Having got off a coach, I decided to sit on the pavement for a while before walking home. It was about 4:30 a.m. There was not much traffic on village roads. I felt sort of safer in black clothes though I was alone. Perhaps the tranquility and fresh air here comforted me a lot. I took a careful and quick look around and was surprised that the whole small town looked no difference in its shape except for changes in residents' houses, a bit more modern, but diverse in size and architecture design. The darkness didn't want any sunlight to change its place, so pale brightness from streetlights were not strong enough for local people to travel on streets. Bikers sometimes broke the quietness with juicy gossips and lights attached on their bikes were always on.
"Set yourself free. Walk and enjoy what is called the purest and most peaceful ever."
Totally covered with a thick layer of gray tar, the road pushed my feet forward in a high speed. The sky was spotted with faint stars and they were disappearing. There seemed to be no certain border of colors even though it leads our view to the horizon line. A typical landscape in the central south plain surrounded by ranges of mountains extending endlessly, blanked with brown and fair color of straw roots as another harvest has already finished. The sun began to come up in hope that it would be a shining day. Harvested rice were ready to be spread out on all concrete and asphalt roads. Concrete roads are considered to be much more adsorbent and better in drying rice by using the heat of the sun. Sunshine in the past became a crucial part of traditional rice storage which was cheap and convenient for local farmers to lower their productivity costs.
A concrete road in a town in Binh Dinh Province
All could be seen were rice paddies with straw roots, wild grass and water. In a bird's eye view, they looked like a large carpet, weaved from strips in different shades of green and yellow. Sometimes a herd of water buffaloes grazing new fresh straw at dusk colored the carpet with some black as a sign of living things.
Harvested rice fields by dawn
Children here never let field be lonely. As soon as a nearby paddy has done its main job, it will be used for another recreational purpose- a playground where children play a lot of folk games in. Nowadays, football becomes more popular than others. Rice harvest season is known as the busiest but also most enjoyable. The elder didn't want to stay in and were eager to head out in the fields so that they could pick up grains dropped or stuck in rice stalks. Many a little makes a mickle. My grandma could collect a big sack of rice by herself.
Twenty minutes flew by. I was at home then. I took my first steps through the gate and was in surprise that the house was surrounded by brick wall hedges or metal fences. My house was not a case. Our neighbors did the same thing which could be a trend at that moment. Brick wall hedges and metal fences are probably working well in solving problems of estate disputes, but also beautify the village. Those days, rice weren't still dried, so most of roads were busy and crowded. My mom had enough time for pick-up-me breakfast and she bought a wrap of hot sticky rice. The ingredients and the flavor were exactly like those in the past but a plastic bag. Banana leaves used to be our first and only choice many years ago, but now it's another story.
Being tired after a long day on a coach, I lay down on bed and took a nap then. As a dusk fell, we began to collect and put all sun - dried rice into plastic sacks before delivering them home for storage. This stage is as hard as others. Normally, each household gets a large amount of rice to be dried on roads, spreading for a long road. As a result, it takes us at least two hours to finish and it also depends on number of labor. These days, flying kites are still one of rural children's favorite hobbies, but kites have been evolved into a variety of sizes, shapes and materials. Most importantly, children themselves no longer try to learn how to make a kite from recycled materials. Over the past ten years, my friendly neighbors and I often came together to the fields and watched others fly their old paper kites and ride buffalos in the fields. We did a great job to make big kites, but never succeeded in rising them up to the sky despite doing our best many times. Anyway, it's put into a little corner of my mind as something funny to retell about.
The sky at dusk
When the darkness came, the moon went up high as an only huge flashlight hung in the sky. Today was a clear day, so we decided to sit down on the front yard and played a counting game. It was no doubt that children here were quite good at counting stars. The dark didn't stop us from trying another game: hide-and-seek. It was fun, but dangerous too because sort of things like snakes can drive someone into danger.
A few days before I moved back to Ho Chi Minh City for work, I heard from my neighbors that local authorities are planning to convert a half of the field into residential area. The countryside will be urbanized soon, resulting in what we might guess - the vanishing of customs, habits, rituals and beliefs related to wet rice cultivation.
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