By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
To satisfy further my nagging curiosity about a nation that sprang to the world a perfect literal case of the proverbial “rising from the phoenix,” l decided, my wife in tow, to go to the outskirts of Hanoi to take a look at and have a feel of some aspects of its ancient culture.
We joined a trip to Hanoi’s countryside about 40-minute away of fast ride, particularly the Ha Thai Village which has been producing ornately and intricately designed colorful lacquer artwork products since the 17th century. As a feature of this visit, we were required to craft our own lacquer work. Since l am not inclined to art or artwork, l excused myself from the exercise, and shoved my wife to do it in my place. After about an hour, my wife produced a rather charming lacquerware which should be a just adornment in our living room capable of driving away any charmless spirits (hehehe) which may have the temerity to trespass a godly and charmingly adorned house.
Next was the Chuong Village, a place with a long tradition of making the unique and characteristic conical hat that l recall with nostalgia Vietnam’s civilian population ubiquitously wearing at the height of the Vietnam War that brought color to my student activism in my university life. We were again required to paint the hats that were laboriously made before our eyes, in whatever manner we fancied at. A persistent bad habit, l shoved again my wife to do the honors for me. But this time her painting on the hat assigned to her for this purpose failed to give due honor to a hat of ancient tradition and emblematic of national pride.
We also visited the Quang Phu Cau Village, otherwise known as the incense village because it is the chief producer of the incense sticks that are burned in solemn rituals in the religious worships of the non-Christians world. We were introduced into each step of the labyrinthine process a plain bamboo underwent to end up as beautiful slim incense sticks of multi striking colors and emiting, when burned, a distinctive and fragrant aroma rigidly assigned to each color. Vietnam is a bamboo growing country and is thus a noteworthy producer of bamboo products such as cutlery sets, baskets, coffee cups, tumblers, food containers, placemats and many more handicrafts.
There was one particular bamboo product that amused and thrilled me, yet never mentioned or explained in the tour—the lowly toothpick. The (North) Vietnamese are so ingenious to produce toothpick out of the sturdy and so pliant properties the bamboo is famously known for because the resultant toothpick is reduced to almost as thin as a thread yet so strong and unbreakable capable of efficiently penetrating the smallest hole and expelling therefrom its complete dirt. All these attributes are completely absent in any other toothpick versions. I discovered this toothpick in all the restaurants we dined at and in our hotel dining tables in Hanoi, but never saw it in our country and neither in all other countries we previously visited. As these toothpicks were packed in a small bottle, l initially mistook them as some special Vietnamese food condiments viewed from their new and unfamiliar look. I was simply enthralled by this slick and deadly tooth grime exterminator that l bought several packs of them and brought home to the Philippines, enough to supply me for years until l can get back for replenishment, God willing, to that country that sparked mystique in my university years.
The next day was a visit to Ninh Binh, about 2 hours ride from Hanoi, a rather long tour that started at 8 am and ended up at 7 pm. It was not purely a pleasure trip to me; l took it more of an acid test to my strength and health. It was, as if, a fire test to gold and silver. After our brief visit to the Ding King Temple and Le King Temple that the Vietnamese venerate up to now as the one time residence of a King dynasty that ruled Vietnam in the 17th century, we were led to a place for bicycle riding. Here began my unexpected initiation to what l rather call a tour of physical workouts. We were required to pedal a bicycle for some kilometers distance. I refused at first, together with my wife, to join the riders. But when we realized we will be left alone in a strange place, we decided to ride our bicycles, encouraged by the undue excitement of our companions in riding the bicycles. I knew how to manage a bicycle ride once but that was long time, more than 60 years ago, when l had my last ride in my elementary grade years. Fumbled at first, but gained my ability to pedal in no time when l slowly regained my long retired skill in a balancing ride, and surprisingly zoomed ahead in a smooth cemented road in between open, very green fields whose verdancies sent me invigorating strong cool and fresh breeze.
It was an exciting and enjoyable ride that at the same time confirmed a lesson: once you acquire an skill, physical or mental, or both, it will stick to your earthly life. I learned and left bicycle riding in the 50s, and after a long while, now 2025, l pedalled the bicycle and found myself doing it still with elan and magnificence. As a further lesson, my very thoughtful and loving father, enrolled my elder brother and me with then YMCA sometime in the early 60s to learn scientific swimming, and much later in the 2020s, in a Tagaytay Hotel, l tried swimming my coached professional style, l found myself still swimming with grace, the legacy of YMCA scientific sport precept had not left me at all. And finally, l first learned to drive my car with manual (stick) system of shifting gears in the early 70s, and shifted later to drive so called automatic modern cars. After more than 10 years of driving only automatic cars, l happened to drive again a manual gear vehicle, and the old ease and dexterity of driving it stayed with me unchanged.
The physical tour test continued to rivet as we visited next a place called Trang An, which the UNESCO declared in 2014 a World Heritage Site where in its wharfage hundreds of attractively painted boat waited for tourists to hire a boat ride. Each boat is required to have a maximum of 5 passengers only including the boat’s paddle man or helmsman. With us on the boat were 2 fellow travellers-friends, charming Singaporean girls in their 20s who spoke fluent English with us.
Our boat slowly glided on a big green river surrounded by several high and towering stone mountains, and we must have passed through at least 3 low roofed, long caves (l lost count) that could have been dark and scary inside were it not for the electric light bulbs installed inside these caves. As we finished traversing the caves, we proceeded to paddle through the long trip back to the wharfage we came from. At this point l suddenly felt my usual impatience (the twin brother of my quick temper that is in constant subjection though of some wisdom) and the urge to have our boat run faster instead of its leisurely pace. I instinctively took the extra paddle lying on the floor of the boat, and with all my might and strength paddled to give a strong and sudden boost forward to our light boat. I continued for sometime my furious rowing that we overtook the boats way ahead of us to their amazement as shown by their perplexing stare on us, to the riotous cheering and applauding of our 2 young girls companions on the boat who must have seen a real “macho man” (from a senior age at that) for the first time, perhaps, in their lives(hehehe), and to the joy and relief of our old oarsman who then had to cease paddling and just be content with the effortless job of the boat helmsman while l served as the motorboat. From the quiet atmosphere of the wharfage we returned to, accentuated by the absence of the teeming boats earlier when we left it, we seemed to have arrived first ahead of the rest.
Anticipating the curiosity of the young girls on the boat and my wife, who entertained the baseless impression that my strength and stamina had even surpassed their twilight years, why my sudden display of vigor. I explained to them during our ride back that it was a sudden upsurge, an upwelling of a very old skill and habit from the nostalgic memories of the moment—the river, the boat, and the paddle. I told them that when l was a boy (in my elementary school years in the 50s) l used to ride boats. I was referring to the heavy wooden boats of our place that required my strenuous efforts to push them to the water and paddle them hard to launch them to our own “water world” of exploits. I would paddle such a boat to the middle of or around the river in our town with friends or alone, to swim (“langoy aso” in contrast to the YMCA scientific coaching of swimming) or to fish or to gather sea weeds. Often skipping my classes for the purpose, l indulged myself in the irresistible lure of these river escapades. These occasioned my mastery of paddling fast and its required stamina to get home in time to avoid parental suspicion or conviction of my boy mischiefs.
My love for bodies of water inevitably evolved in my young mind; our town (Buguey, Cagayan Valley), where l spent my elementary schooling, was sandwiched by a big river on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, where l cavorted regularly at will in either. No wonder then that that Vietnam river suddenly brought back distant memories and fired my old skill of paddling fast— and, truly, furious.
All above l take as a gratifying pleasure tour, but at the same time, more importantly perhaps, they serve to drive home the life lesson for emphasis—that old skill automatically comes conveniently in harness in any remote time, specially in times of need. They say—although l highly doubt its validity based on my experience—first love never dies. It is really old skill, that never, never dies!
(My next Vietnam anecdote will cap the genuine and ultimate test to the toughness of my body, for which l declare l wholly owe God for such a clear blessing. It was a test of endurance that could put to shame Mr. Wick’s stunt in his John Wick 4 story currently showing in Netflix).
