I have known literary critic Chu Van Son since the late 1980s at Hanoi Pedagogical University, where he had just been accepted as a lecturer.
At this time, Son had a small family in Hanoi. Occasionally, Son returned to Thanh Hoa to visit his old mother and siblings. Son's family had many siblings. His father died early when Son was only a few months old. Later, his eldest sister also died early due to illness, leaving behind a son. The remaining family consisted of two sisters and two brothers. One sister worked as a civil servant. One brother was in the army and has now been discharged. Son's family was originally a working-class family. In the past, almost the whole family made pottery. When I first visited Son's house, I saw that Son's mother was old. No one in Son's family made pottery anymore. Almost no one in the village or neighborhood made pottery anymore. Son's mother said that now transportation is easier, people bring in Bat Trang and Chu Dau pottery, their designs are diverse and beautiful, so Lo Chum pottery cannot compete, and just like that, it just fades away.
Playing with Son, I learned that Son's paternal hometown was in Ha Nam province. In the past, Ha Nam was a poor province, located in a low-lying area, with rotten rice fields. Due to poverty, many people left their hometowns to find a way to make a living. Son's father wandered to Thanh Hoa, stopped at Lo Chum pottery village, then asked to work for the kiln owners. Later, he met an old woman, a local, and fell in love with her and became husband and wife. In the humorous words of Professor Tran Quoc Vuong: "Where the wife is, there is the culture". That is why a cultural researcher believes that Vietnamese culture is the Mother culture. Son was born and raised in Lo Chum, the scent, the atmosphere of Thanh Hoa naturally shaped the artist - intellectual Chu Van Son. Later, with his imagination and intuition or spiritual guidance, Son drew a sketch portrait of his father with a ballpoint pen. It was the image of a young, healthy farmer with determined eyes. Although the drawing was just a mental image, Son's older brothers and sisters praised him for looking very much like him. Son was a talented person. In his life, Son drew many portrait sketches, usually of his literary friends and teachers that he loved. I, the writer of this article, also had a couple of portraits drawn by Son, and I still cherish them as a dear memory of my close friend.
Asked Son: “When you were a child, did you have to make pottery?”. “Yes” - Son answered - “However, I did it mainly for fun. My mother did not force me to do it, if I tried to do it, she would chase me away. I was a pretty good student. And I was the youngest child, so the whole family pampered me”. Son said: “My mother looked like that, but she was quite fierce. When I went to school, I was absent-minded and came home late, and she would whip me right away. At that time, I was very angry with her. Thinking back, because my grandfather died early, leaving only my grandmother to raise a bunch of children, the hardship also made her hot-tempered”... Being able to say that, means Son loved his mother very much.
Son's hamlet is located along the banks of Nha Le canal, as the locals call it. The river is small, deep, with clear water and a strong flow. One afternoon, Son took me by motorbike along the canal to the Ma River embankment. When we reached a wharf from the canal to the shore, Son said it was Ben Ngu. Wow, the name sounds very noble and aristocratic, but why does it seem so simple and poor? Son explained that in the past, whenever the Le Dynasty Kings returned to their ancestral homeland in Thanh, they all went by river. When they reached this wharf, all the boats stopped so that the soldiers could carry the palanquin and palanquin to bring the king ashore.
Walking along the Nha Le canal from Lo Chum to where the canal joins the Ma River, about a few kilometers. A vast river appears. The sky is wide and the river is long. Looking upstream is Ham Rong mountain, where there is a legendary bridge from the years of fighting the Americans. The typical Do Ta Do Ta melodies of the Thanh river region resonate in my mind. The upstream of the Ma River belongs to Son La, further up to Laos. "The Ma River is far away, Tay Tien.../ The Ma River roars a solo". The Tay Tien verses of the poet Quang Dung resonate like a sudden association. The Ma River contains within it a cultural reserve from Dien Bien flowing to Son La, passing through Laos and then flowing all the way to Thanh Hoa to reach the sea. Son said that when he was a child, he and the children in the neighborhood often invited each other to go up the Ma River dike. Just to play, for nothing. There were afternoons when he was too busy playing, suddenly remembering, running all the way home when it was already dark. There was a time when I came home late and almost got beaten by my mother. Sitting on the high dike, watching the mighty river flow, I thought, did the image of this great river awaken the vague desire to reach the vast horizons far, far away in Son's childhood?... Later, Son won first prize in the first national Literature competition for excellent students in 1978, then went to Hanoi to study, and then became a good teacher, an excellent NCPB. So maybe a part of Son's childhood horizon has now been conquered by Son.
Son's family has many sisters and sisters-in-law, so they cook very well and know how to make many kinds of special cakes and fruits. Every time he returns home to visit Hanoi, Son often drags along many things that his mother and sisters make him bring with him. There are banh te, banh nep, banh cuon with meat, shrimp and countless spices. These cakes of Son's family always have a rich, fragrant taste, making him full and still crave for more. Later, every time I return to Thanh Hoa for work, I have not found any shop that has cakes and fruits as delicious as those of Son's mother and sisters.
The most memorable is the delicious sweet soup cooked by Son's mother. The dish that Son is almost addicted to is this sweet soup. It seems that this is a sweet soup made from molasses, green bean sticky rice, sticky rice, with the aroma of ginger, when served on a plate, sprinkle peanuts and white sesame on top. To eat this sweet soup, you do not use a spoon to scoop it, but use a knife to cut it into six pieces like a star fruit flower and hold it in your hand. Oh my, holding the sticky sweet soup, fragrant with the aroma of the earth, you cannot bear to put it in your mouth right away, but you slowly chew each piece, eating and sniffing to fully feel its charm.
Many times following Son back to his home in Lo Chum, I was also loved by my grandmother and siblings. Every time I went back to my hometown, every time I returned to Hanoi, Son brought me a gift, sometimes saying it was from my grandmother, sometimes saying it was from my sister. What a warm heart from my mother and sisters!
I remember once following Son back to his hometown to visit his sick mother. She was over eighty. Her eyes were dim. Her ears could no longer hear clearly. She was reluctant to get up, so she mostly lay down. I sat next to her and asked her questions. She could barely hear a word. When I went in to say goodbye to her before leaving, she sat up and called Son's sister: "Have you sent sticky rice cakes as a gift to Uncle Gia yet?". Everyone laughed. My friend's sister teased: "You love Uncle Gia more than us!"...
Life is unpredictable. Unfortunately, my friend became seriously ill and passed away before him. It was truly “The yellow leaves are still on the tree/ The green leaves have fallen to the sky or not”. The day he passed away, I went back to burn incense for him. When I left that beloved house, I walked alone for a long time. On the roads around the tiny alleys, the house walls and fences were built with broken pieces of jars, pots, and earthenware urns – the remaining vestiges of the golden age of the famous Thanh pottery village.
Now, every time I return to Thanh Hoa for work or simply to visit and have fun, I often go to restaurants that have cakes and sweet soups to find the taste of the hometown gifts made by Son's mother and sister back then...
Hanoi, Mid-Winter, December 10, 2024
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Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/nha-ban-toi-o-pho-lo-chum-237952.htm
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