Vinh Tuy - a memory not too far away...

(Baonghean) - My village, Vinh Tuy village - a charming land of Vinh Thanh commune (Yen Thanh). The word Vinh Tuy, according to Mr. Dao Luong Thien, a Confucian scholar in the village, means "a firm handhold". He said: Just imagine the village as a giant; the left hand "thanh long" is placed on Thap hill, the right hand "bach ho" is placed on Dot hill, eyes looking towards "chau tuoc" which is Dong Tho mountain, the back leans on "huyen vu" Vinh Tuy hill, in front of the eyes is the immense Roc Cua lake. That is the place where all the advantages of feng shui of mountains and rivers converge.

People who come to Vinh Tuy, first of all, want to visit Vinh hill in the North of the village, like a wall blocking the Northeast monsoon wind. The book "Nghe An Ky" by Mr. Bui Duong Lich calls the mountain "Ky Son" (because it looks like a flag). Legend has it that at first the hill was called "Hung Son" (Bung hill), then a mandarin passed by and saw that the word "Hung" was not very beautiful, so he changed it to Van Son (Van mountain), the mountain has all the shapes of the four sacred animals: dragon, unicorn, turtle, phoenix, with many caves. To the East of the village is Van Son Tu (Van Son pagoda), the scenery is beautiful, unfortunately after the land reform until the 90s of the last century, the hill was destroyed by nearly half. In the hill, during the excavation in 1961, Nghe An Department of Culture found stone axes, bronze objects, ancient ceramic pieces; a very large fossilized human skull. In the following years, the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology expanded the scope of the search and found many ancient stone objects, with a fairly dense density, on the top of Ru Muou hill, located east of Vinh Tuy village.

A corner of Vinh Tuy village. Photo: Duc Chuyen

Perhaps in ancient times, Vinh village was also the place where Han Dynasty Taoists practiced. Ancient jars of money from the Three Kingdoms period, to the Chinese emperors, are abundant in Vinh Tuy land, along with legends about fairies, women in flat hats, white pigs, golden cows... circulating among the people.

According to the documents left behind, the village may have begun to form in the early Tran Dynasty. The village was once very prosperous, with the silkworm raising and weaving trades. When I grew up, the silkworm raising trade no longer existed, but the honey making trade was thriving. The whole village grew sugarcane, lush and green; when the cold harvest season came, the sugarcane was piled high, transported by ox-tired carts, Kien An carts, cleaned, and gathered together to cover the sugarcane. The honey covers were giant logs, carved with interlocking saw teeth, pulled in a circular motion by the force of two buffaloes, people put sugarcane in the covers, squeezed to let the water flow out, and piled up the sugarcane residue, fragrant. At night, the fire was bright, the whole village gathered together to cook honey, when the honey was ripe, it was bottled, jarred, and the children scraped the pans, eating the thick honey that stuck in the pans was enough to fill their stomachs. After the honey, it was tobacco season. The village grows a large field, in harvest season, the least number of houses have a few pots of tobacco, the most number have their yard and gate covered with dried tobacco… The villagers borrow workers to cut the tobacco, cook porridge, inject it to increase the stickiness and smoothness of the tobacco, dry it in dew, in the sun, make cakes, put it in jars, and bring it to the mountains to sell near Tet. Sometimes, selling just a few jars of tobacco can build a big house! Then comes the areca harvest season. Areca is grown in the whole village, in the cool shade, when the season comes, the areca is picked, split, dried in the sun, dew, the areca is dry and crispy, put in jars, covered with banana leaves, and only when the price is right can they be sold. When they have free time, the elderly and the young follow the craft of weaving baskets, trays, winnowing, winnowing, winnowing, and bamboo trays; To have beautiful designs, the villagers also welcome artisans from other places to come and feed them, mainly to learn their craft. Typical among them is artisan Tran Khac Nhoan (1890 - 1984), from Phu Huu village (Nhan Thanh commune), where the weaving profession is famous and respected by the villagers.

On bright moonlit nights, villagers gathered around Roc Cua to catch the wind, to welcome the moon and tell stories of mandarins. Perhaps few villages at that time had as many people telling stories of mandarins as my hometown. Mr. Do, Mr. Le, Mr. Tuat were all excellent storytellers, but the most outstanding were the stories of Mr. Truyen Trien - the master of humor and appeal. After laughing at the stories of mandarins, they turned to read the poems of Mrs. Cat and the late Cuon, two famous "folk poets" of the village. If the late Cuon was lyrical: "Our village is really crowded/ There is a virtuous woman who has just been given a dragon/ Inside, we see the shadow of a dragon/ On all sides, clouds cover two rows of turtles/ Afternoon returns to the land of Vinh Tuy/ Inside the temple, outside the well, elephants kneel on one side/ Thanks to the grace of the old superiors/ Peace and prosperity will last for thousands of years"; then Mrs. Cat satirized: "Having turned the kitchen chopsticks/ Uniting lips and spoons/ We are full and have won the battle" ...

But the most impressive thing is the drum performance on moonlit nights! The general director of the opera is veteran Tran Xuan Linh, who has the merit of restoring village opera, director and choreographer.

More than ten years later, one afternoon while I was sleeping, by chance from the neighbor's transistor radio, an excerpt of a play was heard, in the role of People's Artist Dam Lien; it woke me up; "Oh husband... the waves are crashing at the Tung gate/ The country is righteousness, is love, oh love..." the lyrics were heartbreaking, my tears flowed, I remembered Mr. Tran Xuan Linh before he passed away, he was worried about one thing, the play troupe had really "died", died because of the negative side of the market economy, because of the chaos in the world, the talented actors of the village at that time, almost all gone; Who will restore the village play? Or is it just a thing of the past.... Then suddenly I felt afraid, afraid that the villagers and their descendants would no longer know how to tell stories, sing Vi Dam and forget the sound of the play... But perhaps that source of culture will not be lost, because my village is a studious village, a "teacher village" (speaking impolitely), the number of teachers from preschool to university level is strong; On November 20, Tet holiday, my village is filled with students returning to fulfill their duty of "respecting their teachers"; famous in the past were Mr. Cu, Mr. Han, Mr. Tong, until later Mr. Duong, Mr. Phiet, Mr. Lien, Mr. Tran The, later generations had Mr. Tran Long, Dao Luong Thien, Tran Tat Cang, Tran Tieu... there were Dr. Dao Hieu (University of Mining and Geology), Dao Khang (Associate Professor, Doctor, former Head of the Department of Geography, Vinh University); Associate Professor, Doctor Tran Viet (University of Water Resources)...

....In short, it is a village of teachers, a village with many people working as journalists, poets, writers, and painters; with many artists, the village still lives peacefully; perhaps that is why the village also has many things that are difficult to do elsewhere: such as being the pioneer in writing village history, writing secondary school history; collecting village poems and literature, renovating and embellishing temples, pagodas, communal houses; Co Da temple and Vinh Tuy pagoda (Van Son Tu) are two important spiritual projects built mainly by donated money... It seems that in any era, Vinh Tuy people are more prominent than the world: In the agricultural cooperative movement of the North in the 60s of the last century; Vinh Tuy and Vinh Thanh had a brilliant highlight, welcoming Uncle Ho to visit on December 10, 1961, Uncle went to Vinh Tuy Nursery, went to Mrs. May's house, commended the typical examples...

Then, in the years 1972 - 1982, Nghe An Department of Education also took the land of Con Ram, where Vinh Thanh Secondary School was located, to build a typical Bac Ly - Cam Binh village of Nghe An, so that later the village would have a series of doctors, associate professors, engineers, doctors, artists...

I miss the smell of molasses, the scent of green tea, the stories of the mandarins, the smell of betel and areca nuts, and the moonlit nights by the pond, filled with laughter and the sound of drums. Oh Vinh Tuy - "a firm handrail" for many generations of people to rely on Him; Vinh Tuy ancient village - a "village connecting villages of our country Vietnam!".

Tran Ngoc Khanh

(Vinh Thanh Secondary School - Yen Thanh)