Frangipani

(Baonghean) - The frangipani trees in the yard of the Soviet Nghe Tinh Museum impressed me and my close friend who went to middle school together since the days when the museum was first built. The newly planted trees were still slightly above our heads. Through the rain and harsh sunlight, the heavy flowers grew thicker with each season on the low, drooping tree canopies. In just a few years, the trees had grown as tall as the strong young men in the museum yard. We often took our books out to the stone benches, under the frangipani trees to study. The gentle scent permeated the pages of our books near the exam season.

1.My house is located on a small street in Vinh, Nguyen Cong Tru Street. The house is a few hundred steps from Hong Son Temple. The feeling of going to the market through Hong Son Temple on summer mornings is interesting and strange, even though it is still a familiar street every day. Outside the wall are rows of green tea, bu shoots, water spinach... connecting to form a colorful street, bustling with people laughing, talking, buying and selling, bargaining. Inside is the temple area with lush trees, chirping birds singing in harmony. Only a few banyan trees in that lushness, but the fragrance surpasses everything, following the sound of the temple bell, along with the sound of birds crossing the wall separating the market street from the sacred temple grounds, quietly offering incense.

Each cluster of flowers is dense and fragrant.

2.It seems that many Vinh people have the habit of dropping fallen frangipani flowers into a bowl of water. This is a very easy-going way of “displaying” flowers, making use of flowers, seemingly casual. In fact, behind that casualness is sophistication. My friend told me that she still keeps the habit of offering fallen frangipani petals to her father’s altar because when he was alive, he still liked to drop frangipani flowers into water. He said that flowers are still beautiful even when they have fallen, so we must cherish them even more. And the flowers do not disappoint people, they stay fresh for a few more days in a bowl of water, fragrantly offering incense in the small house. That is the reason why the frangipani tree in front of her house was broken in half by the wind and rain one year, looking like a person raising his remaining arm to the sky, with a crooked shape, but she still preserved it and did not cut it. That frangipani tree is associated with her because of the memories of her beloved father. Mr. Dat, the caretaker and calligrapher at Hong Son Temple, had warm eyes, thick eyebrows, and a neat bun at the back of his head. Every day, he wore a brown suit and cycled home from the temple, passing by my house. On his bicycle, he had a brown bag containing fruits offered to the temple. He used those fruits to share with the children he met along the way. When he got to my house, the bag was empty, and when he got to his house, there was nothing left. His image was so beautiful and leisurely that when the teacher gave me an essay about a person I loved, I immediately described him. The essay got 9 points, and my mother showed it to him. From then on, he always saved a few fallen but still fresh frangipani flowers to give me every time he gave me fruit. He often teased: "A reward for a romantic niece." My mother taught me how to drop fallen frangipani flowers into a bowl of water, and the fragrance filled the whole house.

Plumeria at Doi Cung's grave

On the road leading from Doi Cung’s grave to Dang Thai Than Street, for some reason, many houses planted frangipani in front of their yards. I joked, perhaps because at the beginning of the road, Doi Cung’s “house” had an ancient frangipani tree, so every house… imitated it. My friend smiled and explained, probably because there was no tree that was easier to grow and more useful than the frangipani tree. Just ask for a branch that is old enough, stick it in the ground and it can take root and sprout. The canopy of the tree provides shade, the flowers give off a fragrance, and the fallen flowers can also be used as medicine to treat headaches, high blood pressure…

She told me a fairy tale about frangipani. The story her father told her when she was a child. Frangipani or perhaps a misreading of "hoa doi" (waiting flower). The story is about a deer attached to a little boy. One day, the boy had to go away on business, the deer was tired of waiting for him to return. Waiting and waiting until he had no more strength, he collapsed. Where the poor deer lay down, a bony tree with branches resembling deer's antlers grew up, at the ends of the branches were clusters of fragrant, pure white flowers mixed with a bit of steadfast yellow... Many years later, the boy finished his work, returned to the old place to visit the deer, saw a strange flower shaped like a deer's antlers, knew it was the reincarnation of a deer so he brought it back. When passing the temple gate, the monk heard the boy tell the touching story of love and affection and asked for a branch to plant. Perhaps that is why frangipani trees are also planted in many places where Buddha is worshiped. She understood the lesson of loyalty, affection and sacredness from the touching story of a beautiful flower.

3. Many street corners and alleys in Vinh have many frangipani trees. My mother often brought honeycomb charcoal to houses in Dong Vinh and Hong Son wards, and when she returned, she always had a few frangipani flowers tied to the handles of her cyclo. The flowers had just fallen and were still fresh. When I was a child, I often stopped by the poet Canh Nguyen's house on Dang Thai Than street to play. Next to his house's fence was also a frangipani tree. Perhaps because it was right on the street, the soil was barren, and the tree could not grow. It had been planted for decades but it was still short, with a luxuriant canopy, and the flowers covered the entire corner of the yard. Once, I climbed up the fence and broke a small branch of frangipani to plant, white sap flowed out, looking at that sap, the feeling of fear of the flower being hurt when it quickly left the tree came to me. That feeling made me never break another branch of frangipani again.

Plumeria flowers fall white in the yard of Nghe Tinh Soviet Museum

My mother used to work in Laos. The song she sang most often was “Beautiful Champa Flowers” ​​– the name of the frangipani flower in the land of a million elephants. Sometimes I miss my mother, and I also miss the frangipani petals she used to collect for me when I was little. I imitated my friend, bought a glass bowl, put flowers in it and offered it to my mother?

Thinking of frangipani flowers reminds me of Uncle Chau, the “cripple” who sells banh muot, across from my house. After a hard day of working at Vinh market, at night he would turn on Trinh music, pre-war, lyrical, bolero… which sounded so sweet. The song he listened to most often was “Hoa sua nha nang”: “Every night I smell the scent, the scent of frangipani flowers from her house…”. Some of the kids wondered what kind of flower frangipani flowers were that sounded so strange? Uncle Chau pointed his hand with one missing finger towards the frangipani tree on the other side of the street: “There, the frangipani tree is that frangipani tree”. Suddenly he laughed out loud: “But don’t believe the musician’s lies, people have always used lotus tea and jasmine tea, but who has ever used frangipani flower tea?”…

4. The frangipani trees in the yard of the Soviet Nghe Tinh Museum impressed me and my close friend who went to middle school together since the days when the museum was first built. The newly planted trees were still slightly above our heads. Through the rain and harsh sunlight, the heavy flowers grew thicker with each season on the low, drooping tree canopies. In just a few years, the trees had grown as tall as the strong young men in the museum yard. We often took our books out to the stone benches, under the frangipani trees to study. The gentle scent wafted over the pages of our books near the exam season.

When the exam season passed, my friend and I still often met under those frangipani trees. No longer busy with schoolwork, we could admire the five-petaled flowers arranged gracefully on top of each other. We could sit for hours under the frangipani trees, watching the sunlight shine on the flowers that had just fallen the night before. My friend knew how to dress up, put flowers in her hair, and weave frangipani flowers into beautiful necklaces and headbands, while I was absorbed in admiring the flowers as if they were still holding pearls - pearls sparkling with the color of the early morning sunlight that the first rain of the season had just poured down. Occasionally, a few couples in love would secretly hold hands under the frangipani trees. We, the young children, would see them, turn away and smile. We had gone through the season of love with strangely clear mornings in the middle of the city.

I can’t count how many young people, how many close friends, and even couples in love have made loving memories by the rough, weather-beaten frangipani trees in the museum yard. The only difference is that there are men and women following. As for you, passing by and seeing them, you smile when you think about those beautiful, innocent days, to the point that you think that a few frangipani wreaths on your head and around your neck have made you a princess. In truth, those beautiful days are not lost, thanks to the frangipani trees and stone benches that seem inanimate but turn out to have the ability to act as a bridge, transferring from one person to another, one generation to another, right? Right, right? Right?

Vo Thu Huong