The Green Season of Co Giang
Short stories by Tong Phuoc Bao • July 25, 2026
He didn't know who his parents were, only that he grew up with a man who had lost a leg after a bombing raid on Minh Linh wharf that year. He wasn't even from this area. He didn't know where he was going, as his parents had perished in Co Giang during the fierce battles of the enemy's paratrooper commandos and special forces. At sixteen, he joined the war; at eighteen, enemy artillery hit him, and he was hospitalized at the town's infirmary. He was then brought here by a nurse during an enemy raid. In the final days of the war, the nurse hurried down the river to the town to treat the soldiers who had just liberated the Cao Lanh area. He waited anxiously, anticipating peace, knowing the fighting was intensifying. It wasn't until two days later that he received news that his nurse was also somewhere on this stretch of the Co Giang river. So he chose to stay here, spending the rest of his life here, settling down at Minh Linh harbor because this place still held the girl he could never forget.
He brought her home to raise her after a fishing season more than twenty years ago. Back then, during the flood season, the fields were covered in water. Farming was impossible. People in the Mekong Delta would set up boats in groups, roaming the flooded fields, making a living from fishing. Young men would also form groups and sail down to distant flooded fields, or upstream areas. Fishing seasons were a way of life for the people of this delta of nine rivers. But the real pleasure for the single fishermen was their romantic wanderings across the flooded fields. The oil-lamp boats of the young women who made their living would often dock alongside the fishing boats. Fleeting romances between merchants would often become poetic tales, making the young men eager to seek them out the following season. And so, across the vast river, oil-lamp boats, illuminated by the moonlight, would anchor at the fishing docks after a day of casting nets. Sellers and buyers would silently gaze at each other. The fishing boat throws a rope to tie its oil lamp, signifying that the girl who wanders in the mist has been chosen. The oil lamp at the bow of the boat will be blown out. After that night of swaying waves of love, the oil lamp boat departs, and the fishing boat also turns its outboard motor in another direction. No one bothers anyone for the next night, for the next flood season.
But, sometimes, romantic affairs leave behind a few children in the fishing villages who never know their father. Ngỡi was taken back to the flooded fields of Hậu by a girl on a fishing boat that year, who pressed a leg into his hand with the firm words, "That's your child, I have to go get married." He was stunned, then fell silent. The fishermen burst into laughter. He took the baby, only a few months old, home to raise it. Without a word of explanation. That was also his last fishing season. He cared for the child, teaching it to call him "grandfather." The people of Minh Linh wharf kept wondering, "Why not just acknowledge it as your own child? Why bother with pride?" The commune summoned him for a reprimand. The village sent people to advise him to acknowledge it. He was now the chairman of the farmers' association; if he suddenly had an illegitimate child, who would listen? He should just acknowledge it, saying its mother couldn't bear the suffering and left. Why should he make it call him "grandfather"? How strange life! He still didn't answer. Ngỡi continued to call him "grandfather." Even when Ngỡi went all the way to Saigon to study and was gone for good, he remained silently waiting at Minh Linh wharf.
When Ngỡi heard that his father was seriously ill, it was also the day he returned home after about ten years of wandering in the glamorous land of the city. His father passed away peacefully, closing his eyes as if in sleep. He left his house to Ngỡi and a fragrant field with lush green leaves. Ngỡi personally cleaned his father's body. He dressed him in the soldier's uniform he had kept for decades after the country's reunification. Only then did Ngỡi find the answer to the question that had plagued him and the people of Minh Linh harbor.
***
It's only the beginning of the dry season, yet this riverside land is already thirsty for fresh water. It sounds strange, but it's true. No one clings to this remote, desolate land anymore. Six months of sunshine, six months of rain – that was a thing of the past. Now, with dams built upstream, the weather is unpredictable. The rainy season, spanning nine river branches, only lasts a few months, sometimes just a few scattered showers. The rest is sun and drought, scorching the lives of farmers. Just last year, people were rushing to bring fresh water from the cities to save this land. Trucks rumbled day and night, rumbling along, trying to save the people of this land during a season of utter hardship. Rice was thirsty. Vegetables were thirsty. Flowers were thirsty. Fruit was thirsty. And in this land, just that much thirst leads to hunger. Hunger brings with it many other things, causing people to wither away during the dry season.
We have to go! After last year's dry season, the children of the delta packed their backpacks and headed to the city. The people of Minh Linh wharf also followed the whispers of their friends. The city has plenty of jobs; driving a motorbike taxi earns ten million a month, and working as a factory worker earns about the same. If you're hardworking, the people here can endure it. But they can't endure thirst. Thirst is deadly. Just hitch a ride on the early morning boat from the Central Market to the beginning of the village, and you're right on the bus route to the city. Those who go first pick up those who follow. We only starve if we don't work. The city has tons of industrial zones. The only thing to fear is not working. If you're willing, there are plenty of jobs to earn money.
Alternatively, instead of going to the city, one can head north from Minh Linh wharf, across the Co Giang river to the vast green grasslands, and then cross into the neighboring country. The work is easy, the pay is high, and you'll be sitting in an air-conditioned office. One person invites another; no need for anything else, just willingness to go and work is all it takes to make money. There are plenty of border casinos, high-tech economic zones are springing up everywhere, and they're desperate for workers. Heavens, if you go over now while they're desperate, you'll be working like a laborer – who knows how long it will take to get rich. That shortage of workers on the other side of the grasslands has lasted for two or three years, but it's intensified after the driest delta season in twenty years. Again, motorboats with outboard engines leave Minh Linh wharf, heading towards the end of the Co Giang river. When the boats reach the grasslands, they hide and wait for nightfall, hoping that when the border guards aren't around, they can cross and change their lives. On calm nights, a dozen such boats successfully cross the border. On stormy nights, they hide again, waiting until the next night. And so, Minh Linh wharf witnesses streams of people leaving in droves.
***
After graduating with a degree in agricultural engineering, Ngỡi applied to a large corporation in the livestock and crop farming industry, hoping for a life free from the harsh sun and rain like the people of Minh Linh wharf. But the more he worked, the more he felt sorry for his people. They toiled day after day, immersed in the fields, doing only manual labor, then having to sell their produce to middlemen who would deliver it to larger companies. From there, the price of goods skyrocketed in the market. Ngỡi began to think that the only way to alleviate the hardships of his people was to close the supply and demand cycle. For a decade, Ngỡi worked, independently researching and practicing how to best utilize the fragrant orchards of Minh Linh wharf.
Ngỡi returned and taught the villagers how to cultivate pineapples to produce beautiful fruit that met the cleanliness standards of foreign partners. Ngỡi invested his own labor and capital into the project. Then, from the pineapple leaves, Ngỡi found a way to extract the fibers and weave them into fabric. For months, he toiled tirelessly in the fields and rice paddies, determined to create clean pineapples and fragrant silk to establish the brand of Minh Linh wharf. However, during the peak harvest season, Ngỡi disappeared after a foreign company approached him to discuss signing a contract to purchase the entire pineapple crop.
When Ngoi didn't return by Tuesday, Nam was about to report him to the police when, late at night, he heard the gate in front of the house being pulled open. Nam was Ngoi's closest friend, always by his side since he left the city and returned to the countryside to teach the people of Co Giang how to farm in a green and clean way. Ngoi sat down on the moonlit steps, tired and listless. Nam brewed a pot of hot tea, the scent of lotus wafting through the night, and brought it out to the steps. The scorching hot days were almost over, and the dry season was tearing the delta apart, creating cracks like the blue veins on the arms of the eighteen- and twenty-year-old boys of this land. Ngoi took a sip of tea, let out a sigh, and then slowly began to tell his story.
The director noticed the blue birthmark that stretched from my right cheek down to my neck, and then, without her husband's knowledge, she secretly slipped me her phone number. When I called her back, she said she was my mother. I don't know why, but I ended up going all the way to her house in Saigon. It was like a villa in a famously wealthy area of the bustling city.
After abandoning her child, she fled to Saigon, leaving behind her life on the oil-lamp boat. Luckily, she had some beauty and married a fruit vendor who sold fruit throughout the city. Little did she know that after a lifetime, she would return to find the child she had left behind on the Co Giang river. She asked the man with the amputated leg. "I told you he's dead," she said. "But he wasn't the man on the fishing boat that fatefully impregnated me," he replied. The bombs and bullets of war had ravaged his body, leaving behind charred, wrinkled flesh—the very thing that should be his. He couldn't possibly be my father." She wept uncontrollably. Ngải spoke softly, like a breeze passing over the Minh Linh grassland, then vanishing into the emptiness. So many children of this land, born from the floods, grew up without knowing where they came from. In truth, it's a harbor where life anchors itself. Everyone eventually merges into this land, settling into the alluvial soil that nourishes the land, making the nine branches of the river green and the trees flourish.
Ngỡi stayed two more days to visit the Soái Kình Lâm fabric market to learn about fabrics and silk, so he could figure out the market for the silk being formed from fragrant leaves. He caught a late bus back to Minh Linh wharf. So now he knew he had roots, that he had a mother who was becoming his partner in buying clean, fragrant leaves. Isn't that great! Ngỡi laughed aloud. His laughter drifted across the vast sky.
Nam said nothing, only let out a sigh. In truth, everyone living in this world needs a harbor to anchor their fate. A hundred million people are a hundred harbors. But, if people cherish their harbors and live decently, then life will surely reward them with peace, month after month, year after year.
Ngỡ lit incense, on the altar was a picture of a veteran with a gentle smile. "Grandma, I'm home!" Only then did Ngỡ cry. The grass at Minh Linh Wharf was still green, the Co Giang River still full of water, and the monsoon winds were beginning to grow stronger.
