Bamboo shoot season in Ky Son

\(Baonghean.vn) - This time, when the Ky Son border area enters the rainy season, it is also the time when people in the villages "flock" to the forest to pick bamboo shoots. Everyone picks bamboo shoots, every household makes bamboo shoots, making the village unusually bustling.

Trying to put down the heavy bamboo basket on the roadside before going into the bamboo bush to continue digging, Mrs. Lau Y Xeng in Huoi Dun village, Huoi Tu commune smiled brightly as she talked about the bamboo shoot season in her village. This year, the rainy season came early, so the bamboo shoots in the forest also grew earlier and more abundantly, thicker and firmer. “For over a week, our whole family has been taking turns, some going to the forest to dig bamboo shoots, some peeling the skin, some drying them. Too much rain also affects the drying and processing of bamboo shoots, but everyone is happy because the bamboo shoots are in season,” said Mrs. Xeng.

In the afternoon, along the dirt road from the center of Huoi Tu commune to the communes of Na Loi, Dooc May, Keng Du, everywhere you can see the images of Mong, Thai, Kho Mu ethnic people with heavy baskets of bamboo shoots returning home after a hard day's work. On the roofs of houses along the road, people take advantage of the space to dry bamboo shoots, making the houses that are faded because of moss dotted with many silver spots, both strange and pleasing to the eye. Occasionally when it rains, you can see people hurriedly collecting bamboo shoots and putting them in the kitchen, making the atmosphere of the villages in this highland area become joyful and bustling.

Bamboo shoots are dried on the roofs by people in Dooc May commune.

For many years now, along with other specialties such as beef jerky, tamarind, mango, and Mong cucumber, sour bamboo shoots and dried bamboo shoots have been famous specialties in Ky Son. Along the road from Chieu Luu commune to Muong Xen town, up to Ta Ca, there are many places processing and selling fresh bamboo shoots, sour bamboo shoots, and dried bamboo shoots. Many agents have become brands. Ky Son bamboo shoots are grown in forests covered with clouds all year round, high humidity, and high rainfall, so the bamboo shoots are thicker, firmer, and sweeter.

For nearly ten years now, people have been planting many types of bamboo shoots with high yield and good quality such as Dien Truc bamboo shoots, Bat Do bamboo shoots, and Asparagus bamboo shoots, so almost every bamboo shoot season, people have a good harvest. However, like other products, a good harvest means a drop in price. The beginning of the bamboo shoot season is also the time when people prepare to buy books and clothes for their children to start the new school year. Most of this money depends on bamboo shoots, but because of that, they are forced to lower prices by traders.

Mrs. Lau Y Xenh with a heavy basket of bamboo shoots

From Doc May commune, Mr. Lo Van Khoanh carried two bundles of bamboo shoots and walked to Huoi Tu market to sell. After a while of bargaining, the two bundles of bamboo shoots were bought by a trader in the lowlands for 70,000 VND/kg. "Saying that two kilos of bamboo shoots can be sold for 140,000 VND seems like a lot, but to make it, it takes more than 200 kg of fresh bamboo shoots and a whole month of drying and curing," Mr. Khoanh sighed and said that fresh bamboo shoots are also forced to be sold at the foot of the fields, at a much cheaper price.

Mr. Lo Van Khoanh brings dried bamboo shoots to Huoi Tu market to sell at a very cheap price.

Many Khmu people in Huoi Phuon 2 village, Keng Du commune confided that they really wanted to sell bamboo shoots near Tet, but because they were short of money, they had to sell them off to traders in the lowlands. These are people who carry all kinds of necessities from salt, fish sauce, needles, threads to phone cards to the village to sell to people and buy dried bamboo shoots, black chickens, and pigs to bring back to the lowlands to make a profit. Because of the price pressure, many people in communes such as Pha Danh, Huoi Tu, and Doc May have tried to carry bamboo shoots down to Muong Xen town to re-import them to agents to process pickled bamboo shoots and dried bamboo shoots. The price is higher, but each trip to the market takes them a whole day....

Saying goodbye to the border villages after days of heavy rain. Arriving in Vinh city, we were shocked to learn that the price of each kilogram of dried bamboo shoots in the markets was twice as expensive but the quality could not compare to Ky Son bamboo shoots. When asking to buy a kilogram of dried bamboo shoots of the same quality as the kind sold by Mr. Lo Van Khoanh at Huoi Tu market, many traders shook their heads and said that they would have to wait until near Tet to have more goods. Then we remembered the concern of Mr. Luong Van Ngam, Chairman of Keng Du Commune People's Committee: "People here grow many types of special forest products such as bamboo shoots, bo bo, and canh ants, but they have almost no stable output, and are almost forced to self-produce and self-consume because of the difficult transportation."

Nguyen Khoa