The streets of love in Vinh City
(Baonghean.vn) - I suddenly remembered that song by Trinh Cong Son, while walking on Quang Trung Street, turning onto Tran Phu and Le Duan streets during the rainy season, with mist and fog hanging in the air. The streets are fragile, illusory, flickering, present yet absent. But that song speaks of the streets in each person's heart.
Perhaps it's a joyful street, perhaps it's a sad street. Perhaps it's a lonely street, but who knows, it might also be lively and bustling? Thousands of people drift along the streets, passing each other every day, but how many stop to look at each other, how many choose to walk side by side?
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| The Lam River section flowing through Ben Thuy ward, Vinh City. |
Street of Lovers
If Hanoi has Thanh Nien Street, considered a romantic street for many years, and Saigon has Nguyen Van Cu Street, then in Vinh, which street is the romantic street? I once asked my friends in Vinh that question, and they pondered for a while before answering with their own stories. For Van, it was Tran Phu Street, where the BZ coffee shop had just opened. Van's girlfriend was a student working part-time there, and one time, she clumsily spilled coffee on Van's striped tablecloth, and their hands touched. Van's love story didn't have a happy ending, but Van says it was the most wonderful feeling he's ever experienced.
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| The crape myrtle tree at the street corner |
Tran Phu Street, with its milkwood and mahogany trees, occasionally dotted with flamboyant trees, and the slightly tilted round umbrella erected on the green and red tiled sidewalk, had become Van's most romantic street. For Long, it was Dao Tan Street, where the ancient city gate stood, which Long said seemed to be covered in moss in the dark night. It was the street where his girlfriend always clung to him whenever he took her past. Long's girlfriend, from Cua Nam ward, is now the mother of two children, in grades 7 and 3. She no longer fears walking along that once windy street at night; now, her shoulder has even become a support for her husband, who occasionally gets drunk at the night market near the city gate and always wants to call her out to take her home…
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| Morning on the road along the Lam River. Photo: PV |
Ah, so it turns out that any road, any street can be a street of love, if you've ever walked it with someone you love, and have memories associated with it. It could be Le Ninh Street leading to Vinh train station. Or it could be an empty station platform, with only a yellow lamp and a waving hand for farewells. It could be Tran Quang Dieu Street, with its newly opened cafe where a musician from Hanoi followed his wife to Vinh, leaving behind a bustling youth to sit quietly in a corner playing the piano in an indescribable way. It could be the uphill road to Dung Quyet when the city lights come on, where arms seem to tighten as you look down at the chaotic yet charming city below. And the street, in the eyes of someone in love, the footsteps of someone in love, are so joyful. It seems as if the lights shine for them, the flowers bloom for them. Everything is unexpectedly logical, unexpected like a signal of love, from the church bells of Cau Ram, the bells of the Nun's Pagoda, the Hermitage Pagoda. From the speck of rice glistening on the gnarled, mossy tree trunk on Quang Trung Street, the four-faced clock on 3-2 Street that sometimes stops at 5 o'clock, sometimes at 9 o'clock. Or one morning, stopping by a used bookstore on Nguyen Van Cu Street and exclaiming in surprise upon finding that timeless book from your childhood. It lies there, as if waiting for the day you visit, the day you open it, and brush off the dust from its spine. Even the sudden rain showers across the street are logical and lovely. You smile at anyone, even the man speeding past you on his motorbike, or you gaze after the tiny hand of a child waving through the window of a Dong Bac bus all the way to the end of the road. Anything is worth singing, worth trembling into poetry.
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| A view of Goong Lake. Photo: PV |
But yes, if I had to choose one path, I would have chosen the path of love in Vinh. It's the path along the Lam River embankment, stretching all the way to Cua Hoi. A path with both wind and waves, wide, spacious, and peaceful. Romantic stories under streetlights, by the railings, or in a small roadside cafe; heads huddled together, shoulders walking side-by-side on the bridge that Vinh residents call Cau Dau (Oil Bridge) (where ships dock to unload oil at the Ben Thuy oil depot). Someone's guitar music seems to stir the calm surface of the Lam River at night. Above, the slender winter moon, like someone's eyebrow, flashes across the sky.
Hey, shall we go down the Lam River? The wheels of the bicycle slowly rolled down, stopping when they reached the mangrove forest. The road was long and familiar, yet I always wanted to go, always feeling it was fresh and full of emotion. So close, the slender mangrove trees stood rooted in the earth and water. So close, the buffaloes grazed peacefully. And the vast expanse of green reed fields. The green of the grassland, of nomadic life. Can you feel it, in your chest, the scent of nature, the scent of the outskirts of Vinh city?And the street of so many people
Couples walk hand in hand, exchanging countless promises. Every promise was for eternity, only to end in "a street of pink, a street of emptiness." The street is there, the people are there, and then one day they part. I watch slowly as the crowds flow by, like rushing rivers. The markets of Quang Trung, Quan Lau, and Cua Dong bustle with the sounds of busy people in the evening. No hand reaches out to me, no footsteps stop beside me anymore. I walk as if lost on this familiar street. I feel lost amidst a multitude of faces, lost even from myself. But isn't that right? I want to blend into the crowd on the street. I don't want anyone to notice the tears of sorrow welling up in my eyes, heavy with pain. But come, stop by the roadside, by the trees where I once saw the cicadas shedding their skin at night. Stop, and listen to the life-giving sap still flowing through each fiber of the wood. Just yesterday or the day before, the banyan trees on Quang Trung Street, Le Hong Phong Street, or along the shores of Goong Lake stood withered and lifeless on the sidewalks, but suddenly, hearing the spring rain, they burst forth with fresh color. Green as if discovering the city for the first time, green as if falling in love for the first time. Stopping by Nguyen Phong Sac Street, you can still see a lush green bamboo grove, and the rickety afternoon eatery beneath it is also known as the Bamboo Grove Restaurant. That street, that countryside. The city is full of people from the countryside. Even after living city life, they still cling to their homeland with their verdant vegetable gardens and the sound of roosters crowing each morning. Bend down, slowly, and look at the lives of the people on the street. The city isn't just about faces.
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| The gas station in Hung Dung ward at dawn. |
The street is bustling in the mind of the woman from the suburbs going to the market early. The street is the leisurely pace of the old barber at the corner of building C4 Quang Trung. The street is the sigh of the gluer packing his tools, preparing to move back to his hometown: "Making a living these days is so difficult." The street is the warm corner where the blind couple who sing for a living have endured through countless springs, summers, autumns, and winters… The street is a refuge, a place of exile, but also a place where we entrust all our hopes, love, and faith. The street has everything we need, whether we are sad or happy. The street is full of people with an endless cycle of life. We realize that the street teaches us so many lessons. About gratitude for the shady trees on Ngu Hai and Duong Van Nga streets that protect us from the scorching sun and the sweltering Lao wind. About the simple happiness on a pushcart used by a husband who has been taking his wife back and forth on Ho Tung Mau street for years. About the journey each of us takes – arriving and departing, as well as the choices we make for ourselves, like a train leaving Vinh Station. The trains come and go, at some point, still on the same tracks, but today's journey is no longer the same as yesterday's, because each journey is unique…
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| Street corner in the afternoon |
We realize we are walking through Vinh City with the proud steps of someone in love, someone who is loved. We walk with the grateful steps of the laborers by the Triangle Flower Garden. With the bustling steps of a student who has just left his hometown to start his first year of university, filled with wonder and freshness… We sink into the night, to welcome the pure dawn, where the flowers on the balcony offer a morning fragrance so incredibly gentle. Indeed, there are times when, amidst the cold silence, things quietly bloom, quietly sprout.
Look, it's almost December, and someone on Dang Thai Than Street is already selling Quy Chau incense sticks. A man cups his hands to shield them from the wind, then lights a test stick. The scent of incense fills the small street. The old man in the tailor shop unconsciously stops his needlework, his gaze drifting into the distance… There’s something I want to tell you privately: my Vinh Street has alleyways that seem like dead ends at first glance, but suddenly open up to a main road. That’s Vinh Street; you don’t have to worry about getting lost. Sometimes it seems strange, but then suddenly it feels familiar. And anyway, I still want you to see Vinh Street through the eyes of someone in love!
