Bamboo shoot season arrives in the middle of the rainforest.

(Baonghean)The rains in the highlands become more frequent and heavier towards the end of summer. Rain calls for storms, and storms bring worries about landslides and mudslides. The rains in the highlands also awaken the sprouts, and thus herald a new bamboo shoot season.

During the bamboo shoot season, the people of Khe Nong production team, Chau Son village (Chau Khe - Con Cuong), become happier. Most of the villagers are Dan Lai people, with only a few Thai women who married into the village. This year's honey harvesting season is over. The villagers say that the bee harvest was good this year, but the money from selling honey has all been spent. Only those families who buy and resell to middlemen make a lot of money. These families are now buying bamboo shoots. They hope that doing so will allow them to have enough money for the rest of the year and a decent Tet holiday.

Dropping his basket of bamboo shoots with a thud beside the stilt of his stilt house, the village elder La Van Linh scolded, "You rascal! Why haven't I seen your face in over a year? The road has collapsed, the village hasn't moved, and you haven't come to visit your father!" I explained, "You have to understand us journalists; we have to travel to many places to write articles, so we're busy." I found a glimmer of joy in his harsh scolding and in his eyes, which still showed no signs of aging, even though he was well over seventy. He had been the team leader and then deputy team leader of the Khe Nong production team for 20 years, even though he only finished first grade and could only sign his name. He had to rely on others to read and write for him. Through the years, the burden of age hadn't affected him at all. His skin was still ruddy, his voice still booming, and he still ran as fast as a wild goat.

Old Man Linh was delighted because the bamboo shoot season had arrived, and also because the government would be re-establishing Khe Nong village this year. "I've heard about it for a while, but I only saw the district officials invite me to a meeting recently. So they're really going to do it." Before I could even climb the stairs to see the "great solidarity" house that the border guards had helped build for my family since the beginning of last year, Old Man Linh grabbed me and started telling me about the meeting he had with the district party secretary to discuss the village's re-establishment.

Although it hasn't been officially re-established, people still habitually refer to the Khe Nong production team as a "village." This stems from the habit of highlanders: wherever there are houses and people living there stably for a long time, even if it's just a few households, they call it a village. Moreover, this production team currently has 36 houses and nearly 300 working-class people.

From 1960 to the early 1980s, Khe Nong was a true village. However, the villagers relocated to Chau Son village next to National Highway 7, while 17 households remained, cultivating fields for farming. The name Khe Nong (Hot Stream) originated from the Thai people's custom of naming villages after streams. The village of Khe Nong, located at the end of a stream, is named after a type of tree whose resin the Thai people used to coat the arrowheads when hunting deer. The villagers called this tree "co noong" or "noong." The name of the village came from the Huoi Noong stream. Later, when the Kinh people moved to the "new economic zone," those selling salt, lamp oil, and sewing needles mispronounced the name as Khe Nong. In previous meetings with the people of Khe Nong production team, they all expressed their desire to establish their own separate village. This is because the production team is located more than 20km away from the main village, and the land is under the management of the Con Cuong Forestry Enterprise, preventing them from expanding their forest land and rice fields.

Old Man Linh said: "I'm happy because the wishes of the people of Khe Nong are about to come true. I heard that starting in September 2013, the district committee and the Con Cuong Forestry Department will bring in excavators to dig streams, build irrigation dams, level the land for rice paddies, construct a self-flowing water system, and expand the roads. With rice paddies and roads, this remote village will become more civilized. Old Man Linh will have to live for another few decades to see the village transformed."

During the rainy season, almost every household in the village, from the elderly to young children as young as seven or eight, engages in bamboo shoot harvesting. Everyone seems to be racing against time, as there are only three months of heavy rain each year. Once the rainy season is over, the bamboo shoot season is also over. Everyone wants to harvest the thickest and firmest bamboo shoots at the beginning of the season, as each ten kilograms of fresh bamboo shoots can yield 1 kilogram of dried bamboo shoots after drying. Each ten kilograms of fresh bamboo shoots at the end of the season, after drying, only yields half a kilogram. Therefore, even before dawn, the villagers flock to the forest with baskets to harvest bamboo shoots.

In villages like Diem, Xat, Chau Son, Khe Choang... dozens of kilometers away from Khe Nong, many households lock their doors and go into the forest to gather and buy bamboo shoots. People from far away often stay in the deep forest for extended periods, sometimes up to half a month. Thus, the deep bamboo forests at the headwaters of streams become bustling with the presence of hundreds of people each day, lasting until the end of the bamboo shoot season, usually in early October of the lunar calendar. Throughout the long winter and the following spring, the old forest becomes quiet until the honey-gathering season and the bamboo shoot season of the following year.

Before drying, the bamboo shoots are sliced ​​thinly.

Now that it's the beginning of the bamboo shoot season, Khe Nong village has suddenly transformed into a large "factory" for processing bamboo shoots. From 2 PM onwards, bamboo shoot pickers return home to light fires and cook the shoots. Entering the village, you can already smell the strong, slightly sour aroma of cooked bamboo shoots in the kitchen smoke. Down by the stream, groups of bamboo shoot pickers still bend over, carrying heavy baskets on their backs, climbing the slopes back to the village.

The wife of the Khe Nong production team leader also joined the bamboo shoot harvesting team. She absolutely refused to reveal her name, saying, "Don't put my name in the newspaper. I'm old, but I still have to go harvesting bamboo shoots; it's so tiring and hard." She added, "I'm almost 70 years old, but I still look forward to the bamboo shoot season to earn money to buy rice." Meanwhile, her husband, Lo Ngoc Quynh, the Khe Nong production team leader, helped his wife carry her basket, explaining, "The village has very little farmland, only about 1 hectare. The villagers' land is currently under the management of the district's Forestry Company, and they prohibit clearing land, so the villagers have to scramble for rice all year round. We have to go into the forest, what else can we do?...".

Perhaps that's why everyone in the village eagerly awaits the bamboo shoot season. On a dry afternoon, this small hamlet transforms into a veritable workshop for bamboo processing. The men specialize in weaving baskets for storing bamboo shoots, making bamboo racks, and chopping firewood for drying, while the women and girls, after placing their baskets full of bamboo shoots on the ground, light the fire and cook them. Once cooked, the bamboo shoots are sliced ​​thinly and pressed to remove excess water before being dried. On rainy days, the bamboo shoots are mainly dried by hanging them on bamboo racks overnight.

Mr. La Van Manh, who specializes in drying bamboo shoots, said: "The firewood is cut in the forest and then dragged back by buffaloes. It's impossible to calculate the amount of wood needed to dry one kilogram of bamboo shoots. The wood must be of good quality to ensure a strong fire, allowing the bamboo shoots to dry quickly." With skillful movements, Ms. La Thi Hoe chatted while splitting bamboo shoots. "This year, each kilogram of dried bamboo shoots costs 60,000 VND, almost double last year's price. Everyone is happy because the bamboo shoots are fetching a good price, but to harvest beautiful shoots now, we have to go further than last year. That's why people usually stay longer in the forest, drying a lot of bamboo shoots before carrying them back to sell."

Drying bamboo shoots in the garden.

The joy of the bamboo shoot harvest for the couple La Van Hung and La Thi Ngan is slightly different from many families in the village. Despite their difficulties, they still send their youngest son to the commune center to attend secondary school. The money from selling bamboo shoots helps them cover their son's living expenses and education. Married for nearly 20 years and having four children, three of them have dropped out of school. Ms. Ngan said: "We want to try our best to raise our youngest son so he can get an education like everyone else, so that he might have a better life later on, and maybe even find a job to help his parents when they are old and weak."

Thanh, the son of Mr. Hung and Mrs. Ngan, is one of the few students from the small village of Khe Nong who went on to study at the secondary school level. Furthermore, after finishing 5th grade, the children here rush into the forest to pick bamboo shoots, gather taro, and collect chestnuts... The older boys follow their friends to Quang Nam to work as gold miners.

The bamboo shoot harvest brings joy to the Dan Lai community in Khe Nong village, one of the most impoverished areas in the mountainous Con Cuong district. But perhaps the greatest joy for the villagers is that their home is about to be recognized as a new village. This means they will be allocated land for production and will have access to public infrastructure. Hopefully, this community will soon have the opportunity to escape poverty in a sustainable way.

The thunder rumbled again, dark clouds swirling over the distant mountain peaks, signaling another rainstorm about to descend upon the forests. Rain, rain, let the young shoots and seeds of joy sprout in this remote, impoverished village. Khe Nong village is eagerly awaiting the rain.

Huu Vi