You are now listening to the Green Blog of Phuc Khang Corporation – The pioneer Green Building Developer in Vietnam. In this broadcast, we would like to tell you a story named “THE MEMORY ZONE”.

I poured a glass of purified water, opened the windows, walked to the balcony, enjoyed the natural wind from the riverbank blowing over the green park. The daily hustle and bustle of the city became the quietest during days of social distancing. The quietness grew much at the balcony where I was standing.

Due to the serious pandemic, people were strictly advised to stay put at home, limiting to go out. Streets were eerily empty with pedestrians and shops were no longer crowded with customers. Lights were all off in homes, placing Saigon into days of eerie quietness. Falling into the old habit of sleeping early in calm, I was suddenly swept over by a great wave of homesickness. Parents, at such time, fell into a deep sleep. It is a rural way of life. People often have dinner at 5PM to avoid mosquitoes and at around 7PM, they all lock doors, turn off lights and go to bed much sooner than city dwellers.

Having been in Saigon for 10 years, I was too busy to visit my hometown except on holiday. Now, sitting here alone, pausing the hustle and bustle of work, life, parties, chit-chats, I was dreaming of walking barefoot on a small path, playing with my friends in the river. In the afternoon, we flew kites up high in the fields after harvest. In the morning, I used to be taken to school on an old bike by my Dad, oversleeping in my Mom’s lullaby, dreaming of being a white stork which was flying high and far away and then back in flocks to the nest. My hometown is a fruitful land in Mekong Delta with lines of green coconut trees and traditional folk songs by the calm river.

My memory zone becomes the most beautiful and poetical thanks to the charming river which gently flows on a curve as time slowly flies and is shaded by high trees on the bank. The rural river flows with the familiar, pure, immense, peaceful and dreamy beauty.

My memory zone also consists of the sound of the wind blowing bamboo bunches, the images of afternoon sunshine sneaking through coconut leaves, the gardens full of all-season fruits and the fragrance of vegetable flowers. Under the trees in the garden, we played hide and seek barefoot and bareheaded in the hot summer noon. We made guns out of banana trunks, pinwheels out of coconut leaves and swung over small channels with coconut petioles. Or in rainy nights, we carried flashlights, fishing nets, traps to catch frogs.

My memory zone also consists of days when I was following dad and uncles to throw fishing line into a river. In flood, all boats were often full of several fish. Fish resources in rivers accidentally became “breadwinners” of many families. But the children’s most favorite part was when their uncles “cast” themselves as professional story tellers, waiting to raise the net. Stories about “monster fish” in rivers interested our curiosity the most. Then, the full moon hung high in the night sky, shining on the tea-like pure water. My dad sat there, sipping at his hot tea, singing some traditional folk songs sweetly, touching a chord with audiences. My mom was lying on a swinging hammock, sometimes waving the areca spathe fan to get rid of mosquitoes, enjoying Dad’s singing. My sister and I, at that time, were keeping boiled sweet potatoes, fighting against each other for the untaken hammock, eating and listening to Dad’s singing. It was absolutely delicious.

The Southern areas are peaceful thanks to memories about the nostalgic green pure rivers. Thinking back to that time, my emotion was deeply touching, my nostalgia was wistfully bitten and my heart was burned with the flame of remembrance. I felt so touched now that the peaceful rivers of old days are full of waste, plastic bags, bottles and even dead animals. The green pure rivers are reluctantly overloaded with waste. The old-time poetical green turned mirky, even black and stinky. It is not too hard to see an empty bag of chemical fertilizer or an abandoned box of pesticide. Leftover fertilizers and pesticide were dumped into channels which flew into large rivers, killing fish and harming aquaculture.

Our society is so developing that people need a more convenient, modern and hygienic life; yet, a large number of them turned their backs on memories of generations, the existence of species as well as humans of both the present and future time. Green pure rivers, as a matter of fact, used to be sources of water for daily activities and production, for containing alluvium to nourish rice fields, fruit gardens, for homes of aquaculture. The charming curving beauty of rural rivers used to be breath-taking attractions of ecotourism. But now, take a look at how such rivers are badly treated. We haven’t played in the river or swum competitively across the river for ages. It is not because we have all grown up and disliked playing in the river any longer. It is because we “don’t have the guts” to do so or to be more precise, we are scared of waste and pollution which humans have caused and dumped into the river intentionally.

I sighed deeply at the thought, then resumed being in the present when Saigon is unusually quiet and peaceful. Come to think of it, how to communicate the values of calm poetical and green rural rivers to many people; how to help more people know and respect the values of pure and fresh water so that we ourselves clean, restore and protect our beloved rivers.

----------------------------
Ladies and gentlemen,

You have just listened to the nostalgia of a person who has grown up in a peaceful rural area and in a memory zone about calm rural rivers. It is not only rivers in the Southwestern regions as in the story but also those in all over Vietnam which became polluted at an alarming rate. There exists a worrying fact: many a person think what they have done is too little to harm a large and long river. Some say that it is not their responsibility to protect the environment but of authorities in governments. It is irresponsibility and laying the blame on each other that gradually turn those rivers into “dead ones” full of waste, valuable fresh water into depletion. It is about time we made a substantial contribution to keep rural rivers green and clean.

In the next broadcast, Phuc Khang Corporation would like to dedicate a very special present to our beloved audience – a talk-show about first steps of Green Blog among high-ranking leaders in Phuc Khang Corporation. May all of our distinguished audience stay eager for the next broadcast to understand more about the value and journey of Green Blog.

See you all again.