Where is the village gate?

(Baonghean) - Along with the banyan tree, the well, the communal house yard, the village gate is associated with many generations born in the village. For those who are far from home, that sacred relic makes them feel an endless pain when they remember it.

Anyone who was born in a village is certainly familiar with the village gate. The village gate is the eye, the soul, the character of the village. Through the ups and downs of history, the village gate has existed as a vestige, a unique cultural mark bearing the identity of wet rice agriculture.

The elders still remember that in the past, the village built a gate and assigned people to guard it, to guard against bandits and robbers. If there was any trouble, the drum or gong would be sounded to alert the villagers. The gate was built of clams, better still, of bricks or simply bamboo bushes, extending on both sides to surround the village, and canals and ditches were often dug around it... In some places, the village gate was very simple, with a hundred-year-old banyan tree or kapok tree spreading its green shade, which was also considered the village gate.

For generations, the village gate has been the spiritual gateway, the beat of time and the soul of the bamboo fences, tiled roofs and areca rows. The gate is the place to welcome vitality, fortune and good things that bring prosperity to the village. The village gate has witnessed many happy and sad stories of the village since the days of founding the village. Every morning, villagers step out from there to go to school and work.

The gate is a place where mothers stop after work in the fields, and where fathers rest after a hard day of plowing. There, children in the countryside find endless joy in folk games. The village gate is also a place where children far away long to return to...

Vinh Yen village gate, Dien Loc commune (Dien Chau). Photo: Song Hoang

Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of life, the image of the homeland rolls up in the mind, urging the footsteps to return. How many people have been moved when standing in front of the moss-covered village gate, tinged with the color of the past? The whispers of the solemn old banyan tree, of the deep bamboo hedge in the summer, of the floating cotton tree in March have a powerful power to move, beyond the limits of space and time. Because simply, it is the "village soul" - a soul deeply imprinted, engraved in the blood and bones of every person living abroad.

I once heard a story about an old soldier who had been wandering for more than half his life, nearing the end of his life. But he had a burning desire to return to his hometown, to roll up his sleeves and touch the steps of the village gate where he was born and raised one last time, and then die with satisfaction. Finally, overcoming all difficulties and obstacles, his children and grandchildren brought him back to his hometown to fulfill his last wish. But when he arrived, the old people were still there, but where was the village gate? The old soldier looked far away, sad and tearful before so many changes, his white hair fluttering in the sunset on a cold winter day...

Because they believe that the old, narrow village gate is no longer suitable for the expanded concrete road, hindering the entrance and exit of motorbikes, cars, farm vehicles and even heavy trucks... serving the essential needs of new life, many villages have now demolished the century-old village gate, replacing it with a large welcome gate.

There are gates so large that it is hard to imagine, making many people passing by surprised and bewildered. Moreover, the gates built later are even larger and more magnificent than the ones built before. To be “worthy” of the new countryside, with the high-rise buildings and villas in the village. Although the new village gate is large and imposing, why does it still feel monotonous, soulless and lost?

In fact, many places do not even have a village gate or a welcome gate, just a straight road leading to the village. Surely many people will get lost because they cannot distinguish the boundary between this village and that village, and do not know where the beginning and end of the village are.

The village gate is gone, where can the children far away cling to, where can they find the milestone of memories to return to? When the children grow up, will they still know that they were born in the village, cherish the deep values ​​of their homeland? Don't blame the market mechanism and the speed of rural urbanization for abandoning the familiar village gates, because someone once said: "Love for home, love for the village, love for the countryside becomes love for the Fatherland".

It would be incomplete and not profound if the love for one’s homeland did not originate from objects imbued with spiritual culture, simple and rustic like the village gate. Innovation is necessary, but it is necessary to preserve and conserve the values ​​that make up the soul and character of the village.

Nguyen Hoe