Ramblings about a puzzle game

(Baonghean)-Born from the rich spiritual life of the Vietnamese people, the riddle genre has constantly developed to guide the Vietnamese soul towards Truth-Goodness-Beauty. At first glance, it seems that the "garden" of riddles is hidden in the "field" of thousands of years old Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs, but if you are willing to "roll up your pants and wade in the fields", that is not the case!

Once when I was little, because I made a mistake, my grandmother made me stand with my arms crossed against a pillar and listen to a riddle. The condition was that if I answered two questions correctly, she would let me leave the pillar. If I answered three questions correctly, she would let me go out into the yard with the other children to continue being Sun Wukong. The first question she asked was:

What has meat but no bones?

Soaked in the sun, pouring rain without fear

Compete with the water god

Keep the fields green all around?

Luckily, my house is on the left bank of Lam River, opposite on the right bank is Nguyen Du's hometown with a flood-prevention dike higher than a person's head. Every day that dike catches my eye, so it helps me suddenly become smart, I answer the dike. She nods proudly at her grandson's sudden intelligence, and continues reading the second sentence:

What is so tiny?

I am on the ground and my shadow is in the sky?

Taking advantage of the victory, I would be... smarter, I hastily gave a series of riddles including dragonfly, mosquito, magpie, parrot, ivory starling... All the answers were wrong. As if knowing that I was not thinking and was thinking of a way to run away, she quickly stood up and raised her whip sternly:

- Pretty face, bad cheeks, that's a worm, so easy and you don't know.

My face was burning with pride. Pretending not to notice my embarrassment, she slowly continued reading the third sentence:

Lean back and let the world sit

Sit and then come back to call the disloyal - what is it?

This time, her grandson, who always called himself Sun Wukong, was still scratching his head. He couldn't think of a solution. He was about to ask her for permission to give up when he heard her accuse him:

- The Monkey King and the Great Sage, don't even know how to use a wooden bench in the house, only good at sunbathing all day!

Having been ashamed of the folk wisdom, I only later paid attention to riddles and read some reasonable opinions that the original function of riddles was entertainment, cultivating thinking, and disseminating general knowledge to children. In addition, it also directed players to learn about historical events, the feats of building and defending the country of national heroes, arousing the heroic historical memories of the nation, contributing to fostering patriotism for contemporary and future generations.

To create a puzzle whose content reflects the true nature of things and phenomena, the puzzle maker must have a rich life experience, rich knowledge, and especially the ability to make creative associations. One of the "magic" that makes the puzzle attractive is the ability to make associations that break the rules of common logic, creating the rules of "logic of logic" (not illogical) to be accepted by everyone. For example, the following puzzle:

High, loose legs

Skin to bone

Soul goes in all directions

What is the remaining leg?

After the puzzle was solved, everyone was convinced and admitted that it was indeed an incense tree...

Or the following riddle is about a water trough, the person who asked it unifies “water” (CO2 - one of the basic components that sustains life), with “water” meaning “country, cold land”:

One heart for country, one heart for home

People do not know, God knows.

On November 20, 2000, this riddle was used by Professor of Linguistics Nguyen Tai Can in his response speech at the Rally organized by Hanoi National University to celebrate his being awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Linguistics. I think that "word-lover" Nguyen Tai Can is not lacking in words, but he still used this riddle to borrow the bold association of folk wisdom. And it seems that only folk wisdom can speak for his heart.

Symphony