A conversation with Hien Luong

"Standing by the banks of Hien Luong River this afternoon, gazing towards home, my eyes filled with longing for my homeland, my eyes overflowing with love for my homeland..."Yes, even now, standing by Hien Luong wharf, more than forty years have passed since musician Hoang Hiep embraced his mandolin and sang his first newly composed song.Folk songs by Hien Luong wharfFamous, I felt a pang of nostalgia. Even if it was just the nostalgia of a young boy at that time. After the day of complete victory, there was a wedding procession crossing the Hien Luong bridge, the poet Canh

The Monument to the Southern Mother in the grounds of the historical site. Hien Luong Bridge

Tea was so moved that she wrote these verses:
"...The bridge has just been built, the paint is still fresh."
The banks are green with newly formed rice plants bearing ears of grain.
Watching the two families cross the bridge brought tears to my eyes.
And they were as happy and joyful as little children.
A young man from Vinh Linh marries a girl from Cua Cam Lo.
The river flows joyfully, watching the loving couple.
The wind gently blows, the waves lap against the base of the bridge.
"And the old folk song still tugs at my heartstrings..."

I looked at the river; it was still flowing softly...

It is unknown where, long ago, when Ly Thuong Kiet rode his horse south to map Dai Viet in the northernmost region of the country, he crossed the Hien Luong River. Was the river as it is now, murmuring and rippling with the southerly and easterly winds blowing from Cua Tung? But since then, the Hien Luong River has lay peacefully within the map of Dai Viet, a small, slender river... When he put the final brushstroke on the red silk depicting the shape of the Hien Luong River, he surely could not have imagined that after many centuries, that small, slender river would still be engulfed in countless wars and conflicts, its waters stained red with human blood...

Thousands of years ago, the Champa people, who were originally inhabitants of this land, were forced to relocate inland according to an agreement between the Champa and Dai Viet states. (Princess Huyen Tran followed her husband to a foreign land, and this land also began a tragic love story...). In this new land, the Champa people, longing for their homeland, crossed the Hien Luong River to return to their old home. On this side, the Vietnamese from Nghe An, Thanh Hoa... came to build houses, cultivate rice, and thus battles broke out!... Ancient records state that corpses filled the Hien Luong River, unable to float out to sea at Cua Tung for several days.... This happened for many years, and after that, the Champa people stopped crossing the Hien Luong River... It seems that this sorrow has deeply permeated the folk songs of the Vietnamese people in this region. People say thatNam Ai(In the folk songs of Binh-Tri-Thien) it is the mournful cry of the Cham people, which the Vietnamese have transformed and refined. Much later, the poet Che Lan Vien (real name Phan Ngoc Hoan, from Cam Lo district, Quang Tri province) wrote his first collection of poems mourning the Cham people and their magnificent and glorious kingdom. That is the collection "Molder".

During the Trinh-Nguyen civil war (17th century), the Hien Luong River once again became a chaotic battlefield. Wives lost husbands, mothers lost sons.Swords and spears lay scattered all over the land...

Hien Luong Bridge

During the patriotic war at the end of the 20th century, the Hien Luong River became a dividing line, devastating countless families and claiming countless lives. The Vietnamese people were heartbroken, their hearts aching as they looked from one bank to the other, across to the Hien Luong River...

I grew up as that brutal war was drawing to a close. A group of people crossed the river on a moonless night in 1973, on a makeshift pontoon bridge built by the military engineers. By then, the Paris Agreement had come into effect, and the temporary military demarcation line had been moved to the Thach Han River, 35 km from Hien Luong, separating the revolutionary government of South Vietnam from the Saigon puppet regime. So many people were crossing the river that I watched, peering over my mother's shoulder, as groups of people, convoys of green vehicles, and long cannons streamed across the bridge. It was a Be-lay iron bridge with 894 planks, and a white sand-painted line stretched across the middle. That painted line (like the 17th parallel) took more than twenty years for the Vietnamese to cross...

During the days of the student movement in Hue protesting for the reunification of the two regions, writer Hoang Phu Ngoc Tuong once swam with his friends to the middle of the Hien Luong River, embraced the bridge's pillars, took a sip of water, and shouted: "Peace for Vietnam! Peace for Vietnam!" Afterward, Hoang returned to Hue and joined the resistance in the jungle... Around the same time, on the northern bank, the Hanoi writer Nguyen Tuan traveled from the mountains and forests of the Northwest, the Quynh Nhai coal mine, and Co To Island all the way to Vinh Linh. Savoring a spicy peppercorn, Nguyen went throughout the "Demilitarized Zone," meeting mothers, aunts, uncles, and comrades in the border troops, interviewing them and taking notes. Then, Nguyen dedicated his life to writing pages filled with burning resentment against the Americans and Diem who heartlessly divided the two sides of the river – how heartbreaking! "What sin did the Hien Luong bridge commit that no one ever crossed it?"

Lantern Festival Night on Hien Luong River

I remember Long, my friend who sacrificed his life at sea in the Truong Sa Islands in 1989. Every time I go to sea, I remember Long; the East Sea is stained with Long's blood... Long, he was a young man from Di Loan village...

During the fierce war, the people of Vinh Linh on the front line bore the brunt of bombs and bullets. It's estimated that each person "took" eight tons of bombs and ammunition of all kinds. Then there were the people from Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, and other provinces who shared the same hardships. They would hastily eat a bowl of rice mixed with cassava and sweet potatoes in the evening, then cross the river at night to Gio Linh and Cua Viet to attack enemy outposts. If they were quick, they would return here the next morning; if they were slow, it would take a few days, but never all returned. Some perished, and I only feel sorry for the boatman and the messenger who always asked, "Why are there only this many left, sir?" They always asked the same question, but no one could answer. Oh dear, sometimes such sacrifices are necessary, so great, yet so difficult to answer! They looked at the river... The river remembers this story... Then came that turbulent year in Truong Sa, blood was shed again, my friend Long fell and transformed into the sea like the people of Vinh Linh transformed into the red basalt soil, so that whenever people come here, walk on this land, they feel their feet burning hot, as if swords and spears are stuck into the ground...

For a long time I lived on the Cua Tung beach, the place where the 17th parallel begins to touch the East Sea. My house was located right on the old foundations of the Cua Tung Joint Post, opposite the old Cat Son police station on the southern bank. From here, looking across to the other side every morning, I could see the white sand and the green casuarina trees. The people of Cat Son, going to the Do market, would stand waiting for the ferry on that gentle, charming stretch of sand: "Oh, how beautiful that place is!"door foundation"It's stretched out so much this year, hasn't it?" The main entrance is the sand dune, that gentle, graceful sandbar. Each season it changes, so the Hien Luong estuary is sometimes wide, sometimes narrow. This sand dune bears the footprints of soldiers from both sides who took turns guarding it in the old days according to the "Demilitarized Zone" regulations. The writer Nguyen Tuan witnessed this scene:"Every day, the tide rises at Cua Tung beach, erasing the footprints of the two soldiers from two different regimes imprinted on the river sands of both banks."Nature, in its impartiality, generosity, and kindness, has implicitly erased it... That is the will of nature! Ultimately, it is the will of the People!

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

On the banks of the Hien Luong River, a poor mother sits in her makeshift shelter under the dim red light of a kerosene lamp, mending the national flag. The flag, 108 square meters in size, is heavy and vast, yet she diligently and tirelessly ensures it remains intact, flying proudly atop the 34.5-meter-high flagpole. This allows the people on the South bank, each morning as they fetch water from the river, to see the North so close, President Ho Chi Minh so near, and the day of reunification to come…! To show the enemy that their bombs and bullets cannot destroy it… Mother Nguyen Thi Diem lives in Hien Luong village, Vinh Thanh commune.

In 1992, with her strength failing, Mother Diem instructed her children and grandchildren: "When I die, you must bury me outside Con, that place is spacious... When the State rebuilds the Hien Luong Flagpole, so I can see it..." Mother Diem's ​​wishes were fulfilled by her children and grandchildren. When the Hien Luong Bridge monument complex is completed, she will be able to gaze upon a flag as large as the one she used to fly... The bright red flag will reach where she lies, its shadow will be reflected in the Hien Luong River. Mother, please believe that..."

This April marks 33 years since the reunification of Vietnam from North to South. The new Hien Luong Bridge, inaugurated in April 1999, is a modern bridge constructed using push-casting technology. Its wide, smooth surface illuminates a section of the river at night, thanks to the bright streetlights. And on the other side, there remains the old iron bridge built in 1974, after the Paris Agreement. The two bridges, on the same stretch of river, separated by only a few meters, cast their reflections onto the Hien Luong River, their ends converging towards the northern bank to form a distinct V-shape...

On a scorching April midday, with the hot, dry winds blowing from the Truong Son Mountains, a magnificent procession of wedding cars still crossed the bridge. Weddings in this season are certainly arduous, but... that's love! It brings back memories of a wedding from exactly 33 years ago, a wedding that the poet Canh Tra coincidentally followed along with the procession... And that wedding ten centuries ago, when Huyen Tran departed, leaving behind the land of O Ly, forever remembered with longing!

Oh dear, the history of a river begins with love stories...

Text and photos: TRAN HOAI