Ap Cay Gang, my village is a fishing village. Living peacefully in a coastal area. Here is Ke Ga Cape, Hon Mot, Hon Lan… there was a time when we played happily under the year-round shady coconut trees and the towering white sand dunes, and on bright moonlit nights, climbing the sand dunes we thought we could touch the moon!
Simple and lonely.
All year round, the villagers dived into the sea to catch fish and shrimp. This gift from heaven seemed endless to sustain them from generation to generation. But in 1947, because of the Vietnam-France war, my villagers left the sea for the forest, and since then, long days of hardship and poverty have covered the heads and necks of my villagers. They made a living by destroying forests, burning fields, planting crops, and gathering to survive and had to change their residence all year round to avoid the French raids.
We, a few dozen grown-up kids, were still naked when bathing in the rain, not knowing shame, chasing each other to tease each other for fun, and challenging each other “who can bathe in the rain for a long time without shivering”. The girls stood watching, laughing with their missing teeth. Every day we wandered in the forest to catch birds, pick fruits, and went to the fields to turn over piles of buffalo dung to find crickets to fight.
Then, there were days when the soldiers passed by the village, we were surprised, asked and found out that the soldiers were fighting the French. When asked where they were fighting, the soldiers said, wherever there were French, they fought! Then the soldiers practiced music, practiced singing and asked, did the children know how to read and write? We answered, no one taught us how to know?
Late 1948. One early spring day, we heard the loudspeakers blaring… “You have to go to school…”. Feeling both strange and scared, we hesitantly went to school. Speaking of school, in reality the place to study was rows of tables and chairs woven from bamboo and other trees, without a roof, only the shade of ancient trees. On sunny days we went to school, on rainy days we stayed home.
Our first teacher was Uncle Muoi Bau, although he was a teacher, no one in the village called him teacher, including us. Uncle Muoi Bau, a familiar and affectionate name, so no one asked him about his education, hometown, background... we only knew that he had been in the Co-Ke swamp (a revolutionary secret zone in Tan Thanh commune, Ham Thuan Nam district, Binh Thuan) since before we were born. (I used to herd buffaloes into the Co-Ke swamp, pick co-ke fruits to make bullets to shoot a recoil tube - a type of gun made from bamboo tubes - shoot co-ke fruits by recoil, it made a loud popping sound, sometimes when we were in battle formation, hitting the "enemy" was also painful!).
Uncle Muoi Bau went to teach wearing only a black ao ba ba (traditional Vietnamese dress) that had faded with time! He said that there were two enemies that had to be destroyed at all costs: ignorance and the French. The adults were already taking care of the French, so you, the children, had to take care of destroying ignorance. Later, we learned that he was the teacher who had taught our seniors who had “graduated” and gone off to fight the French!
One day, when the whole class was gathered, he said he was going far away. When asked where he was going, he smiled and said nothing. Ten days before he left, he said that the children already knew how to read and write, and he wrote down for them the poem “The Ant”. He emphasized that they had to learn it by heart, and when they grew up, they would see the patriotism in the poem “The Ant”.
More than half a century has passed, but I still remember the poem "The Ant" clearly: "You must have often noticed/ The small ants running along the wall/ Don't despise them, the little sad ants/ They are like people who also have a homeland/ They are like people who have a beloved Fatherland/ And know how to die with a fighting spirit/ The ants' country: A tree stump by the fence/ A high, solid mound of earth, ants build a citadel/ With high ramparts and wide moats built around it/ There are soldiers patrolling on all four sides/ The patrolling troops patrol strictly/ Anyone who passes by is thoroughly questioned/ The country is rich and strong, the people everywhere/ Coming and going, work is bustling/ And vehicles and workers fill the land/ Life is peaceful and the world is peaceful/ Suddenly one day there was a brat/ Arrogantly stepping into the fence/ The siren sounded the alarm for the whole gentle city/ The siren blared, signaling general mobilization/ Both the porters and the soldiers and workers/ For the country, they were ready to die/ The boy's feet were like atomic bombs/ Falling on the wall, trampled thousands of people/ The entire corner of the wall of the small ants/ Was destroyed under the brutal feet/ The country was humiliated, the whole nation was drunk with blood/ They rushed at the violent boy to attack/ The boy was in pain and became mad/ They swung the broom and smashed the ant nest/ The next day, I invite you to come back here/ At this same place, by the fence under the tree/ The fire ants are gently making a nest/ You dare to put your foot in and try/ Even though the feet were brutal yesterday/ Even though the feet have trampled the mountains and rivers/ The fire ants are still ready to fight/ Don't think they are gentle and small/ With contempt and brutal strength/ How can you easily conquer a country/ A nation that has been victorious for thousands of years" (Ngoc Cung - Pre-war Poet).
We memorized the poem "The Ant", then said goodbye to our teacher, left the "literacy" school, and teacher and student went their separate ways during the war.
After 1975, when peace was restored, I returned to my hometown, Van My commune, Cay Gang hamlet (now Tan Thanh commune, Ham Thuan Nam district, Binh Thuan). I went to look for Uncle Muoi Bau, but the people from his time had passed away, and some were lost because of the war. The remaining few people vaguely remembered that Uncle Muoi Bau had passed away after the 1954 Armistice.
I respectfully burn a few incense sticks to remember you, my first teacher, and would like to thank the poet Ngoc Cung for instilling patriotism in us through the poem "The Ant" from the days when the resistance war broke out.
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