One street, many paths in 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 town and countryside town 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 confuse. All the streets of life have come together here. In the early morning, take a 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) covered their faces in both winter and summer, and sped by. Behind the bike, large pieces of meat hung precariously up and down in the flickering street lights. Next were the fishmongers, in groups of three or five, pedaling loudly and chatting rarely because they were still trying to pedal in time for the market, to make a living. At 4am, the coastal women cycled past the entrance to Nghe An General Hospital. The heavy accent of Nghi Thuy, Nghi Thu. 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. Across the North Canal, about a kilometer towards the airport is the Renault showroom (France). 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”. Well, that’s right. It’s 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 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. Go a little further, and there are 3 hospitals next to each other: Nghe An General Hospital, Hospital 115, and Dong Au. Among them, the most impressive and mission-laden is still the 700-bed General Hospital of Friendship, which is still being expanded and newly built with 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 cajuput, yellow cajuput, and purple-flowered lagerstroemia. In the middle of the median strip are oleander, bougainvillea, and rows of ngau, wolf, 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 touching. Sometimes, along the road, there are the silhouettes 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 or any kind of bike. The clothes do not necessarily have to be related to cyclists, meaning that you wear whatever you have. Go for the sake of going, to change the relaxation. The young generation, of course, "matches" from the bike to the... head. Bright lights, GPS, speedometer, water bottle, red flashing taillights. Sportiness is one thing, but for the young generation, is the beautiful, luxurious appearance still more important than pedaling? On clear days, the "army" of bicycles is almost stuck on the road. Occasionally, a convoy of a few dozen bikes, wearing yellow uniforms, glides smoothly across the road, towards Cua Lo. The bike lights flicker one after another, like a string of shimmering 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 to give a new day to 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, dropped off and picked up passengers. But the busiest place 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 of people walking slowly in the morning. There would only be a few elderly people staggering and limping a few steps. In the past few days, the weather has turned cold, as fast as the news, and the number of companions has dwindled. Several groups of cyclists must have clicked their tongues at the capricious weather and hid under thin blankets, while anonymous pedestrians silently breathed in the morning's elegance...

When we got to the entrance of the hospital, it was still not light yet, and we saw groups of people getting off the buses and coaches that had not slept. “Did you bring bananas down?”, “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 is 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 has compared. So they come here, like moths constantly circling around the lamp, not daring to rest.

The breakfast vendor also knows all the customers’ names. Patiently and whisperingly, they help her set up tables and chairs, and stretch out a tarpaulin for the tiny sticky rice and rice cake stall that is perched precariously at a corner of the hospital staff gate. 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 keep going back and forth several times a week?

That miserable 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. Taking crumpled money from patients in the same situation, scrimping and working hard to push away the day of death. Someone told a story about not being able to pee once in 20 years. One night, he dreamed that he could "go" once, it was so great, he screamed with joy. When he woke up, he was sad and prepared to go to the hospital for dialysis. Hearing that brought tears to his eyes.

Granted, 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 clothes... 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 away every 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 to change the wind, I quietly went all the way to Vinh Airport, looking around the airport in the morning, where there was no one, 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 were many nights, looking from Quyet Mountain, silently watching the road from the highest point in the city, seeing the street lights marking 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 seemed like a bright runway leading to the flight direction.

Straight road, but many paths of life!

Tran Hai