CONG HUYEN TON NU NHA TRANG
A BOWL OF RICE IN WARTIME ©
“The August Revolution of 1945 led by the Viet Minh, the 'Vietnamese Independence Brotherhood League', disrupted eighty years of French domination. Most major cities and various northern and central provinces, including our province of Khanh Hoa and its capital city, Nha Trang, became free from French control. But our people did not enjoy freedom and independence for long.” Thus, often, was stated the historical setting of a memorable part of our family saga. Usually my mother was the story teller, my younger siblings the audience.
According to Mother, from August 25, like all inhabitants of Nha Trang, my family lived under a Resistance Committee, and later a Provisional Liberation Committee set up by the Viet Minh. But soon, on September 23, with the support of British troops, the French colonialists opened fire in their move to re-occupy Saigon and expand the war to southern and south central Vietnam. In face of the French offensive, people in Nha Trang were ordered by the Committee to evacuate the town and move north toward the four provinces between Nha Trang and Hue, referred to by their shortened combined name as Nam Ngai Binh Phu, 'Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, and Phu Yen'. These provinces were still firmly controlled by the Viet Minh.
My family fled north and stayed in four villages, Xuan Lac, Luong Son, Ninh Hoa, and Lac An, before reaching An Ngai village in Binh Dinh province in November of 1945. This was where Mother's elder brother, uncle Nguyen Huu Loc, and his family took refuge at the house of one of his former students. By that time, my parents had along the way sold all the valuables they possessed, lugging with them only a couple of mosquito nets, thin blankets, and two sets of clothing for each member of the family. There were then five of us: my paternal grandmother, my parents, my younger sister Diem who was almost two years old, and myself, Trang, who was four. My uncle's student did not mind having us stay in his house too.
Like my uncle, Father could not find any job. Instead, he was asked by the local Village Administrative Committee to help as a volunteer with the Information and Propaganda Section and to assist with evening classes providing basic education for the masses. After five months, my parents decided to move on to Hue, not wanting our family to remain a great burden to my uncle and his family who were also in dire circumstances.
We reached Hue in May of 1946, and stayed for a little while in the village of Vi Da, Father's birth place, at the edge of town, where Father and I were able to get some medical attention, as both of us suffered from malaria acquired in Binh Dinh. Father was still unemployed, and the family was penniless. His numerous relatives, of the Nguyen royal lineage, were like lost souls caught in a time of tremendous turmoil, and were in no position to help us out.
Having no choice, my family again moved and stayed with Grandmother's relatives in a village called Xuan Hoa, about 3 kilometers from Hue. Mother, one month pregnant, had to resort to traveling on foot 6 kilometers a day to and from Hue, where she collected goods from her friends' retail stores and sold them in the market for small profits to support the family. After five months of such an ordeal, when she had become quite heavy, Grandmother and Father agreed that Mother had to stop and nurse her health and that of the baby in her womb. Consequently, in November of 1946, my parents left Grandmother in the care of her nieces and nephews in Xuan Hoa, and took my sister and me to the village of Duong No where an old couple remotely related to my mother welcomed us to their humble home.
We had been there for only a month when fighting broke out in Hanoi and Hai Phong between French and Viet Minh soldiers, and spread to Hue on the 19th of December. The Viet Minh withdrew from the city and the people had to look out for themselves. To the village of Mau Tai we fled, only to find that people with enough money had hired boats and sampans to go further north to Quang Tri and beyond, where the Resistance Committee was still in control. Having no money left to join the crowd, and facing the fact that Mother was soon expecting a baby, we took a chance and stayed where we were.
In February of 1947, French troops came to Mau Tai village and forced evacuees to return to the city of Hue. A few people resisted the order and were shot. For the sake of their daughters and for the baby yet to be born, my parents had no choice but to head back to Hue. Grandmother joined us, and we all returned to the village of Vi Da where we were put up by a poor relative of Father's in his thatched house near Phuoc Hue pagoda.
“Now, you understand why we were running. And this is the story I am going to share with you,” Mother would stress.
Mother had sold her last piece of gold jewelry while we were still running, and only had some good pieces of clothing given to her by friends while we were in Xuan Hoa. She exchanged them for rice. With a limited amount of grain, we had often to make do with watery gruel instead of the more solid steamed rice. But we could not complain, seeing that we were luckier than many other people around us. Nights and days, the cries of hungry children and the laments of old people at their miserable fate were heard, rending the heart.
Amidst all this misery, in the first week of March, 1947, Mother was in labor. Father escorted her to a private maternity run by the wife of Mr. Trang Dinh, a man from the lineage of Crown Prince Canh, Emperor Gia Long's eldest son. Mr. and Mrs. Trang Dinh had just returned to Hue two days earlier from the evacuation of the previous December, and had not had time to fix up the maternity, which was full of dust and garbage and without electric lights. A small kerosene lamp was lonely in its effort to drive away the darkness spreading over a row of unoccupied rooms, save for the one given to Mother. Darkness and quietness inspired a vision of hungry ghosts and snakes and centipedes. But Mother's mind had no room for fear of such images.
What worried her a great deal was where she would get money to pay the midwife, to buy rice for her frail mother-in-law, for her sick husband and two little daughters, and to care for the baby on its way. Mother was admitted to the maternity early in the evening and gave birth to my brother Chu, nicknamed Duyen, around midnight. He was such a tiny baby! Weighing only 2.8 kilograms, about 6 pounds. Mother did not have enough milk to nurse him, so Duyen cried all the time.
After being in the maternity for about a week, Mother still could not figure out where to get the money needed to pay Mrs. Trang Dinh, and did not know how to tell her of this circumstance. Mother was quite at a loss for what to do. She racked her brains for a way out. Finally, she thought of Auntie Nga, a one-time good friend of hers whom she had known earlier, who had lived in another part of the city called Ben Ngu, the 'Royal Landing Stage', located about 6 kilometers from where we lodged. She asked Father to go and try to find this friend, to whom she wrote a note asking for assistance.
Father started out at six in the morning, but did not come back around noon as expected. The hours went by and Mother began to worry. She asked Mrs Trang Dinh what date it was, and was told it was Friday, the 13 th of March. Mother secretly lamented: “This is an unlucky day in Western belief. We failed to choose the right day for Trang's father to set out to the city. If he was unlucky, the French looked at his old shirt with many patches, at his shorts, and especially his jaundiced face and suspected that he was a Viet Minh agent coming to the area to spy. Perhaps he has been arrested!” She kept the anxiety to herself and could do nothing but pray.
Around six in the evening, Father finally showed up. He said he had found Auntie Nga in the morning, who had handed him a can of Nestle sweet condensed milk, a box of sugar cubes, and one hundred Indochinese piastres as an emergency relief to help us out for the time being. Auntie promised to pay Mother a visit at the end of the month and provide further assistance. On his way home, when going past the provincial Commissariat building, Father had run into a former friend and colleague. This friend had immediately introduced Father to his boss, the French Vice-Resident. The latter, impressed with Father's impeccable French and his knowledge of administrative matters, had hired him and asked him to start the job on the spot. Father had not come home for lunch, as he would not have made it back to town in time for the afternoon work session. After having had a bowl of noodles at a hawker's stand, he had taken a nap on a bench in the small park nearby, then headed for home only at the end of his first working day.
Mother exchanged the 100 piastres for 180 of the Viet Minh dong still being used in the countryside, which had first been issued in January of 1946. Mother paid the midwife 100 dong when leaving the maternity that same day, and used the rest to buy some rice and kerosene. The rice would have lasted us three days had we had regular meals. But we had to stretch it until Father could borrow some money from his office to buy more. It was decided that each of us would have a bowl of steamed rice for lunch. For dinner, we were to content ourselves with a bowl of liquid rice gruel. Then we would go to bed soon after to sleep off our hunger.
The milk from Mother's breasts was still scanty as a result of this insufficient diet, and Duyen cried all the more when the can of condensed milk grew empty. His crying, mingled with that of other hungry children around us, tore at our hearts. Though having a very good appetite after child birth, Mother had to restrict herself to a bowl of rice for lunch as did everyone else. Grandmother and Father then agreed between themselves that they each would have a scoopful of rice less than their share so that Mother could have a little more for the sake of baby Duyen.
“Oh, such a hard time we had! When your father went to work the next day, he took along with him such a small lunch bag,” Mother would continue the story, her voice slightly shaken by remembered emotions, while her children listened in attentive silence to learn a lesson from the past.
On that same day Father went to work with such a pathetic share of food, at home when lunch was served, I watched intently as Grandmother scooped rice into my bowl. When the bowl was two-thirds full, I asked Grandmother to stop, saying that I was not very hungry and would not be able to eat more than that, and that Mother could have the rest of my share. I finished my meal quickly. Then, gently putting down my chopsticks, I walked to Mother's bed to keep an eye on Duyen in order to relieve Mother so she could eat. I, five-and-a-half years old, had taken this task to be my share of responsibility toward the baby.
“Are you sure you're full?” Grandmother asked.
“Yes, grandmother, I've had enough to eat,” I replied calmly.
For the seven days the rice lasted us, I always had my rice bowl less than full. And every time, when Grandmother asked, “Are you sure you're full?” I never changed the tone in my answer. “Yes, I've had enough to eat, Grandmother.”
Time passed. At the end of his first week of work, on Saturday, Father came home for lunch, as he only had to work half a day. He handed Mother some money and a coupon with which she would be allowed to buy forty kilograms of rice ration at a discount price. Late in the afternoon, Mother went out and came back shortly after with a big burlap bag in a rickshaw. My sister Diem and I were playing in the front yard.
“What's in the bag, Mother?” I asked.
“It's rice, daughter.”
“Is it all ours?”
“Yes, it is,” Mother smiled.
I put my arms around my sister. “Oh, sister. Let's eat a lot of rice at dinner this evening.”
For dinner on that day, Grandmother cooked a pot full of fluffy rice. Furthermore, we were also treated to a dish of fish stewed in fish sauce, and boiled eggs. It seemed to take me forever to satisfy my stomach.
“Trang, don't forget your mother is waiting to have her meal,” Grandmother gently reminded me.
“I'm almost finished, Grandmother. Now that we have a lot of rice, I can eat until I'm full,” I said happily.
“Child, what are you saying?” asked Grandmother, an anxious note in her voice. “Were you not full at all before now?”
“Not really, Grandmother. I always felt hungry soon after each meal,” I replied in all innocence.
“Then why did you say you had had enough every time I asked you?”
“Well,” I giggled guiltily. “I had to say so, Grandmother. I overheard you and Father saying that you would eat less rice so that Mother could have more. So I imitated you. If I had said I was not full, you would have given me a little more rice, then Mother wouldn't have had enough to eat to make milk for my brother.”
Grandmother burst into tears. My parents could not hold back their tears either. Father promised that he would try his best to make sure that I and my siblings would not have to go hungry ever again. Inspired by compassion, later in the evening Mother cooked a big pot of thick rice gruel which she then distributed to hungry neighbors around us.
This true story was one of the sweet lessons Mother related to us when we were young. It was told to my younger brothers and sisters who quarreled over a toy or a piece of cake, who asked for extra material comfort which my parents could not afford. Eventually, the story with its happy ending that my younger siblings seemed to enjoy became something like a family legend.
Memories of my childhood were largely images of hard realities explained away or made more interesting and bearable in such a fashion. Grandmother and my parents had a way of romanticizing or giving a poetic twist to harsh experiences, thus making material insufficiency merely a divine test of our patience and honesty.
Father had begun to teach me the alphabet when we reached Hue in 1946. The lessons had been disrupted many times because of our frequent moves from village to village. But during some relatively peaceful evenings, Father would use a bamboo skewer to carve the letters on one side of a few banana leaves, side covered with a thin coat of a dark powdery substance. This powdered surface also served as a substitute blackboard on which I practiced writing the alphabet with the tip of my index finger. Father's handwriting was beautiful, and his artistic letters on the leaves made my learning such great fun.
By early 1947, just before the family legend of a rice bowl in war time occurred, I had known by heart the alphabet and the most basic ways consonants and vowels are joined together to represent spoken words. At that time, Father spent the days in job hunting and the evenings in giving me further lessons. My parents had no money to buy me what a school girl in normal circumstances would need; but in the village banana leaves were abundant and our playground of soft earth lent itself readily to my writing practice.
“Daughter,” Father said, “I'm pleased that you like to study and you're quick to learn. We've spent all our savings, so we can't buy you proper materials for your lessons. But don't be discouraged. Heaven will always look after those who are hard working and patient.
“Let me tell you some stories. Long ago, in China, there was a young man who always wanted to study. His parents were so poor that they did not have even an oil lamp to use when it got dark. But their next door neighbors had their lamp lit late into the night. You know what the young man did? He drilled a hole in the thin wall that separated his house from his neighbors'. Then he read in the faint light that came through that tiny hole.
“At another time, also in China, another young student could not study for long hours at night, also because he did not have money to buy enough oil for his lamp. So when summer came, he used a piece of thin cloth to make a bag, then put in the bag fireflies he had caught. At night, he read his books in the light produced by these insects.
“Both men later passed the civil examinations, became famous scholars and high-ranking mandarins. So, you see, if you are patient, Heaven will reward you. Be a good girl and try your best to study. As soon as I have a job, I'll buy you notebooks, pencils and even a pen, if you like.”
I decided for myself that I was far better off than the two celebrated men of the past. I did not have to depend on my neighbors or fireflies for light. The men had studied by themselves, while I was lucky to have my father for a teacher. I had no cause for complaint and therefore no excuse to be less studious.
When he received his first salary, Father bought me a notebook, two pencils, an eraser, and most precious of all, a story book. I loved the fresh smell of clean paper and new print. I enjoyed seeing my own hand-written words stay on sheets of paper for days and weeks. If the words disappeared, it was because I made them disappear with the use of the eraser, not because the papers withered as banana leaves did. Heaven was indeed just. If I continued to work hard despite whatever obstacles He put in my way to test me, perhaps I would become successful and important like the two men of legend. Or, if women were not allowed to become mandarins, at least I could be a learned person like Father who had not had the advantage of having his own father teach him.
“Mother,” I asked one day. “Where is my father's father?”
“Your grandfather is dead. He was still a young man when he died, and your father was only two years old then. He left your grandmother with not much money and with the only son they had. Your grandfather had four brothers and two sisters. It was the eldest brother who took in your grandmother and your father as members of his family.”
“Did my grand-uncle teach Father how to read and write?”
“No, child. Your grand-uncle was well off, so he sent both his only son and your father to school. Your father comes from a clan of scholars and poets. All the men in the big family were expected to have a good education. Your father wanted to be as good as his own father and his uncles, so he studied very hard.”
“Mother,” I continued timidly. “I'm not a boy. Can I go to school too?”
“Yes, of course you will go to school. Nowadays girls, just like boys, go to school for years and years until they grow up and go to work in many different kinds of places. There's no public school in the village. We're planning to move to the city soon. Then we'll send you to a good school. You can be sure of that.”
“What school did you go to, mother?”
“I was sent to a small school for only a few years. But your father and I certainly will send all our children to school for as long as we can. If you're good, maybe you can also finish high school and become a teacher.”
I did not tell my mother then, but I had my own dreams. I thought of the poor but intelligent and hard working students in some of the folk tales Grandmother and Father told us. They were said to become successful winners in the national examinations held at the King's court, obtaining the highest degree, tien si, holder of a doctorate. In full glory, they returned to their native village, being the pride of their beloved parents. I did not see any reason why a smart and studious school girl could not get top marks and become a tien si as well.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
1981
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Copyright © 1981 by Nha Trang Pensinger
