Nostalgia for Tet in the countryside...

(Baonghean) - Remembering Tet, strangely enough, the soul always returns to a countryside. Is there anyone in this Vietnamese land who has not eaten country rice, drunk country well water, bathed in country river water, and breathed the countryside atmosphere?

In the Spring Garden. Photo: Van Song Nguyen.

Tet in the countryside begins from a rural space, which is the houses hidden behind the thousand-year-old green bamboo hedges, winding the fragrant smoke of new rice. I remember Tet in the countryside begins from the smoke of the countryside. The smoke just lifts lightly, entwines with each other, lingers here and there. A warm and deep nostalgia sometimes lingers and lingers. The smoke from the kitchen on the 30th of Tet, the pot of boiling banh chung, the roaring fire and the silhouettes of people gathered together are imprinted on the wall, the sound of laughter and chatter...

Tet in the countryside begins with the taste of the countryside, from the fragrant incense. The sweet aroma seems to contain the taste of sugarcane from the countryside. The sweetness of sugarcane gradually rises to the top in the taste of alluvial soil of the fields and rivers of the countryside. The sweet aroma gradually rises to smoke because of the many stars that have been soaked through the talented and fragrant hands of human love. The taste of the countryside sometimes begins with rustic cuisine.

The ingredients are carefully selected and filtered through the sun and rain to save up and serve as the village's Tet specialties. It's still a banh chung but it must start from the taste of sticky rice, beans and pork fed with bran from the countryside. Then it starts from the hands of the person wrapping the cake, wrapping it from dong leaves from the garden. They light the fire themselves and scoop out the cake to absorb the aroma and flavor that slowly comes to them, making them exclaim with themselves.

Next to the pot of banh chung for Tet. Photo: Canh Yen.

Tet in the countryside cannot be without the scent of the countryside. The tray of food is prepared with all the dishes but without a warm red parallel sentence, it still lingers in the heart. And when we think everything is complete from the tray of five fruits but without a branch of spring peach blossom, it is still not Tet. A branch of peach blossom carries the message of spring like a spring invitation that has existed for many generations in the Tet tradition of Vietnamese people.

The peach blossom branch in the countryside garden that only yesterday was still modestly budding, but this morning it has blossomed with delicate, pure white petals, yet passionate, warm red, brightening the whole room, carrying with it the breath of spring, the colors of spring, the love of spring, with a bit of proud hesitation like the signs of a good spring in people's hearts.

Highland flower season. Photo by Ho Lai.

I remember these days on the faraway islands, soldiers shielding to keep the rare, fragile peach buds as if keeping the love of the mainland people out to the offshore islands. And on the remote villages, undulating with the footsteps of the border guards, are the rough, mossy mountain peach branches whose peach blossoms glow passionately with a warm fire – the fire of trust, bringing Spring back and driving away the cold.

Tet has arrived at the village. The cool breeze this morning carries the scent of spring rain, which is making new buds sprout. Each bud of rain is a bud of spring. The rain spreads like a smooth silk cloth with a life force silently transforming its sap.

Feeling the feeling of Tet in the countryside, poet Nguyen Hung Hai wrote: "On the afternoon of the 30th of Tet in the countryside - Mother still has her feet tripping over her hat going to the fields". The old mother of the countryside has spent her whole life working in the fields, how hard and laborious she is. Tet in the countryside still follows her mother to the fields to plant the last batch of rice seedlings of the year: "So that next year the debt is gone - Mother believes that the rice seedlings are in her hands". When her mother is free, she will sow the rice seedlings in the countryside for a bountiful harvest next year. What is there to look forward to in Tet in the countryside? Tet in the countryside waits for people to return and people also look forward to returning home to celebrate Tet.

Nguyen Ngoc Phu