Cu Lao Dung - "island district" at the end of Hau Giang river

STO - In the Mekong Delta, probably only Cu Lao Dung district (Soc Trang) is a true "island district" when completely separate from the mainland. All trade routes connecting the island to the mainland until now (February 2023) are large ferries, small ferries, ferry boats... The late musician Hong Son (Soc Trang) has a song written about Cu Lao Dung with The title "Returning to An Thanh" with just over ten sentences describes the entire scenery of this land: "Returning to my hometown when the river was full. The sugar cane banks sparkled with the sunset. In the forest of Cu Lao Dung, in the changing winds, whoever canoe canoe down the water with a leisurely rowing rhythm...".

STO - In the Mekong Delta, probably only Cu Lao Dung district (Soc Trang) is a true "island district" when completely separate from the mainland. All trade routes connecting the island to the mainland until now (February 2023) are large ferries, small ferries, ferry boats... The late musician Hong Son (Soc Trang) has a song written about Cu Lao Dung with The title "Returning to An Thanh" with just over ten sentences describes the entire scenery of this land: "Returning to my hometown when the river was full. The sugar cane banks sparkled with the sunset. In the forest of Cu Lao Dung, in the changing winds, whoever canoe canoe down the water with a leisurely rowing rhythm...".

The Nguyen Dynasty's directory records: Before 1820, Vietnamese immigrants came here to explore and establish two villages: An Thanh Nhut and An Thanh Nhi. Now this island has "bloomed and grown up" into a district of Soc Trang province with 8 administrative units: An Thanh 1, An Thanh 2, An Thanh 3, Dai An 1, An Thanh Tay, An Thanh Dong , An Thanh Nam and Cu Lao Dung town with 23,606.29 hectares of natural area. The population is more than 58,000 people.

The official entrance, the base of the station and... "the ravine that the tiger caught"

The canals, roads, and ground are deeply marked by the "legacy of Lord Nguyen Anh's wanderings" here, the most obvious are Long An canal, Tien canal, Lo Quan, the foundation of the "former fort"... Mr. Hoa Thanh, An Thanh 1 commune cultural officer led us to visit the vestiges of the "former mandarin station" in An Thuong hamlet, right near the beginning of the small "Truong Tien canal"! Currently, this is a longan garden of more than 10 square meters of land belonging to Mr. Phan Van Lu (the land "during Mr. Co's time" was explored by him). The garden is still taller than the surrounding gardens even though it has undergone many renovations. As for the highest position in the garden, which was passed down as the "mandarin's house", he was told not to cultivate it but to keep it intact. Mr. Lu now plants yellow apricot trees on it to mark the memory of him and her grandmother who told them to "leave room for the old people".

Marble bark on Truong Tien canal.

Mr. Phan Van Lu said: "In this area, my foundation is already high, but this is the highest place! As for wandering around in the garden, when returning to work and digging ditches, I sometimes find old items such as clay bowls and braise pots also made of terracotta or ceramic. My grandmother told me that back then, every time the mandarin walked on the road or in the river, there would be bells and drums... If we passed by someone's house, that house would set up a mat to bow to the mandarin?!".

Visiting the "former military fortress", comparing with the map "Southern Ky - Soc page 1889" exploited from the French national digital library Gallica BnF fr... we speculate: "Is it possible that Dao Tran Di "The old headquarters was here"? Dao, a military post that protects and regulates the peace - larger than "ton" is a small post stationed at the river mouth, larger than "thu" is a military post that controls the trading port. Isn't it unreasonable that Di Dao Town was located here in the past?

Wandering around along the banks of banks, banks of sticky rice, banks of dikes... cool, we met Mr. Lam Van Bul, who this year has been "countless" in An Thanh 2, passing through the island since "nine years". Mr. Bul said: "At that time, the land in this area belonged to "Landlord Van", the old grandparents came here and chose an unexplored plot, built a foundation, built a house, and built rice fields. After clearing the land, the landowner measures it and then I pay the rent. For every 1 worker, 1 bushel is calculated. At the "close to acceptance" stage, this leafy forest and cork forest is still obscure. On high land, we cultivate fields such as sweet potatoes, cassava, cassava...".

One person who can be considered a "senior" in Cu Lao Dung is Mr. Ba Ngo (Duong Van Ngo), the grandson of Mr. Council Ke - the father of landowner Mai Phat Van. He reminded the old story clearly: "Mr. Council Ke is the council man in Dai Ngai. Saying it now is like "doing government work" so I'm familiar with land reclamation papers. No one has registered the land on this side, so he applied for urgent registration "from the edge of that canal to the canal below" and then paid taxes to the state. There were few old people here at that time. Most of the people living on the banks of the river are people from Vinh Binh and Tra Cu (Tra Vinh) because there are landowners in the fields. If you come here urgently, you will also get more benefits from leaves and firewood. New emergency land has low taxes so it's easier to live. In the past, my grandfather requested this land a lot but no one looked at it? Don't have the qualifications to measure land and make calculations? If you have money, rent!? Hire a "French guy - a concubine". Build a house with high stilts, warehouse walls, and thick planks for it to live in. Back then, there were still tigers, so they brought out a double-barreled gun. When the harvest season came, it had a palanquin, with a dozen or twenty tenant farmers sharing the load to measure the land and collect rice... Back then, rice was paid for 1 bushel per hour. This land used to be very low and low. On the canal, two fishing boats carrying rice can go opposite each other comfortably, not "a little squeaky" like now."

The fruit tree is still green amidst the "salty - sweet rotation"

The town is located right at two large river mouths flowing into the sea of ​​the Hau Giang stream: Tran De and Dinh An (in the past there was also Ba Sac gate), so all sides are water with two large and small water streams, occasionally adding "baby water" so people live here. People here have long been accustomed to the ups and downs of the water to build bags and banks to open up land for cultivation. The area at the beginning of the island occupies the entire An Thanh 1 commune, the orchard is covered with longan, rambutan, coconut... Along the way, the garden is interwoven with sugarcane fields, vegetable fields and later shrimp fields... The water outside the river, in the creek or on the canal in this country keeps rotating: "when the water is big, it becomes salty and when the water is low, it becomes sweet". Because of this characteristic, every garden, every field, every field has a system of ditches and tanks to store and regulate water to proactively irrigate. Just about twenty years ago, "Cu Lao Dung sugarcane" was famous for both its output and sugar, but now it is "fading". But from 2000 until now, we have switched to putting sugar cane in the garden with all kinds of fruit trees following the "plant - chop" movement?! The trees on the island grow quickly and bear fruit quickly, so you only need to "eat 2-3 seasons" to have enough capital to "follow the market economy"?!

The author (right cover) and Mr. Sau Phuong next to the longan tree with "5 hands" are 5 different varieties of longan.

It must have been fate, so I went to the garden of Mr. Sau Phuong (Le Thanh Phuong, 66 years old) in Phuoc Hoa A hamlet, Cu Lao Dung town. He is a resident of Cho Lach (Ben Tre). "His military career made him meet her on the island" and after being discharged from the army, he settled here in the 90s of the last century. With more than 20 square meters of land, he divided the area to grow 3 types of crops with the goal of "taking the short and raising the long - there will be something to sell in every season". Sugarcane, coconut and longan are the main crops. Surrounding the yard are longans and boxes of honey bees...

He excitedly told us: "When the longan garden was just harvested, the price of longan on the market was very high! For every full tear, it's like I pocketed 2 taels of gold." Sugarcane prices going up and down have very little impact on Sau Phuong's income because there are still other sources of additional income. After 2000, he had more benefits from honey. Initially, there were 50 boxes and then gradually increased to more than 100. He also bought enough filtering machines, cleaning systems, and bottling systems to produce products with his own brand. In some years, the honey output he collected was more than 5 tons!

He revealed his experience growing trees in this estuary land: "As long as you don't let the seedlings get "salt shock", the plants will gradually adapt to the soil and water?! Look at the rising water to calculate the high flood threshold. Look at your land to calculate the height and width to plant seeds. The surface of the bed will gradually rise as the ditch slug will push the tree roots to grow wider and less deep. If there is a drought - salinity outside the canal every year or ten - half a month, don't rush to water. Just close the bag carefully to keep your bare feet moist. Irrigation urgently to avoid "salty shock" and give up?! When the tree has a strong canopy, it is considered as if the tree has "got used to the salt"?!

Perhaps this is also the experience of farmers in this country when along the "island trunk road" down to An Thanh Nam, there are many gardens of four precious mangoes, Taiwanese mangoes, Thai jackfruit and even dragon fruit that are green and bearing fruit. luxuriant.

The old story "words - meaning"

The place name Cu Lao Dung (Ho Chau) is recorded in Dai Nam Thuc Luc Chinh Bien, 1st Century - Gia Long Dynasty (Nguyen Phuoc Anh): 8th Year of Dinh Mui - 1787 - "The king resided in Ho Chau, gathered generals More than 300 soldiers, more than 20 warships, ordered Nguyen Van Ton to gather several thousand people from the two regions of Tra Vinh and Man Thit, assigned them as soldiers, called the Siamese post (in the 9th year of Gia Long, it was changed to a post). Uy Vien), appointed Ton to be a member of the inner team to govern".

The word “Chau” (州) - the pierce with 6 strokes is both pictographic and converging. According to the new Sino-Vietnamese dictionary of Nguyen Quoc Hung, Khai Tri Publishing House in 1975, the word "Chau" is "a large area of ​​land emerging between rivers and seas, habitable, the name of an administrative unit in the past." "Tiger" - in addition to meaning tiger, is also a word used to describe the shape of an object, a shape with the phenotype of a tiger. Thieu Chuu's dictionary explains this word as follows: "Anything that looks like a mouth turned up to one side is called a tiger. Like the space between the thumb and index finger called the tiger mouth. Therefore, pressing the knuckles to calculate the number is called one tiger. The chess style of three pieces standing in three corners is also called tiger. Looking at the old and present maps, you will immediately see that Cu Lao Dung is no different from the open hand with "the tiger mouth is Ba Sac gate" (now Big Vam Ho - Small Vam Ho)?!

Then “Huynh Dung Chau”. The word Dung - 10 strokes, water set, in addition to the common meanings of: melting, dissolving, circulating, also has other meanings of mixing, spacious, vast, immense. Nguyen Quoc Hung's dictionary has the annotation "Immense water shape". Currently, Cu Lao Dung Island has more than 260 canals, canals, and rivers flowing to the sea, cutting across and cutting along this island. Just the names of places, names of things, and phenomena here also make visitors curious about which ones are: large pond, deep pond, dike bank, embankment bank, fishing bank, sticky rice bank, big water bank, low water, fresh water, seaweed water, jerky water...

Amidst the vast waves of water, Cu Lao Dung has three natural ecological zones: fresh, brackish and salty. In addition to fruit, the specialty of this country must be "cork flower honey" with a light green color, mild sweetness and a slightly sour taste. Currently, although there is still "a long way to go", soon when the Dai Ngai bridge is completed, Cu Lao Dung will surely transform into a "pearl island" at the end of the Hau river. But even then, I still firmly believe that when "Returning to An Thanh" people will still remember deeply: "The bright sunshine and the laughter of children. The bright sunlight color of her lips is radiant. The river flows like smooth silk, rising alluvial life. The spring wind carries my boat across the wharf. Even though I haven't come back yet, I already miss you... An Thanh."

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Update day : 23/10/2023