A hush rolled across the dining hall as the magistrate and his wife made their entrance. Uncle Thuan was a stocky man of average height with a dark, broad face, a boxy jaw, and a prominent forehead. He was built in the image of his line—men who knew both the plow and the sword; wide-beamed shoulders, meaty hands, and nut-brown skin, though his bearing was of someone born into wealth, who knew from his earliest youth that he was destined to rule. He eschewed Western trappings, displayed no pocket watches or rings, and refused to wear European suits even when he went to the Province Seat on official business. He kept his hair long in the traditional topknot tucked inside a formal headdress. His attire rarely varied from what he wore today: sandals, white trousers beneath a mandarin robe of black silk, the ivory insignia of his office pinned on his chest.
Aunt Thuan, the mistress of the estate, was in her late twenties. The well-bred daughter of a wealthy merchant family, she was tall and her slimness made her seem even taller when she stood next to her stocky husband. She wore black slacks beneath the traditional ao tu than—a modest silk gown of four colors, cinched by a sash around the waist. Her glossy black hair was wrapped in a tight coil and piled above her head, encircled by a velvet headdress. She was a classic beauty in that she had all the prized features: pearly white skin, oval face, full red lips, and slanted almond eyes. Men said she was the most beautiful woman in the province. Women were envious. They claimed that her full lips were a sign of wanton sexual desire; that the slant of her eyes indicated a mean spirit; and that her high cheekbones were a bad sign for her husband’s longevity.
None of this touched her, for she was a supremely confident woman. Although she was the third wife, wedded after the death of the magistrate’s first wife, she had proven to be a very efficient and sharp-minded administrator, so capable that she immediately stepped over the second wife and assumed the role of mistress of the estate.
She accompanied her husband as he made the rounds to greet their extended families and then she quickly retreated to oversee the festivities while he continued through the hall from one group to another, and then out to the courtyard to greet his guests. The whole village had turned out for the festival. People sipped tea and sat patiently, waiting for the magistrate to complete his rounds. The meal would not commence until all were properly received.
Concluding the welcoming ceremony, Uncle climbed to the top step of the Ancestral Temple and looked down at the courtyard packed with diners sitting on mats, children darting about, folks circulating, greeting and congratulating each other. Council elders, dignitaries, and honored guests, more than a hundred strong, quietly rose from their tea-mats and aligned themselves in suitable rank behind him, the highest standing in the front row closest to the magistrate. People simply knew the proper thing to do; the gestures of ritual were instinctive.
Hands clasped behind his back, Uncle waited for the crowd to hush. He did not need to be announced; after all, the entire village revolved around him. Its entire population worked, had commerce with the estate, or served others who did. In one capacity or another, he was the judge, jury, sheriff, moneylender, landlord, and patron for all present, and this endowed him with a sort of compelling gravity, more so because he took pleasure in the drama of having people wait on him. In moments, the din subsided and all eyes turned to him.
“Honored guests, family, and friends, it gives me great pleasure to see you all here to celebrate this most auspicious Mid-Autumn Festival with us. We thank you for honoring our house with your company. We wish you all good health and good fortune. Let us feast.”
While the foods served to the commoners were not as glamorous as those served at the magistrate’s wedding banquet, the board was well laid with popular country dishes: roasted chickens, rice noodles brushed with scallion oil, poached fish, sweetmeat dumplings, cured hams, spring rolls, bean curd stuffed with minced pork, stir-fried vegetables, shrimp cakes, fresh herbs, pickled radishes, and dipping sauces. One of the favorite entrees was the crunchy-skin piglets, roasted and rubbed with five spices. But the most anticipated course was bo thui, an appetizer of cold cuts of veal served with a thick brown sauce of fermented soybean and mashed sweet rice. It was a delicacy most folks enjoyed perhaps only once a year at a major village banquet. The calf had to be slow-roasted whole over an open wood flame so that the hide turned a yellowish gold and the shoulder, when cut, revealed a thin layer of rare meat at the bone, a thick band of pink meat, and a slender well-done strip near the hide. Finely sliced, the meat’s tenderness was heightened by a single chewy, smoky strand of hide.
Within the Ancestral Temple, servants provided the same meal to fifty of the most powerful and wealthy men in the province. The men spread themselves out according to status among the five dining mats. In the adjacent room, their wives took similar positions beside the magistrate’s wife in accordance with the rank of their husbands. Diners sat in the lotus position with the rear hems of their robes draped over their laps, and ate from the communal tray using chop-sticks and small bowls.
For these guests, the magistrate had prepared an additional delicacy, the house’s stork stew, a recipe refined over four generations since his great-grandfather planted the bamboo hedge around the estate. Strong winds often dashed storks into the hedge, breaking their wings and crippling them. At first, the birds were killed as acts of mercy and eaten so as not be wasteful. Over the years, the cooks discovered that young stork meat was exceptionally appetizing when first pit-roasted and then slow-cooked in clay crocks with wild mushrooms, lotus seeds, rice wine, soy sauce, and the tender noodle-like baby bamboo shoots grown in inverted pots. It was served only at special occasions because storks were graceful creatures. The claypot stork, as it was called, became the famed heirloom dish reserved for honored guests.
After the feast, Mother and Aunties went into the kitchen to supervise the cooks in the massive task of wrapping hundreds of quartered sections of pork, meat cakes, fruits, and sweet rice in banana leaves. Every guest would receive a proper share of the feast at the end of the night. The most important guests would receive a whole piglet head, a tail, and slices of the neck meat. The next group would receive half a pig’s head and half a tail. The middle tier would have a slice of the piglet’s neck meat, and so on down the hierarchy. The list would be checked and re-checked. A mix-up with the bamboo baskets would be disastrous. People bought titles and positions mainly for these honors and privileges, so the gifts were tokens of a person’s public stature.
In the courtyard, Aunt Thao, my father’s younger sister, who was in her twenties and unmarried, gathered us children to watch the theater troupe perform the dragon dance. Above, the sun was slipping behind the bamboo hedge, leaving a pink moon to climb a honeyed sky. In the evening glow, the courtyard looked reddish and warm like freshly baked bricks. A breeze sighed from the wetland. A thicket of sparrows swooped, whipping, and diving dizzily in the lowering dusk. The gardeners began lighting the estate’s vast array of shadow lanterns, each the size of a barrel. As if by a silent agreement, guests took flames from the incense braziers and began lighting the hundreds of lanterns strung throughout the grounds. The glow spread outward from the main courtyard like a breath, illuminating the buildings, the rosebushes, the hedges, the picnic lawn, the pond, the swimming pier, the winding footpaths leading to the four corners of the estate.
At once little boys and girls scattered like fireflies, each carrying a special paper lantern shaped like a star, sailing ship, snail, globe, horse, deer, or rabbit. There were fat carps with gaping mouths, eagles with flapping wings, and stars with spinning arms. We ran, skipped, and paraded our gorgeous, glowing ornaments until the candles burned out. Then, suddenly, over the pond by the rose garden, fireworks exploded, drawing multicolored blooms of sizzling sparks. Curly tails, starbursts, and poppy comets zipped, screamed, and buzzed across the night sky, and then mushroomed into pure rainbow light, blotting out the stars.
Honored guests gathered on divans and gazed at the moon. Servants
brought out hot jasmine tea and trays of moon cakes. There were two types: chewy lotus cakes and flaky-crust cakes, both palm-size squares stuffed with a marvelous variety of fillings. People cut them into small morsels for sharing and spent the evening sipping tea and sampling the medley of fillings: sweetmeats, salted eggs, nuts, lotus seed paste, red bean, mung bean pudding, and candied fruits.
Mother gathered her three boys around her on the divan and let us eat our fill. We gorged ourselves until our bellies hurt. Two-year-old Hong and four-year-old Hung groaned and fell asleep in her lap. She smiled at me. My mother had the full round face of the alluvial-plain women. When she smiled, her whole face beamed. I liked the way she coiled her long black hair around the crown of her head. I leaned my head against her arm, in my belly a fat, warm, bright feeling. I was so very happy that Father had decided not to come home for the festival. I looked up at Cuoi, the mythological boy in the moon. He showed himself clearly tonight, fishing and playing his flute beneath the da tree.
A gentle calm settled over the garden. People sat on straw mats and watched the silver orb as if it were a moving-picture show. Moonlight fell like fairy dust on the earth, the dark trees, the paddy-sea, on the upturned faces of the rich and the poor alike. Ever so slowly, the moon drew away, higher and higher, its features blurring in the distance.
Night snuggled around the waning party, and at last, it was time for Quan Ho, the lovers’ serenade. Folks drifted into the garden and seated themselves before the moonlit pond. Two choirs of nervous teenagers aligned themselves, boys to one side, girls on the other. Gangly lads tugged at their tunics, elbowing rivals. Panicky coughs. Abruptly they belted out the first chorus, crackling voices going in several directions at once. Line by line, they sorted themselves and found their momentum. Older boys crowed in their newly found baritones, singing for the audience, but trying to catch the girls’ eyes. As slight as spring vines, the girls, soon to be women, listened intently to the riddle posed, then huddled together, whispering, searching for a witty reply to be sung in equal rhymes. Hand in hand, they gathered themselves and released their winsome voices. They soared, trilling and spinning on threads of meanings. Back and forth, the village youths declared their adoration, flirting with wit, with improvised poetry, with ancient verses. Tradition led them with the lyrics of love, fidelity, obedience, and obligations. Grandparents and wizened elders smiled, for they too remembered wooing and being wooed beneath the Mid-Autumn Moon.
THE NORTH
1942
7. SEA GRUBS
I remembered there was a fortnight after the Autumn Harvest Moon when the edges of the sea thickened. That brief season saw many boats moored or hauled up for repairs. Fisher-folk rose in the violet night. The sea was hatching its lemon-hued grubs, roui, by the billions. Centipedes with tan lines running their inch-long backs churned the sandy bay. At the first light of dawn, folks waded into the soupy tidal marsh and simply scooped up roui in bamboo baskets. It was a crop that perished by noon.
Harvests, plantings, and seasonal delicacies marked country life and so it often seemed as if we had waited the whole year for the roui vendors to arrive at our door. The women had sat on buses all morning to rush their catch to us by midday. In the baskets, the top layer of grubs had died, their fragile casings spilling custard-like cream that congealed into a gooey brown sheet. Vendors dug beneath the surface for the live grubs. Roui was sold by the bowlful, thick as oatmeal.
Mother always came down into the kitchen to prepare her special roui patties. In a great bowl big enough to feed everyone in the estate, she beat eggs together with roui, grated mandarin orange peels, chopped shallots, and strips of black wood mushrooms, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and added clear noodles to hold the mixture together.
The moment she ladled the batter into the hot oil pan, everyone abandoned their chores and ambled to the kitchen. The scent of fried roui patties was irresistible. It woke the little ones from their naps and drew all us children, young and old, from our games. We crowded around the hot pan, jostling, begging, whining like pups and threatening to overturn the hot pan until we were fed.
There was no waiting for mealtime; folks devoured cha roui the instant it was ready. Such was its precious urgency. The men savored cha roui with pickles and rice wine. Mother and the Aunties ate cha roui rolled inside lettuce leaves and dipped in a mild lime-chili fish sauce. I loved mine hot and crunchy right from the pan. Crispy outside, soft and moist within, these were our custard pastries, our peasant’s seafood puffs.
It was incomparable, a singular taste that encapsulated my childhood in its entirety. Somewhere between the tangy mandarin and the sweetly caramelized shallots lay the essence of our misty, dark Ha Long Sea, a flavor I have not found anywhere else in the world.
THE SOUTH
1959
8. SAIGON NIGHT
Cho Lon, Saigon’s Chinatown, was also its nightlife hub. Although the Great World was no longer in business, peace and the influx of foreign investments had brought a profusion of bars, clubs, inexpensive eateries, dim sum shops, and cafés into this part of the city. There were hundreds of places to have a good time on a student budget.
The Saturday after the exams midway through my sophomore year in college, I took Anh out with my three best buddies and their girlfriends. Anh and I had been dating six months since I came back from Dalat. She knew all my friends’ girlfriends.
We went to our favorite nightclub on the seventh floor of the Dong Khanh Hotel.
Thu, Ha, Tat, and I had been friends since our high school in Saigon. Thu was a pudgy joker and fantastic dancer whose presence was required at every outing. Ha was the nice guy, pole-thin and at six-foot ridiculously tall for a Vietnamese. Tat was Mr. Handsome. The girls were crazy for his round, deep-set eyes, high-bridged nose, and curly hair. I was the bookish one.
The club was packed because there was no cover charge and the drinks were cheap. The girls wore both traditional and European dress while the boys were in the standard dark slacks and white long sleeves. We danced the waltz, rumba, tango, cha-cha, and even did the twist for hours.
While the girls ran off to freshen their makeup, the guys sipped beers around a table at the back of the club. As usual, the conversation was about the future. There was no need to talk about the past because we were all northerners from well-to-do families—and because it was depressing.
Before the Japanese invasion, Tat’s father was an official in the administration under the French. After the French were removed, the whole administrative system came under the Tran Trong Kim regime, a puppet government set up by the Japanese. Tat’s father quickly rose in rank. In the South, he was retained, as were many former Tran officials, by the Diem administration. He became a department manager in the Ministry of Justice and earned a comfortable living.
Ha and Thu were both from the upper merchant class. While Thu’s father was able to salvage part of his wealth before leaving Hanoi, Ha’s father lost everything. Thu’s family restarted a moderate life in the South. Ha’s family lived off their meager savings. Having lost his will to live along with his fortune, Ha’s father spent his remaining days reading novels in bed.
But we were young and did not see ourselves as poor. Tat, Ha, and I were in our second year at Saigon University, pursuing our degrees in pedagogy. I was also attending the government’s Institute of Administration with Thu, who was my study partner at the college. He knew I wanted to pursue a teaching career and was trying to convince me to stay with the administration program.
“You’ve passed basic training in Dalat. The rest is easy,” Thu said. “All you have to do is finish the program and you’ll be exempted from military service.”
Tat snorted. “The country is fine. Besides, if he becomes a teacher, he’d be exempted as well.”
“I’d drop one program if I were you,” Ha said. “You know what happens when you try catching two fish with two hands.”
Tat, Ha, and I thought that there was no prestige in
being a paper pusher in the government’s bureaucracy. We were stuck in the old mindset that saw honor in pursuing the difficult paths, and one of those was teaching. I was doing very well in both schools and was intoxicated by my own abilities. I could not see beyond my success.
The girls returned from the WC and ordered a round of iced teas. Ha’s girlfriend, Loan, was gregarious and always tried to please others with her compliments.
“You’re very handsome, Tat! I think you would look fabulous in photos,” Loan gushed, trying to flatter him. She turned to the other girls. “Don’t you think he could be a French movie star?”
They giggled, nodding with Loan, but Tat flinched, his features hardening.
“I wish I had your nose,” Loan crooned, mistaking his reaction for shyness. “I could be a famous singer, even with my voice!”
Tat snapped, “Shut up! You’re just a peasant. What do you know about anything!”
He brushed her off his arm. I could see he was on the verge of striking her. Tat stomped across the crowded dance floor and out the door without saying good-bye, leaving his date, Bich, without a word. Loan gasped, looking at us. Ha shook his head, telling her never mind. Loan burst into tears. The girls gathered around her. Thu, Ha, and I glanced at each other; none of us wanted to explain it to the girls. Ha offered to take Loan and Bich home. Thu put his arm around Lien, shrugged, and said it was getting late.
It was past 1:00 in the morning when Anh and I took a cyclo back to her uncle’s house. It was a modest single-level home in the residential maze of a middle-class neighborhood. There was a brick courtyard and garden behind the picket fence. I had never seen the inside of the house. Her uncle was a high school counselor and didn’t approve of premarital relations between boys and girls.
The Eaves of Heaven Page 5
