors. Those who are concerned about “rich eyes…” have Saigon Eye Hospital near the beginning of the street. Drive up a short distance, turn onto Pham Dinh Toai, and you have Vinh International Hospital. A short distance further, there are 3 hospitals next to each other: Nghe An General Hospital, Hospital 115, Dong Au. Among them, the most impressive and mission-laden is still the 700-bed General Hospital of Friendship, which continues to expand and build new ones in the hope of taking care of all the pain of birth, aging, sickness and death of people.

The trees on this street are also different. There are all kinds of trees, but they are not as close, intimate, and reminiscent as the streets in the city. Instead, they are all straight and straight, next to each other, connecting endlessly. There are also all kinds of trees, from ironwood, cypress, yellow-flowered cajuput, yellow-flowered cajuput, and purple-flowered lagerstroemia. In the middle of the median strip are oleander, bougainvillea, and rows of black locust, wolfberry, and ornamental palm trees intertwined. Sometimes, along the street, there is a single xoan tree left. In the middle of March, suddenly passing by, one can smell the strong scent of the countryside, silently calling, suddenly the distant street seems gentle and makes one's heart ache. Sometimes, along the road, there are the shadows of a couple of areca trees and jackfruit trees left from some house. The street is like that.

Old people go for morning exercise. Photo: Tran Hai

Another element that is rarely lacking is cyclists. The old men wear helmets for motorbikes, mini bikes, even Thong Nhat bikes or any other type of bike. The clothes do not necessarily have to be related to cyclists, meaning that you wear whatever you have. Ride for the sake of riding, to change the relaxation. The young generation, of course, "matches" from bike to... head. Bright additional lights, GPS, speedometer, water bottle, red flashing taillights. Sportiness is one thing, but for the young generation, is the beautiful, luxurious appearance of the lights still more important than pedaling? On clear days, the "army" of bicycles is almost stuck on the road. Occasionally, a group of several dozen bikes, wearing yellow uniforms, glides smoothly across the road, towards Cua Lo. The bike lights flicker one after another, like a string of sparkling stars attached to the bike's musical score. A spectacular scene that is rarely seen in crowded streets. Because they often meet at the Customs roundabout, the Square intersection to go together to watch the sunrise at the sea.

Also at this time, right on time, the morning buses slowly passed by, starting a new day for the route that evoked trips. The red Su Chuyen bus, the green Phuong Thao bus, the red and white Thach Thanh bus, the red and yellow Dong Bac bus devotedly stopped, picking up and dropping off passengers. But the busiest was still in front of the hospital gate, people going and coming were all pensive, worried, and sad. The mundane human life of birth, aging, sickness, and death was most evident in this place of little joy and much sadness.

Normally, this long, straight, and bewildering road would be deserted with people walking slowly in the morning. There would only be a few elderly people staggering a few steps. In the past few days, the weather has turned cold, as fast as the news, and the number of comrades has dwindled. The groups of cyclists must have also clicked their tongues at the capricious weather and hid under thin blankets, while the anonymous pedestrians still trudged along breathing in the morning's serenity...

When we got to the entrance of the hospital, it was still dark, and we saw groups of people getting off the buses and coaches who hadn’t slept yet. “Did you bring bananas?” “Are you feeling better these days?”… They were dialysis patients. Because they had all been dependent on the hospital for a long time, they knew each other and considered each other family, at least in terms of “sharing the same pain, sharing the same fate.”

The terrible kidney failure has forced them to come here every 4 days to lie on the machine, each shift 4 hours to filter water from the blood. Because the 2 poor kidneys have shriveled up, no longer the "pair of seeds of life" as a medical expert compared. So they come here, like moths circling around the lamp, not daring to rest.

The breakfast vendor also knows all the customers’ names. Patiently and whispering, they help her prepare tables and chairs, stretch out a canvas for the tiny sticky rice and banh muot shop, perched precariously at a corner of the gate reserved for hospital staff. Each person in the dialysis “neighborhood” has their own problems, the most common of which is poverty. While it is still bearable near by, those who live far away like Do Luong, Thanh Chuong, Anh Son... or as far away as Ky Son, Tuong Duong, Que Phong have to set up their own association, a dialysis association, because where would they get the money to go back and forth several times a week?

That unfortunate and miserable group of 3-4 men rented a room near the hospital. Their expenses depended on motorbike taxi rides, "biting off their kidneys gradually". They brought a few old motorbikes from home, patiently sat around the hospital transporting patients, whose families were also in dire straits, then exchanged and rotated to support each other. They took crumpled money from patients in the same situation, scrimping and working hard to push away the day of death. Someone told a story of not being able to pee once in 20 years. One night, he dreamed that he could "go" once, so happy, he screamed. When he woke up, he was sad again and prepared to go to the hospital for dialysis. Hearing that brought tears to his eyes.

Of course, for dialysis patients, they are basically poor, basically have health insurance, many people are covered 100% by health insurance because they are so poor. But they still have to eat, have to wear... so they still need money. It is normal for doctors to lend patients a few hundred thousand dong when they are in need here. Struggling to make a living and scraping by day in this world, I think there is no greater sadness than that. Knowing for sure, the day of saying goodbye to loved ones is not long, but still have to live, live on their own...

Many days, wanting a change of pace, I quietly went all the way to Vinh Airport, looking around the airport in the morning, quiet before the minutes of coming and going from all directions. The main road has 3 names, from the border with Ho Chi Minh Square to the final point, Vinh Airport, making me imagine the road as a launching pad rising higher and higher. There are many nights, looking from Quyet Mountain, silently watching the road from the highest point in the city, seeing the street lights line a straight strip. Just like when on the plane about to land at the airport, looking at the line of street lights connecting Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Avenue, it seems like a bright runway leading to the flight direction.

Straight road, but many paths of life!

Tran Hai