Only about 3 km from the city center, but the lives of people on the two banks of the Red River are temporary with rows of shabby houses.
Hanoi is a city surrounded by the Red River with great flow and fertile alluvial deposits. With long-standing living characteristics, two riversides are always crowded places. Many big bridges in Hanoi connect the two banks of the Red River such as Nhat Tan, Chuong Duong, Vinh Tuy, Thanh Tri, … Stretching from the residential areas of Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Tay Ho districts to the middle of the river is a blank stretch of land with a green color of trees and crops. Although it has a large area, this place where people are used to calling it “middle ground” is just a place where people cultivate, increase production and make beaches. Mr. Pham Van Thi today visited the garden and harvested water spinach. He has 2 sao of land along the river. Every season, he kept a different kind of vegetable, and he planted it for his family to eat and sell at the same time. Rubbing his hands onto the wet, wet field ground, Mr. Thi shared: “The land along the river should be fertile. Vegetables and grass are up, no need to fertilize much nitrogen. Just sowing, watering, clearing the grass is a vegetable garden for harvest ”. However, the fertile land is so, but the plants here are mainly: bananas, corn, potatoes and Northern vegetables. These are cultivars with little capital and short harvest time. The reason for planting these trees is because this is the land area of the city, people only plant trees in the “temporary” mind, when planning will be returned. The entrance to the beach in the middle of the Red River is covered in a green color with rows of bananas, vegetable gardens mixed with dense vegetation. If you are not familiar with the way down, it is easy to get lost by the blinded view. – Squid! Where are you running? Come back. The voice of Mr. Vu calling his dog so that it does not get lost on the way to the beach. Every afternoon, Mr. Vu and his companion ride a bicycle across the Long Bien Bridge, together to cool off along the Red River. Along the riverbank, there are 3-4 large and small beaches. Each beach also went to dozens of people. From children, young people to the elderly, calls to each other, laughs stirred up both sides of the river. No one remembers when these riverside beaches have existed, but for a long time, swimming here is a very familiar living image. Located close to the edge of the Red River, Phuc Xa (Ba Dinh) inn with old cement-tiled roofs has been around for more than 20 years. The inns are long, connected with dozens of rooms. This is known as the lodging area for people from other provinces who come to Hanoi to earn a living with low income. Most of them are workers working in Long Bien night market such as selling, loading, towing … Ms. Pham Thi Ngat is a State official, mobilized to Hanoi in 1992. She owns 30 rooms of about 500 square meters in Phuc Xa ward. In the past, this was a part of arable land along the river, to grow vegetables. Later she poured land, built a room and rented it at a cheap price. The small rooms are the accommodation of 2-3 workers, the area of which just fits a bed, wardrobe, cooking shelf is about 10 m2. People in the neighborhood go to work from 22:00 the day before until 6-7 o’clock the next day. They spend most of their daytime time resting, eating and drinking in their rooms. Until more than 15 o’clock, the inn is still quiet. Only Ms. Khuong and a few people woke up, and she pulled some stained plastic chairs from the house to sit and enjoy the wind. – Wake up, get up here to sit cool, Mrs. Hai, Fresh! The voice of Miss Area was loud enough for Miss Tuoi’s room at the far end of the inn to hear. The story is the same every day, just revolves around the shopping, selling … but always juicy. While talking to each other to eat fruit and hot weather, we buy ice cream and yogurt. Heaven in Hanoi on hot days is considered “harsh” extremely for the neighbors. Sitting in the inn at dusk, Mr. Pham Van Binh dined with sweat drops on his forehead. “In the day it is hot and can’t sleep, and at night there is no strength to go to work,” he lamented. Ms. Tuoi has been working in Hanoi for 4 years now. The room less than 15 m2 is where she lives with her husband and daughter “in and out”. Her health is not good, so the main income in the family is still under the care of her husband and daughter. Occasionally, she went to Long Bien market to take some shrimp and bring them to retail to increase her spending. The temporary accommodation is built on a cultivated land, without a red book. Although she pays full land tax every year, Ms. Ngat and the whole hamlet always have the spirit of “temporary residence”. If the city has land to build, they will move. “The living quarters of the working people are not spacious, beautiful, everything is temporary, but everyone living together is always happy,” said Ms. Tuoi. She added, there are families living here for decades, since the first days the village was built. Just like that, there are kids who have grown up here with their parents. “Grandma let me go ashore”, the boy Hieu called to Mrs. Oanh. For people in Phao hamlet, “going ashore” means going to work, going out, and “going in the water” means going home. The old boat with an area of about 20 m2 has been the house of Mrs. Oanh’s family for nearly 20 years. The whole family of 3 is 3 generations: Grandmother, youngest daughter and grandchild. Nguyen Tien Hieu (5 years old) was born here, can also be considered a Hanoi boy, although Hieu’s birth certificate and household registration must be very difficult to do. Ms. Nguyen Thi Oanh, a farmer from Yen Thanh (Nghe An). She was one of the people in Phao village for the longest time. She did not remember the year she came here, the woman only remembered that her youngest daughter was only 7 years old. Over the years, her boat house has been damaged, or even broken, during the great floods. However, she still repaired to stay, because life here “is still easier than in the countryside”. The Red River is in high water season, every time a boat goes back and forth, the water waves rush into her family’s boat, the boat keeps rocking all day. However, with grandchildren, “it will be familiar to live a long life,” said Mrs. Oanh. The people of Phao village, nearly 30 dozen households, live close together by the river bank. Until now, their activities have no electricity or water. So is Mrs. Oanh’s family. A few units came down to support people with solar panels, batteries. However, every day when the sun is strong, the electricity is strong, and like in winter, the whole space in the boat is dimly lit because there is not enough electricity. Although it is about 3 km from the center, but Phao hamlet wants to connect and move back and forth with the city, there is only one road from the middle of Long Bien Bridge sloping down. A hurried, bumpy, concrete road less than 1m wide with grass cluttering on both sides. Young Hieu attended a private kindergarten across the river. Every day, at 6:30, Mrs. Oanh took her bicycle to school, and picked her up again in the afternoon. A few days ago, while taking Hieu back from school, when we took the bicycle from Long Bien Bridge down the steep road, our two grandchildren fell down and had to wait for everyone around to help. The accident also made her knee aching so far. The life of the people of Phao village was like that, when the big country came, they ran ashore. They stayed at the neighbor’s house. Soon, for a few days, for a whole month. That’s why everyone wants the flood season to be short for life to be stable. When asked, if she later proceeded to plan the land on both sides of the river, where would her family live, Mrs. Oanh just looked at the far bridge, dropping her thin shoulders: Where is not known. At least there is no cost of rent here like the lodgers.
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