You remind me, when I was a little kid, in the countryside in the summer I often followed my friends to pick pennywort on the edge of the field.
Gotu kola is barren in summer because it has no water, but in return, every stem is of good quality, when boiled it makes a delicious drink.
Back then, pennywort was literally a wild vegetable, because no one planted it or took care of it. It grew on its own, and when the season came, it would bloom, spreading in clumps along the edges of the fields or in the garden.
Every summer, your mother dries a bag of pennywort to make a daily drink. She boils a big pot of water, waits for it to cool, then adds a little sugar, and when she can afford a few hundred dong, she adds ice to make a wonderfully cool drink.
Your hometown is not much different from mine. Gotu kola grows a lot in my hometown. I remember the summer, the terrible heat was also the time when my body was covered with itchy bumps. There were many folk remedies that my mother applied to treat it but in the end she still gave up.
But miraculously, when I diligently drank pennywort juice, the itchy spots disappeared without me noticing. I remember every time I came home from somewhere, covered in sweat, I would run to the pennywort juice my mother had prepared on the porch and pour myself a few cups to gulp it down. Pennywort juice had a sweet, aromatic taste, and when I drank it, it left a sweet aftertaste in my throat. After drinking it, I felt extremely refreshed.
You told me that once you went to pick pennywort and got sunstroke, rolling over on the edge of the field, and your friends in the village were all panicking and scared. You thought that you would “stop” that time, but the “mission” of picking pennywort in the summer continued. Pennywort is dried and used to make tea, and it seems that everyone knows about pennywort soup in the summer.
Waiting for a few summer rains to fall, the pennywort stalks are now less skinny and visibly plumper. Your mother chooses the freshest, youngest pennywort stalks to cook soup. You say, thanks to the pennywort soup, the meal is more delicious. Then we all exclaimed, missing home-cooked meals so much.
We chatted on and on until you stopped, grabbed my hand and said you missed the old days and the fields. The fields where pennywort grew everywhere have now been given over to the garment industrial park.
In the fields where pennywort is grown, people use pesticides indiscriminately, and no one dares to pick pennywort to dry and make tea or soup. Only when there are a few clumps of pennywort in the garden can the whole family use it. Seeing you sad, I also feel tearful.
My memories and yours, it seems, are not only about the clusters of pennywort in the poor countryside...
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