Ups and downs of Tet

(Baonghean) - Playing with peach blossoms has become a hobby of Vietnamese people during the traditional Tet holiday. To get those "spring gifts", peach growers must take care and cherish them, and peach traders must also work hard to find satisfactory peach branches.

Nam Anh (Nam Dan) is a vegetable growing commune, but only Hamlet 9 - the hamlet located at the foot of Dai Tue mountain - has the profession of growing flowers. Peach trees have been in this land for a long time, but in the past, peach trees grew naturally, and on Tet holiday, people cut off one or two branches to display. But about ten years ago, peach trees started to have a high price, so the people of Hamlet 9 learned to grow them for business as a commodity. And many people became rich from this profession.

At the beginning of December, many peach trees in Hamlet 9 have begun to bud. Outsiders think that this is too early because Tet is still more than twenty days away, but Mr. Phan Van Toan, who has nearly ten years of experience growing peaches, affirms: The peach variety must bloom now so that it will bear fruit by Tet. Because from the beginning of December to Tet, peaches must bloom at least three times, the first batch of flowers will bear fruit. Thus, the Nam Anh peach branches will be full of leaves, flowers, and fruit. That is what peach players are looking for.

This year, Toan's family's peach garden has nearly 50 trees, the tallest of which is approximately two meters tall. Compared to other types of trees, growing peach trees uses less land, costs less because it doesn't require much fertilizer and is easy to care for, so each year just by planting "hay hay" in the home garden, one can earn millions. However, for peach trees to grow evenly and produce beautiful flowers, growers also need a lot of experience, as Toan said: "Peach trees have quite a lot of worms, especially stem borers, so we have to be careful not to let them develop. Particularly during the season of dense leaves, usually from March to April, we have to strip the leaves. Peach trees with small branches that are not plump cannot produce large, beautiful flowers." To make it easier for customers to choose, this year, in addition to the traditional peach varieties of the region, Toan also brought peach varieties from Thanh Hoa to grow because Thanh Hoa peach trees are characterized by large flowers and a very beautiful bright pink color. However, to suit the "taste" of Nghe people for peach trees, he does not create a shape for the peach trees but lets them grow naturally. Usually, it takes 2 to 3 years of care for a peach tree to be able to harvest, a tree that grows well can develop 2 to 3 branches. From the second harvest season onwards, it only takes 1 year. A peach branch sold in the garden also costs from 500 thousand to 1 million VND. His family has never had to sell it because from the 15th to the 20th of Tet, peach traders come to order at the garden, beautiful peach branches are ordered several months in advance.

Peach garden of Mr. Toan's family in Nam Anh (Nam Dan).

Quite far from Toan's house is the peach garden of Phan Tat Duong's family. This is also the family with the longest experience in growing peach trees in Nam Anh with nearly 100 peach trees, divided into two gardens. Duong said that, in the past, his grandfather in Quy Hop gave him a peach tree to plant for Tet for fun. Unexpectedly, the soil here is suitable for beautiful peach trees, no different from those in the mountains. From the place where peaches were only used to give to relatives, now he has a rather impressive "property" of peaches for customers to choose from. In addition to the Vietnamese peach tree, in the past few years he has also traveled to find Laotian rock peach varieties to plant to please "connoisseur" customers. The Vietnamese peach tree blends with the rock peach trees in the garden, hoping that the weather will gradually warm up to show off its spring beauty and find the hands of those who know how to appreciate it.

According to Mr. Tran Van Nam - Head of the Agriculture Department of Nam Anh commune, currently the whole commune has about 150 households growing peaches. Depending on the circumstances, some grow a little, some grow a lot, but compared to peaches in other regions, peaches in Nam Anh are often "pure", easy to grow, and rarely have crop failures. Therefore, if a family only grows about a dozen peach trees, they will have a considerable amount of money during Tet. This is only a side job, not requiring much effort, so in recent years people have spontaneously grown a lot and have increasingly affirmed their economic efficiency. Peach traders often choose Nam Anh peaches or other types of Vietnamese peaches that are abundant in Nghia Dan, Quynh Luu, and Quy Hop because they rarely suffer losses. Like last Tet, due to the prolonged cold weather, when wild peaches and rock peaches could not bloom, Vietnamese peach trees "reigned" because they had many leaves, buds, and flowers.

However, to talk about valuable peach trees, it must be the wild peach variety, with characteristics of rough trunk and branches, natural shape, large flowers, thick petals, long-lasting, often found in Ky Son, even across to Laos, up to Sa Pa and the provinces of the Northwest. For experienced traders, if lucky enough to find a good product, just one peach tree can "earn forty times the capital". As for wild peach trees, we must mention Nghi An (Nghi Loc), because two-thirds of the peaches present in the Vinh market near Tet are supplied by people from this region. Currently, more than half of the communes in this area trade in Lao peaches, most of them in hamlet 3. There are not a few "lucky" traders, such as Mr. Nhi, Mr. Truyen, Mr. Tuan, Mr. Khoa.

“Talking about peach trading, there are many happy and sad stories. But the most exciting ones are the trips to the Northwest or across the border to Laos to “hunt” for wild peaches. To prepare for a shipment, it takes at least a week and usually you have to go in groups to avoid danger” – Mr. Le Cuong, hamlet 3, Nghi An commune, one of the people with many years of experience traveling to Noong Het (Xieng Khouang - Laos) confided. Peach trading in each period also has different “difficulties”. In the past, there were a lot of peaches, so around the 20th of Tet people started to set off. Peaches were easy to buy at that time, so people only took money for big peach branches, and they gave them away for free. However, at that time the roads were difficult to travel, and renting a car was also difficult, so not many people were interested. Now that the roads are open and the border crossing between the two countries is convenient, not only Nghe An peach traders but also traders in the northern provinces also go to Laos to look for peaches. Therefore, to hunt for big, beautiful peach trees, people like Mr. Cuong have to go into remote villages, in some places "when seeing cars, the whole village comes out to see" to be lucky enough to find one. The price of a peach branch is not as cheap as before and people have learned to "bargain", if you hesitate, someone else will "grab" it - Mr. Cuong continued. Peach trees in Laos are not sold by branch like in Vietnam, but are sold in bundles, the locals pay whatever price they set, there is no right to choose. Therefore, in a bundle of peach trees, sometimes there are only a few beautiful branches left, the rest are unlucky and all you have to do is "firewood".

In 2012, Mr. Cuong could be considered lucky because he sold a peach branch for 45 million VND, but the whole Nghi An commune last year was a bad year and the loss was estimated at 5-7 billion VND - Mr. Dang Minh Ngan (village 3) said. The reason for this loss was because last year it was cold and the peach blossoms bloomed late. Many families spent tens of millions of VND buying peaches thinking that they would bloom by Tet, but no matter how close to Tet they "pushed", the peaches remained as bare as logs. Even Mr. Ngan's three children, with many years of experience, only the eldest son "won", the rest all lost millions. The surprising thing is that although the peach trade is a risky business, and depends on the weather, whether they won or lost last year, people are not discouraged. In the new year, Nghi An people are excited again, gathering all their capital to continue trading peaches. Students also take advantage of this time to go home to work extra, each peach branch sold can earn them from 50,000 to 100,000 VND.

Thanks to the "hard work" with the spring flowers, peach blossoms sometimes do not fail people. According to the people, the highest record in Nghi An is a peach tree worth 60 million VND, sold by Mr. Nghinh to a "rich man" in Vinh last year, and peach trees costing about 30 or 40 million VND are available every year. Long-time peach traders who have many beautiful and unique peach trees do not have to go to the flower market to sell, but as soon as the goods arrive, connoisseurs will automatically come looking for them. The pleasure of selling peach blossoms is finding a soul mate, for example, if the homeowner and the buyer are compatible and both are in love with the same peach blossom, even if they know the price is cheap, they will let it go. Or sometimes, knowing that the peach blossom is beautiful and unique, but waiting forever still does not find a customer. The joys and sorrows are like that, so peach growers and peach traders have an "addiction" and see it as a way to enjoy spring. So, even though they have to "work from dawn to dusk" in the peach garden, or have to "eat and sleep on the streets" in search of peaches, they still feel optimistic and happy because they can bring spring to every home.

My Ha - Khanh Ly