The life of Vietnamese farmer

“Hey! Can I come to your hometown” I asked.

She didn’t know much about me. We’ve met the week before as she drove me on her motorbike to a camping spot where we slept with a group of friends. A group of 80 young people learning English. Anyway, on the way we talked a bit and became friends.

That’s why this morning I asked her if I could come to her hometown in Bac Giang. I had heard this place was beautiful and even though I have wanted to go there for a long time, I never had the opportunity to set a foot in this northern Vietnamese province.

“I am already there,” she answered, “you can join me, but you will have to take the bus.”

I took the bus. After a 2h ride, I finally arrived at Bac Giang bus station where she picked me up. Then we drove to her hometown, a peaceful countryside village far from the crowded noisy Hanoi.

I met her family, relatives, neighbours.

“Is it your lover/boyfriend?” they asked.

“No,” she answered, “he is a French friend coming to visit.”

It was fun to see a mixed of disappointment and disbelief draw on their face. Couples are a very important thing in Vietnam, especially when you are twenty something. There is an underlying pressure on young people to get married early. But well-educated girls usually don’t care much about these customs and just stay single. Anyway, we were not a couple, and I was just a tourist.

As there was still an abundant daylight in this end of afternoon, we walked around her house to do some sightseeing. A few steps away from her house, a river was running through the rice fields. Fishermen were exploring under aquatic plants with their electric fishing pole to find small fishes. This fishing pole was linked to a battery and once activated underwater it paralysed any fish passing by. I tried to ride this canoe-like embarkation and I can tell it is very unstable. My admiration and respect doubled to the fishermen spending the entire day on this skiff.

Tree plantations were covering the hills around the river, and hosted a diversity of insects, flowers and fungi. In the air, crowds of dragonflies were hovering around. On rice plants, it was common to see pinkish eggs from local frogs.

To cross the river, people have built home-made bamboo bridges. The bridges moved a lot while you cross them, and they looked very fragile. I crossed one bridge without falling into the water, I was really proud of that!

Back at her home, I visited the garden. Her parents were growing many fruits and vegetables. I didn’t know pineapple were growing on the ground in a bushy shaped plant, and that papaya were such large fruits assembled in a bunch around the trunk of the plant. Did you know that papaya have girl-trees and boy-trees? Both give fruits but the boy give round fruits while the girl gives longer and larger fruits.

There were plants I have never seen before, for example a very long squash.

The garden was inhabited by chicken and ducks waiting to eat food waste and pooping around the plants. Mother pigs, and piglets were lazily sleeping in a corner of the farm. Piglets are very cute animals; I could have one as a pet. Larger pigs are also kind of cute and there are invaluable companions when you are a bit peckish.

In another corner of the farm was living a large animal, a water buffalo.

“Does it have a name?” I asked

“No, we just call it buffalo.”

I was a bit disappointed that such a beautiful animal didn’t have a name. I had the chance to pet it and hug it. I even brought it in the nearby river for its daily bath. This animal is very majestic and so relaxed. It is the perfect animal to represent Southeast Asia!

In the evening, the family and friends gathered in the main house where they watched TV. Neighbours came to watch as well because they didn’t have a TV in their house. It was amazing to observe the bounds and sense of community the people living in this small village had for each other. They shared activities, food and goods.

In the main house, there were four large beds taking most of the space in the one-room house. I slept on one of them. As you may already know Vietnam is a hot tropical country. When it’s hot you sweat a lot, that’s why the mattress of the beds was all in wood and bamboo. It’s hard, probably good for your back, but also perfect to not swim in your sweat.

The next morning, everybody woke up at 5 am. It is a normal time to wake up in the countryside as the sun starts to rise in the sky and provides sunlight for all activities.

We were a bit peckish so we made some ham. One guy was very experienced in killing and chopping down pigs. In like half an hour, Babe the pig became pieces of meat you could find at the neighbouring store. Most of the meat was eaten during the day and the rest was sold to neighbours. While men were busy slaughtering the poor pig, women were cooking the other dishes. Everything related to the meat, chopping, boiling and grilling, were done by men while all the other tasks like cooking other dishes and cleaning was carried out by women.

Later this day, I made some Vietnamese wine (as they call it here). It is a strong alcohol made with rice, very similar to the Japanese sake. First, the cooked rice is fermented for a week with yeast, the same you use for bread or beer. The liquid obtained through this fermentation is then distilled in a home-made alembic. The alcohol slowly falls in a bottle drop by drop. A last fermentation happens once in the bottle to lighten the taste of the alcohol, then it’s ready to be drunk. Alcohol is super cheap to make in Vietnam, taste is probably not amazing but you can get drunk pretty fast.

This trip to the countryside of Vietnam was super enriching! I ate good food and observed the way of living of nice farmers in the rural areas. I saw rice, pigs, buffalos, I felt the warmth of a community, the heat of a tropical country and the burn of the alcohol. It was an amazing and priceless experience!