Chat with Hien Luong

"On the banks of Hien Luong, this afternoon I stood looking back, my eyes filled with love for my homeland, my eyes filled with love for my homeland..."Yes, standing now at Hien Luong wharf, more than forty years after the day musician Hoang Hiep held his mandolin and sang the first song he had just composed.Singing at Hien Luong wharffamous, I feel nostalgic. Even though it is just the nostalgia of a little boy at that time. After the day of total victory, there was a wedding procession across Hien Luong bridge, poet Canh

Southern Mothers Monument in the Relic Site Hien Luong Bridge

Tea was moved and wrote these verses:
"...The bridge was just built, the paint was still fresh.
The green banks of new rice have just opened their ears.
Watching the two families cross the bridge with tears in my eyes
But happy and joyful like a group of children
Vinh Linh boy marries Cua Cam Lo girl
The river is bustling with love couples
The wind blows and the waves lap at the foot of the bridge
The old folk song makes my heart ache..."

I looked at the river, the river still flowed murmuring...

Who knows, long ago, when Ly Thuong Kiet rode his horse to the South to draw the map of Dai Viet, the northernmost region of the Fatherland, at which part of the Hien Luong River did he wade? At that time, was the river like it is now, with murmuring waves following the south and south currents from Cua Tung? But since then, the Hien Luong River has been lying gently on the map of Dai Viet, a small, thin river... When he drew the last stroke on the red silk to carve the shape of the Hien Luong River, he probably could not have imagined that after many centuries, that small, thin river would still have to immerse itself in many wars, fire and smoke, human blood staining the river red...

Thousands of years ago, the Cham people, who were originally residents of this land, had to move inland according to an agreement between the two states of Champa and Dai Viet. (Princess Huyen Tran followed her husband to a foreign land, and this land also began a tragic love story...). In the new land, the Cham people could not stop missing their homeland, so they crossed the Hien Luong River to return to their old place. On this side, the Vietnamese from Nghe An, Thanh Hoa... came to build houses, plant rice, and so the fighting broke out!... Historical records show that corpses flooded the Hien Luong River, and for several days they could not float to Cua Tung beach.... This happened for many years, after which the Cham people stopped crossing the Hien Luong River... It seems that the grief has permeated the folk songs of the Vietnamese people in this area. It is said thatNam Ai(in the folk songs of Binh-Tri-Thien) is the sorrowful cry of the Cham people that was transformed and refined by the Vietnamese. Much later, poet Che Lan Vien (real name Phan Ngoc Hoan, from Cam Lo district, Quang Tri) wrote his first collection of poems mourning the Cham people and the royal and magnificent kingdom. That is the collection "Molder".

During the Trinh-Nguyen conflict (17th century), Hien Luong River became a chaotic battlefield. Wives lost their husbands, mothers lost their children,Swords and spears fell all over the ground....

Hien Luong Bridge

During the war of national defense at the end of the 20th century, the Hien Luong River became a knife wound, many families were devastated, many people died. The Vietnamese people were in pain, always looking from this side of the river to the other side of the Hien Luong river...

I grew up when that brutal war was coming to an end. A group of people crossed the river on a moonless night in 1973, on a temporary pontoon bridge built by engineers. At that time, the Paris Agreement had come into effect, the temporary military demarcation line was moved to the Thach Han River, 35 km from Hien Luong, separating the Revolutionary Government of the South on one side and the puppet regime in Saigon on the other. There were so many people crossing the river, I opened my eyes wide to look over my mother's shoulder, groups of people, convoys of green vehicles, long cannons were constantly crossing the bridge. A Be-lay iron bridge with 894 planks, in the middle of the bridge was a white sand painted line. That line (like the 17th parallel) took more than twenty years for the Vietnamese to cross...

During the days of taking to the streets to fight for the unification of the two regions of the Hue student movement, writer Hoang Phu Ngoc Tuong once swam with his friends to the middle of the Hien Luong River, hugged the bridge pillar, took a sip of water and shouted loudly: "Peace for Vietnam! Peace for Vietnam!". Then, Hoang returned to Hue, jumped into the forest to fight the resistance... At the same time, on the northern bank, there was a Hanoi writer named Nguyen Tuan who traveled from the mountains and forests of the Northwest, the Quynh Nhai coal mine, and Co To island straight to Vinh Linh. Taking a sip of hot pepper, Nguyen traveled all over the "Demilitarized Zone" to meet mothers, grandmothers, and comrades in the border army to ask questions and take notes. Then, Nguyen devoted his life to pages of literature filled with burning resentment towards the Americans and Diem who had the heart to divide the two banks, so heartbreaking! What sin did the Hien Luong Bridge commit that no one ever crossed it?".

Lantern night on Hien Luong river

I remember Long, my friend who sacrificed his life in Truong Sa sea in 1989. Every time I go to sea, I remember Long, the East Sea is also soaked with Long's blood... Long, that is the boy from Di Loan village...

During the fierce war, the people of Vinh Linh, on the border, had to bear the brunt of bullets and bombs. Each person "received" eight tons of bombs and bullets of all kinds. Then the people of Thanh, Nghe... came here to share the hardships. In the afternoon, they quickly ate a bowl of rice mixed with cassava and sweet potatoes, and at night, they crossed the river to Gio Linh, Cua Viet to attack the enemy's fort. If they were fast, they would return the next morning; if they were slow, they would take a few meals, but they never returned in full. Some people died, and I only felt sorry for the boatman and the liaison officer who transported the troops back and forth, and every time they asked: "Why are you only this old?". They asked the same thing every time, but no one could answer. Oh my, sometimes the sacrifices were so necessary, so great, but why were they so difficult to answer! They looked at the river... The river remembers this story... Then came the tumultuous year in Truong Sa, blood was shed again, my friend Long lay down and transformed into the ocean like the Vinh Linh people transformed into the red soil of Ba-gian, so that every time people come here, walk on this land, they feel their feet burning hot, as if there were swords and spears stuck into the ground...

For a long time I lived on Cua Tung beach, where the 17th parallel begins to touch the East Sea. My house is located right on the old foundation of the Cua Tung Joint Post, opposite the Cat Son police station on the old South bank. From here, looking over there every morning, you can see white sand and green poplars. Cat Son people go to Do market and wait for the ferry on the gentle and affectionate tongue of sand: "Oh, what adoor nailThis year has been so long, huh?". The door's foundation is the tongue of sand, that gentle and affectionate sandbar. Each season it is different, so the mouth of the Hien Luong River is sometimes wide, sometimes narrow. The tongue of sand has imprinted the footprints of soldiers from both sides who took turns guarding in the past according to the "Demilitarized Zone" regulations. The writer Nguyen Tuan saw this scene:"Every day the tide of Cua Tung beach rises, erasing the footprints of two soldiers from two regimes imprinted on the sand of both banks."The impartial, generous and benevolent nature has naturally erased... That is the will of nature! Ultimately, it is the will of the People!

Cua Tung, where the river is the border Hien Luong flows into the sea.

On the banks of Hien Luong, there is a poor mother who sits every night in a basement under the red light of a kerosene lamp, patching the national flag. The flag is 108 square meters wide, very heavy, very wide, yet the mother works diligently to keep the flag intact and flying on the top of the 34.5 meter high flagpole, so that the people of the South bank, every morning when they go to the river to fetch water, can see that the North is very close, Uncle Ho is very close and the day of reunification will come...! To show the enemy that their bombs and bullets cannot destroy it... The mother is Nguyen Thi Diem from Hien Luong village, Vinh Thanh commune.

In 1992, exhausted, mother told her children and grandchildren: "When I die, fly and let me lie outside Con, there is a spacious place... When the government rebuilds the Hien Luong Flagpole, let me see..." Mother Diem's ​​children and grandchildren did exactly as she wished. When the Hien Luong Bridge monument complex is completed, mother will be satisfied to see the flag as big as her old flag... The bright red flag will spread to where mother lies, the flag's shadow will be reflected on Hien Luong river. Mother, please believe that, mother..."

This April marks 33 years since the Fatherland was completely restored from North to South. The Hien Luong Bridge was inaugurated in April 1999, a modern bridge, constructed using extrusion technology, with a wide, flat bridge surface. At night, high-pressure lights light up a stretch of the river. And on the other side, there is still an iron bridge built in 1974, after the Paris Agreement. The two bridges, a stretch of the river, only a few meters apart, both cast their shadows on the Hien Luong River, and converge on the North bank in a bold V shape...

April noon is hot, Lao wind blows strongly from Truong Son, but there is still a splendid wedding procession crossing the bridge. Weddings this season are difficult, but... that is love! I remember the old wedding exactly 33 years ago, the wedding that poet Canh Tra coincidentally followed the bride's stream... And the wedding ten centuries ago, Huyen Tran passed away, leaving behind the land of O Ly with endless memories!...

Alas, the history of a river begins with love stories...

Article and photos: TRAN HOAI