Natural Selection - Saigoneer

Hoa Bưởi's Fleeting but Fragrant Season Teaches Us to Find Beauty in Impermanence

2025-05-18T21:00:00+07:00

Every year during this time, I can’t help but hanker for a taste of sugarcane infused with hoa bưởi, or pomelo blossom. Only hoa bưởi’s tender aroma can accentuate the flavor of this humble snack several folds.

A poetic scent

“Hoa rơi trắng mảnh sân con / The small yard turns white from fallen blossoms
Ôi hoa đã rụng vẫn còn ngát hương / even on the ground, they never stop smelling nice.”

Reading the poem ‘Hoa bưởi’ (Pomelo Blossom) in Trần Đăng Khoa’s poetry collection Góc Sân và Khoảng Trời (The Backyard and the Sky) for the first time as a little kid, I always wondered about the smell of hoa bưởi. Could I have encountered it without knowing? My mother once told me that hoa bưởi has a “discreet smell,” one that would elude you if you try to find it, but take you by surprise when you’re not paying attention. In just a few days in March, hoa bưởi season will be upon us again.

Hoa bưởi. Photo via Thời báo Văn học Nghệ thuật.

When my dad drove me through Xã Đàn and Láng Hạ streets, it was the trays of stark white blossoms on the bicycles of street vendors that reminded me that hoa bưởi season had dawned on Hanoi.

Bưởi (Citrus grandis) is the largest member of the citrus family, native to the Tropics. According to The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia — home to the most cultivars of pomelos — are believed to be the origin of bưởi. Since then, the giant citrus has spread across Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean, the Americas, and Australia. In Vietnam, bưởi has its own cozy family with many endemic varieties like Đoan Hùng, Phúc Trạch, Diễn, and Năm Roi.

Pomelo cultivars in Vietnam. Image via Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Across northern Vietnam, bưởi trees often start flowering around the third lunar month, due to the region’s four-season climate pattern. During this time, clusters of white hairless flowers emerge from the offshoots of branches. They have green sepals with short white petals at around 2–3.5cm long.

Hoa bưởi's short season lasts around one month if the climate is warm, and just 20 days if the weather is cold that year. Yet, such a fleeting period of time can leave such indelible marks on the culture of Hanoi. This time coincides with the capital’s season of drizzle and extreme humidity. It’s a transitory time of sticky condensation on your skin, but also a floral extravaganza as hoa bưởi, hoa sưa, hoa ban, hoa gạo would all start blooming, signifying the end of the coolness of spring and the impending arrival of summer.

An elegant urban decoration

Across famous nurseries in Hanoi like Minh Khai and Phú Diễn, pomelo trees burst into freckles of white blossoms. Each will be carefully handled by farmers: big, healthy clusters that are most likely to yield plump fruits will be left alone, the others are clipped during the earliest hours of the morning before they could bloom and henceforth, release all that precious scent into the air. Handfuls of hoa bưởi would go along with vendors on their rustic bikes to perfume all corners of the city.

Collecting hoa bưởi. Photo by Văn Tuyến via Đài phát thanh & Truyền hình Hà Nội.

In Hanoi, it’s easier to bump into hoa bưởi on Lê Duẩn or Giải Phóng streets — bundles of white flowers neatly arranged on a bamboo tray. On the last days of spring, it’s as if the clamorous streets of Hanoi become more graceful thanks to their presence. That infernal humid weather seems almost tolerable. Pomelo blossoms enthrall us with their aroma, inspiring a feeling of familiar comfort. No matter how busy their day can get, few Hanoians can resist stopping by for a small bundle of flowers to bring home, at around VND40,000 per 100 grams.

Hoa bưởi vendors of March. Photo by Cam Ly via Báo Lao Động.

I have a personal theory for why hoa bưởi is commonly seen only along major roads rather than the tiny thoroughfares of the Old Quarter. For one, it’s easier for Hanoians to stop by to get a lungful of floral aroma without holding up traffic too much. And secondly, despite hoa bưởi’s significant scent, in the middle of crowds and a smorgasbord of other urban smells, it won’t be able to compete; not to mention that hoa bưởi is a particularly sought-after commodity, so the vendor only needs to anchor in place and wait for potential buyers to be attracted by the scent.

Graphic by Ngọc Tạ.

The mere presence of hoa bưởi evokes in me a peculiar feeling of nostalgia. Seeing them on the street, I’m always reminded of the summers with “vertical rays of the sun,” of mom-and-pop shops encapsulating the essence of Hanoi in its local treats, of the puffs of thuốc lào that my dad smoked, and of the timid old villas whose windows stay ajar beneath the golden veil of the sun. The smell of hoa bưởi, on the other hand, brings up green garden corners where my mom washed her silky black hair; tiny bowls of scented chè; and trays of hoa bưởi sugar cane.

On loving the harbinger of time

Hoa bưởi is neither ostentatious nor complicated. It enters the daily rhythms of generations of capital inhabitants via seasonal routines and treats. The more we grow to love it, the more we feel the pull to keep it around us, perhaps in a vain attempt to prolong this fleeting moment of the year. Thus, we have traditionally devised a number of ways to distill and process the flower to retain the aroma.

The simplest way involves just putting fresh flowers in a vase, so the fragrance diffuses in our living quarters while the pretty blossoms beautify them. Barely bloomed buds are most favored for this purpose, as they carry the most perfuming potential. These buds can also be used to scent tea leaves. To make hoa bưởi tea, pickers carefully open flowers to remove the innards before putting them with tea leaves for roasting to minimize the bitter taste. In a ceramic pot, layers of tea and flowers are spread alternately, and in as soon as two days, a batch of floral tea is ready for brewing.

Hoa bưởi tea. Nguồn ảnh: An Hải Tea.

Pomelo blossom tea is often considered a treasured gift for visitors to Hanoi. The flower parts that are removed during the tea-scenting process are recycled to scent warm water for hair washing — a “beauty hack” popular amongst Vietnamese women from previous generations. Hoa bưởi is a natural cosmetic ingredient that’s believed to have the power to boost the silkiness of hair and give it a wonderful smell too.

Traditionally, Vietnamese distill the essential oil from hoa bưởi to combine with other herbal ingredients to make a remedy for colds, hangovers, stomachaches, anxiety, or just general malaise. Cooks use a few drops of the oil to give their bánh trôi, sắn dây, tào phớ, and many other dishes, a certain seasonal flair. In the essay collection Tinh hoa Hà Nội (Essences of Hanoi), writer Mai Thục explains: “Every distillation season, Hàng Than Street is enveloped in the thick fragrance of hoa bưởi. Now, we still yearn for pomelo smell sometimes, but can never distill it ourselves.”

Pomelo blossom-scented sugar cane. Photo via VnExpress.

It would be lacking to discuss the seasonal treats of this time without mentioning the magical hoa bưởi-scented sugarcane — the casual but elegant snack only for those in the know. Preparations are simple enough: sugarcanes are chopped into inch-long segments, you add a sprinkle of fresh hoa bưởi, and then chill them with ice or in the fridge for three hours. If you’re in the mood for some pizzazz, you can steam them using the water bath technique so the scent can seep deeper into the cane. On the sweltering days of March, munching on these aromatic sweet chunks is like a salve to ward off the annoyance caused by the punishing weather.

Hanoians would often display hoa bưởi from mid-season when the weather is not too humid, so the fragrance can linger longer. For altars, only branches with ample blossoms and pretty flowers are chosen. Hoa bưởi usually shows up in fruit displays of the first lunar month, as a nod to the beauty of nature, symbolizing hopes for a good year ahead. Its scent is believed to be able to dispel bad mojo and cleanse the air inside the altar room. In the fruit display, the pomelo blossom represents the “white” element in the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

In Vietnamese culture, at times, hoa bưởi is seen as a symbol of a pure love, perhaps because of its color and gentle aroma, making it an ideal romantic gift for the financially strapped. Hoa bưởi as a love trinket appears in ‘Hương Thầm’ (A Discreet Scent), a song that was adapted by composer Vũ Hoàng from a poem by Phan Thị Thanh Nhàn:

“Giấu một chùm hoa trong chiếc khăn tay / A blossom hidden inside a handkerchief
Cô gái ngập ngừng sang nhà hàng xóm / She reluctantly walks to the house next door
Bên ấy có người ngày mai ra trận / Somebody there is heading to war tomorrow
Bên ấy có người ngày mai đi xa / Somebody there is going away tomorrow

Nào ai đã một lần dám nói / Nobody has dared to say a thing
Hương bưởi thơm cho lòng bối rối / The pomelo flower perfumes flustered hearts
Cô gái như chùm hoa lặng lẽ / She’s like a timid blossom
Nhờ hương thơm nói hộ tình yêu / Speaking words of love through her scent.”

The days of March pass as quickly as blooming pomelo blossoms, but they still manage to leave an impression on the daily life and memories of Hanoians, so that once the flowering season has gone, we'll never stop longing for it.

Cầy Mực, the Fluffy Bearcat Whose Pee Really Smells Like Popcorn

2025-05-04T09:00:00+07:00

I won’t bury the lede. If you are wandering Vietnam’s jungles and suddenly get a whiff of an odor that transports you to the entrance of a CineStar movie theatre, don’t ready yourself for another clichéd Marvel flick. Instead, look into the trees for a cầy mực (binturong).

Their pee smells like buttered popcorn.

It’s true. Cầy mực pee smells exactly like buttered popcorn thanks to its concentration of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which is the same chemical compound produced by the sugars and amino acids found in corn when exposed to high temperatures. Cầy mực squat down to pee, which saturates their shaggy legs and tails with urine. They thus leave a scent trail through the forest to mark their territory and communicate with other binturongs — whether saying “stay the hell out of here,” or “I’m ready to get it on.”

Photo via Zoo Chat.

Fun Fact

Scientists are baffled as to how cầy mực can create the smell, since their bodies cannot produce the high heat needed for the chemical reaction. As Christine Drea, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke, said when summarizing a study she led on the issue: "How does this animal make a cooking smell, but without cooking?"

Everyone says they want a tail, but what they really mean is that they want a prehensile tail, because if you can’t use your tail to grip objects, hang from light poles, or smack people upside the head, what is the point? A tail that simply dangles limply behind you isn’t worth the cost of the custom pants you’d need to wear. But you’re out of luck, because nature doesn’t like giving out prehensile tails to animals that eat meat. There are only two with that privilege: the kinkajou and the cầy mực.

They are somewhat loafing, almost clumsy creature.

Despite having a tail that is strong and flexible enough to grasp, don’t picture cầy mực performing gibbon-esque leaps and dazzling lunges between leafy limbs to stalk prey. In fact, to move between trees, a cầy mực must climb down all the way to the forest floor, shuffle a few steps, and climb up a new trunk. They are a somewhat loafing, almost clumsy creature, which means they rarely have a chance to nab the birds, lizards, and rodents it hungers for, and must settle for bananas, mangos, and grubs.

And once it has gorged itself, it hauls its 17-kilogram body through the canopy to find a suitable branch where it can wrap its tail around and sprawl its shaggy body out for a nap, looking like an errant coma plopped into the middle of a sentence one can barely muster up the energy to finish. Who at their lowest, least-motivated moments hasn’t felt like a midday cầy mực?

(top left): Photo via Animal World.
(top right) Photo via 17QQ.
(bottom) Photo via Asia Pacific Daily.

Commonly referred to in English as a bearcat, the largest member of the civet family is not related to cats, despite its eight-inch-long whiskers, penchant for purring and habit of grooming itself with its tongue. And despite its sloped snout, clawed paws and flat-footed saunter, it is not a bear either. And notwithstanding its relative the palm civet being referred to as a weasel when it’s forced to eat and then defecate coffee beans to sell to tourists, it is not a weasel. It belongs to the family Viverridae, along with a variety of other civets and genets across Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Considering their concession stand-scented piss, unique tail, and the way humans can identify them with their afternoon lethargy, one would think the cầy mực would be better-known: serving as the mascot for sports teams across its native Southeast Asia, having achieved sidekick status in Hollywood cartoons, and maybe even lending its name to a fleet of sports utility vehicles. And yet almost no one knows about the binturong. Relegated to the class of “almost famous” animals, they are not cuddly, charismatic, ferocious or especially valuable in the illegal wildlife trade as meat, pets, or traditional Chinese medicine ingredients.

Humans may not pay much attention to cầy mực, but strangler figs (Ficus altissima) certainly do.

Photo via Naturalista.

Humans may not pay much attention to cầy mực, but strangler figs (Ficus altissima) certainly do. Cầy mực might be the only animal able to disperse the plant’s seeds via defecation, as they have a special enzyme in their stomach that breaks down the seeds’ tough outer layer and thus allows them to grow.

Despite minimal economic value, cầy mực are in danger. Listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, it is estimated that their population has declined by 30% in the past 18 years, largely due to habitat loss caused by deforestation and expanded agricultural activities, as well as indiscriminate animal trapping.

Making matters worse, with a few exceptions, international wildlife organizations have largely overlooked cầy mực for the sake of celebrity critters like langurs and pangolins. Even worse, too few scientists are enamored enough with them to produce the amount of research that would be required to properly protect them. But if the cầy mực disappears, so might the strangler figs. You may have no special affinity for strangler figs, but it’s like the old adage: “First they came for the strangler figs, and I did not speak out because I am not a strangler fig...”

Đuông Dừa, the Mekong Delta's Unique Squishy Snack and Enemy of Coconut Trees

2025-03-12T11:00:00+07:00

Towards the deep end of our home, several coconut trees’ fronds started browning and falling off, straight from the bud. For the last few weeks, tiny holes have gradually appeared on the coconut trunk and shoot, from a few to numerous, giving off an unpleasant funk of rotten sap. My dad says that these trees are infested with đuông, and we must chop them all down lest we lose the entire grove.

The toppled trees all have nearly vacuous trunks, housing a ghastly sight reminiscent of horror movies: myriads of nests crawling with white worms, each inching in and out of holes like those of aged cheese. According to my dad, the worms might look fat and full, but they won’t be satiated until they destroy the interior of the shoot.

Đuông dừa’s life cycle is intimately linked to coconut. Photo via Tinh Tế.

Đuông dừa (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) is not a real worm, but the juvenile form of the red palm weevil — an insect originating from tropical Asia that has spread across the globe. It grows into a winged and snouted beetle; males have shorter snouts, and clumps of tiny hair in a yellow or ochre at the top of their snouts.

Đuông dừa is a prolific procreator and is particularly fond of palm trees like coconut, date, and oil palm, making it a formidable enemy of nations where these species are cash crops. Adult females use their snouts to pierce inside palm trunks at existing scars and scratches, laying from hundreds to thousands of eggs. These rice grain-sized eggs eventually hatch into tiny larvae and embark on an unrelenting quest to feast with reckless abandon, wiping out the tree flesh and coconut heart (củ hũ dừa). They drain off nutrients, slow the tree’s growth to a crawl, so the fronds slowly wither and drop off. If they’re left untouched, tree death is inevitable.

The life cycle of coconut worms.

Củ hũ dừa, the spongy and subtly sweet core inside coconut trees, is a beloved snack of both humans and đuông. So larvae that grow up on coconut are considered richer and tastier than those parasitizing other palms. According to folk legends, đuông dừa used to be the choice delicacy that Bến Tre residents sent as a royal offering for Emperor Minh Mạng. Delighted by the rare and quixotic treat, the king ordered his carvers to add the worms onto the Cửu Đỉnh (The Nine Dynastic Urns) in Thế Miếu Shrine in the Imperial City, Huế.

A royal depiction of đuông dừa on bronzeware. Image via the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.

In the art of đuông dừa cuisine, the most famous application is perhaps fish sauce-marinated đuông dừa. The image is rather… haunting: a handful of live worms wiggle inside a bowl of sweet-and-sour nước mắm. Diners pick whole worms and chew the entire thing in one go as it’s believed this way retains the cleanest worm taste.

A more palatable preparation is grilled đuông dừa, where the lightly crispy exterior makes for an easier, less rich mouthfeel. Live worms are clamped between bamboo sticks and gently roasted on charcoal until a uniform golden hue is achieved. My personal favorite is đuông porridge with coconut milk, a distinctly Mekong combination. Apart from those, there are also pan-fried đuông, đuông salad, or deep-fried đuông, etc.

In nhậu feasts in the Southwest Region, đuông liquor is a rare treat, especially rice wine steeped with đuông. It’s often said that đuông is best enjoyed slowly because chewing slowly allows one to fully take in the richness of the worm. Chew and have a sense of the movement — a thrilling, nerve-wracking, ultimately exhilarating feeling.

Đuông dừa is great fodder for southern cooks to exercise their creativity.

Elsewhere in the world, especially among our Southeast Asian neighbors, đuông dừa is equally famous. Indonesians call them “Sago worms” and they are particularly famous on Bali Island, where locals often deep-fry them or use them in stews. Meanwhile, in Thailand, these worms are reared on an industrial scale to cater to both local and tourism demand. Scientists are looking into turning them into nutrition-rich rations for astronauts, as they contain high concentrations of fat and protein while sustaining good growth rates in air-tight conditions.

Canned coconut worms in Thailand. Photo via Thailand Unique.

Culinary celebration is only wholesome when we can ensure that the balances of nature are respected, and a dish, no matter how popular, can’t be a delicacy if it threatens the livelihood of the people who create it.

Before, đuông dừa was an anomaly that comes every once in a while, so its notoriety was blown out of proportion. But the boost in demand has compelled many to put aside precautions to grow worms for profits. The result is devastating: adult beetles escape into the environment, thrive, and obliterate coconut trees. The entire harvest season is destroyed, something that even the revenue from selling worms can’t compensate for.

Culinary celebration is only wholesome when we can ensure that the balances of nature are respected, and a dish, no matter how popular, can’t be a delicacy if it threatens the livelihood of the people who create it.

Today, several chemicals are available out there, helping farmers ward off đuông. Authorities in Bến Tre also prohibited growing đuông dừa. According to a decree issued in 2022, breeding, distributing, and trading đuông dừa can result in fines of VND3–12 million. Alas, this ban is only in effect in Bến Tre, the locality with the largest scale of commercial coconut cultivation; the rest of Vietnam hasn’t followed suit. Naturally, đuông breeders just move their operations elsewhere and even expand their business thanks to entrepreneurial schemes that encourage đuông rearing due to its lucrative financial potential.

Đuông rearing in the Red River Delta. Image via Sức Khỏe & Đời Sống.

Growing đuông is not too complicated, only calling for simple tools like plastic buckets. They’re happy with a mixture of coconut husk, rice bran, banana and cornmeal as their feed. Within one month, đuông will eat their way through the “kibble” and be ship-shape. After the worms have drained the husks of nutrients, they could be recycled as organic fertilizer for other crops. Therefore, some people believe that rearing đuông can be a beneficial process as it’s more cyclical, can be tightly controlled and is less environmentally taxing than other forms of animal husbandry.

Still, one needs to question whether the financial gains are enough to cover for the inherent risks. Without proper monitoring and smooth collaboration between localities, đuông dừa can easily take a joyride in the environment, which will be devastating not only for coconut groves but also palm groves and wild palms, posing a major threat to the delicate balance of our ecosystem.

The first time I ever had đuông was after my grandfather fell a coconut tree in his yard. He plucked off the worms that crawled out of the trunk and grilled them with the fire from the dried-up coconut fronds. I still remember that fear when I tasted the roast worms, and the surprise delight I felt after.

“It’s really tasty, but it’s also super harmful,” he told me. My friends from outside also ask me often about the unique taste of đuông, but I personally hope that it will eventually cease to exist, so that the farmers from my hometown will never have worry again when they see a lush, green coconut tree one day wither in a hollowed-out fashion, its dead trunk pierces the sky.

A Folk Symbol and Cash Animal, King Cobras Just Really Want to Be Left Alone

2025-02-14T13:00:00+07:00

The king cobra, or rắn hổ mang chúa in Vietnamese, has great personal branding. For proof, one need look no further than the recent flower display on Nguyễn Huệ celebrating the Year of the Snake: the largest, most impressive statue bore the telltale hood of a cobra.

Photo via Travellive.

Endemic across tropical Asia, including much of Vietnam, the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) occupies a large range but is not particularly numerous. Because it is not considered aggressive and avoids people, human interactions are relatively rare. Despite the infrequency of people encountering king cobras, they maintain a prominent role in everything from illustrations accompanying myths to tourism efforts in Vietnam.

In the zodiac animal race, the slow snake took sixth place by wrapping itself around the leg of the galloping horse. Such fairy tale behavior supports contemporary stereotypes of snakes as sneaky, cunning, crafty creatures. The king cobra, however, needed no such chicanery to achieve archetypal status in modern society. The reason for its popularity is obvious. Humans are designed, literally, to fear snakes. Coiling across the rungs of our DNA is a revulsion to creatures that hiss, slither, strike and exist without limbs or concepts of play. King cobras are the world’s longest venomous snake and one of the heaviest. Moreover, the hood formed by the flexing of special muscles to spread its ribs, is impressively imposing, particularly when the cobra employs its unique ability to rear up, its fangs hovering at a child’s eye level. These traits, unique to most cobra species, elevate the snake from just a glorified worm or slug into an embodiment of the cold-blooded instinct to kill. Additional characteristics, such as its preference to eat snakes, particularly other cobra, make the king cobra the most extreme version of an animal that stirs an instinctive panic in humans.

Photo via Mongabay.

Myths never include scientific names. Few of the many Vietnamese legends and folktales involving snakes include enough information to discern which type of snake is involved. Sometimes, details and context clues can rule out varieties, but when presenting apocryphal stories constructed with threads of fantasy, memory, and morality-making, it’s up to the (re)teller to add whatever details he or she would like. It therefore makes sense to go with the most visually impressive and menacing example. Thus, the king cobra is often featured in story illustrations and photographs. For example, an article exploring various folk wisdoms about snakes including the popular “rắn trả thù” (snake’s revenge), uses a king cobra as the top image, despite the sayings not mentioning any specific species. Because king cobras can be found throughout Vietnam, one can insert them into just about any legend that features a snake, from the Tranh Temple god to the story of Dã Tràng and the Lệ Chi Viên cases’ curse. Associations with these narratives further contribute to the gut-dropping, pulse-racing terror fear people have when they think of king cobra.

The legend of Dã Tràng. Graphic by Dương Trương.

The exaggerated image of king cobra as diabolical serpent has led it to exploitation on a global scale. Tourism offerings in Hanoi, particularly those catering to western backpackers, can include visits to Lệ Mật, a village about 7 kilometers outside the city center that traces its snake-taming ways to an ancient legend of a hero saving a princess from a snake monster. There, guests enjoy a spectacular experience. Waiters remove snakes from cages, slit them open, and pour their blood into rice wine while the still-beating heart is offered on a separate plate. A full spread of dishes including mì xào with snake, fried snake skin and grilled snake ribs follows. The rowdy tourists slam the blood shots and mug for selfies that will present Vietnam as a barbaric, backwater that is equal parts exotic and dangerous.

Photos via Life Part 2 & Beyond.

One should not trust everything they read on blogs or see on social media, of course. Performed dozens of times a night, the meals are about as routine as those in a restaurant serving snails. And the snakes are not always cobras. Cheaper species are included on the menus, and because of the imprecision of naming conventions, it’s rarely clarified if one is being served the body of a king cobra or one of the other 38 species of cobra — of which the king cobra is technically not one, though that’s a tangle of taxonomy we aren’t going to get into. Tourists can indeed seek out a king cobra specifically though, as seen in Anthony Bourdain’s 2002 trip to the country where he ordered it from the menu at a Saigon restaurant. For him, like the tourists to Lệ Mật today, the experience is not about the taste of the meat or blood, which are quite bland and overwhelmed by the accompanying rice wine or fried noodles. Rather, the entire point is to consume something terrifying and deadly. In doing so, they attempt to show they are wild and fearless in a barbaric foreign land.

Video via Go Traveler YouTube page.

This desire to boast of travels to strange, savage lands explains why in tourist shops you’ll find a few bottles of rice wine containing coiled cobra. Sometimes, it's all a lie. Sneaky vendors can stretch the neck bones of common, non-venomous sneaks so they look like cobras. Moreover, the alcohol in rice wine denatures venom proteins, completely neutralizing its effect, which really has no effect on a product likely destined for display rather than consumption.

Photo via South China Morning Post.

While cobra rice wine is largely a tourist item that locals claim is not an important part of their culture, it wasn’t invented for the sake of foreign visitors. Rather, certain Vietnamese consumers — particularly those older and living in rural localities — believe the cobra contains medicinal qualities owing to its “hot” nature. It is thus suggested to treat a long list of ailments including rheumatism, arthritis, back pain, leprosy, excessive sweating, hair loss, dry skin, far-sightedness, exhaustion, flu, fever, and migraines. And like just about every animal product used in traditional medicine, some men think it will make their dick hard.

Even though most of the products associated with the endangered species trade can be waved off as hokum, snake venom, including cobras, can have true medical value. Scientific research into its use as an anti-inflammatory and cancer treatment is underway. A recent visitor to the Saigoneer office claimed that the tube of snake venom cream we purchased at the Đồng Tâm Snake Farm in Tiền Giang helped remedy his stiff neck.

Superstitious medicine and tourism efforts detrimental to the national image do at least help support local livelihoods. Vĩnh Sơn Village in Vĩnh Phúc Province, for example, is the nation’s largest hub of cobra raising. Farmers in the once jungle-filled area transitioned to breeding the snakes when the wild populations diminished. Thanks to traditional medicine and rice wine products, the village pulled in VND100 billion (US$3.95 million) from snakes and eggs for breeding purposes in 2024. While capturing them in the wild is illegal, according to Vietnamese and international law, farming them is allowed and in 1983, Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng even encouraged the villagers to pursue the industry as a viable income source to alleviate poverty.

Snake hunters in the Mekong Delta. Photo via Roads and Kingdoms.

Unfortunately, illegal king cobra hunting exists in Vietnam as well. Poachers across the country, some belonging to lineages of northern snake farmers, undertake the dangerous, uncomfortable and poorly paid work. The snakes they catch are used for rice wine, medicine and to supply local restaurants, as well as to illegally supplement captive farm stocks. As with many instances of poaching, poverty ultimately impacts wild species, incentivizing individuals who would likely prefer other sources of income were they available.

But perhaps, in honor of the Year of the Snake, we should strip the king cobra of all its associations with humans, removing every artificial layer of myth we’ve draped upon it. Free of the legends and marketing, the fears and fables, it’s a sleek creature that muscle-ribbons through the undergrowth, its Triassic brain pulsing with simple instincts. A crunch of leaves, swish of dirt and crack of a twig, and it's out of sight. It prefers we don’t watch it, anyhow, especially if it has eggs nearby, because king cobras are incredible mothers.

Most snakes will abandon their eggs after laying them, but a few species, including cobras and pythons, will protect and incubate them. King cobra mothers take their parental duties even further by first constructing elaborate nests up to four-foot tall in areas that are carefully selected after assessing sunlight, temperature and water drainage. Female cobras will lay 20 to 40 eggs in the waterproof nests and guard them dutifully for up to four months until they are ready to hatch. Such warm displays of motherly love is not what we first associate with these cold blooded animals, but perhaps we should.

Hoa Sữa, Poetic Icon of Autumn in Hanoi or Nasal Health Enemy No. 1?

2025-01-09T12:00:00+07:00

It was early in the day. I opened my window to let in the very first rays of the morning sun, just to catch a waft of that distinctive floral aroma lingering in the cold air. This year, autumn came early, and hoa sữa has started blooming where I live.

People often refer to hoa sữa as the “muse” of the Hanoian autumn, coating city streets in a layer of pristine white blossoms. Its fragrance is the most pungent element capital residents' collective memory. Every autumn, there are two ways Hanoians would talk about hoa sữa: one shrouded in eager anticipation and dreamy romanticism, and the other is pretty much “I can’t stand it, it’s so annoying.”

Hoa sữa appears frequently in evocations of autumn, in between romanticisms and laments about its concurrently sweet and dizzying smell. No matter how one feels about that, it’s impossible to deny that the flower has become a unique harbinger of the season — an aroma that reminds locals of nostalgia, something that many hold dear.

Hoa sữa, the unofficial muse of the Hanoian autumn. Photo via Tiền Phong.

A familiar flower

Milkwood’s scientific name is Alstonia scholaris, known in some regions as mò cua, but it’s perhaps nationally famous by the name hoa sữa. The name arose because the plant emits an abundant white sap just like milk. It possesses a distinctively powerful fragrance that fills the air every time the northern autumn arrives.

Hoa sữa is an evergreen tropical tree belonging to the dogbane family, with a lifespan averaging a few hundred years old. The tree has a sizable trunk growing upright, reaching a height of 10–20 meters, though a few have grown to 50 meters. Trees produce wide canopies so the species is often planted along streets, in parks and residential enclaves to provide shade. Milkwood likes tropical climates and ample sunlight, and grows fast, so it has been widely planted across Vietnam, especially in Nha Trang, Quy Nhơn and Hà Nội, where hoa sữa is the most densely distributed.

Milkwood has wide canopies, fan-shaped leaf arrangements, and a strong smell. Photo via Wikimedia.

Hoa sữa bloom in clusters with each tube-shaped flower consisting of five petals and five sepals. Flowers are arranged in circular formations that, from afar, look like bouquets standing out on the green bed of leathery leaves. The sight of these white bouquets swaying in the soft sunlight of an autumn morning is something especially poetic to me. Just one look and I can immediately feel the tender embrace of a new season that’s weaving itself in between the pulses of the city.

Maybe it is that unique, unmistakable scent that has entered the collective memory of the people. It’s formidably strong, reminiscent of lily, but also quite different as it spreads in the cold air of autumn. It can be pleasant to occasionally detect when one’s not paying attention but is suffocating when living right next to it, especially at night.

Hoa sữa bloom in clusters in the Hanoian autumn. Photo via Dân Trí.

Those who grew up in Hanoi and even those who’ve fallen in love with the capital have probably experienced periods of yearning for a moment of relaxing quietude when you sit on the sidewalk sipping milk coffee, munching on green cốm, and sniffing hoa sữa in the atmosphere. Because of this yearning, everytime I hear ‘Nhớ mùa thu Hà Nội’ (On missing Hanoi’s autumns), an unnamed emotion swells within me:

Hà Nội mùa thu / Autumn in Hanoi
Cây cơm nguội vàng, cây bàng lá đỏ / Awash in yellow cơm nguội trees and red bàng leaves
Nằm kề bên nhau, phố xưa nhà cổ, mái ngói thơm nâu / Tree by tree, old streets and ancient houses, ochre roofs scented in brown
Hà Nội mùa thu, mùa thu Hà Nội / Autumnal Hanoi, autumn in Hanoi
Mùa hoa sữa về thơm từng ngọn gió / The season of hoa sữa, perfuming every zephyr
Mùa cốm xanh về thơm bàn tay nhỏ… / The season of green cốm, lingering on tiny hands

Since when has hoa sữa taken root in Vietnam?

This question was answered by journalist and writer Nguyễn Ngọc Tiến in an essay: “The French planted the first milkwood tree on Quán Thánh Street. They noticed its tall trunk and luxuriant canopies, great to help shade local streets from the searing sun of northern Vietnam. The following years, more hoa sữa were planted along streets like Nguyễn Du. As the trunks often spawn tough protrusions, people used to call it vú trâu [buffalo boob] tree. In the beginning of the 20^th century, hoa sữa were planted sparingly with a gap of 10–15 meters between trees, so when the flowers bloomed at the end of September to October, the fragrance was only gentle, not pungent.”

Since then, hoa sữa has spread across Hanoi’s major streets; Nguyễn Du Street became the unofficial “hoa sữa street,” to the point that many believe that only by being on Nguyễn Du can one grasp how breathtaking (literally) the flowers are. In recent years, the municipal government has cultivated hoa sữa all over town and Nguyễn Du is no longer the sole owner of that title. On Thụy Khuê, Quán Thanh, Cửa Bắc or Đào Tấn streets, one can easily recognize that scent every fall. For a crop of young Hanoians, taking a stroll on the bank of Hoàn Kiếm Lake to catch a touch of monsoon wind mixed with hoa sữa aroma is a yearly ritual.

Rows of milkwood trees in Thái Bình City. Photo via Sài Gòn Tiếp Thị.

Departing from Hanoi, hoa sữa embarked on a cross-country trail to pepper alongside streets in the south. Around October, a stretch of Nguyễn Lương Bằng Street in District 7 of Saigon where it cuts Trần Văn Trà Street is perfumed with the sweet smell of hoa sữa. There are around 20 milkwood trees here, all planted in 1997. Hoa sữa might not be as prevalent in the city as in Hanoi, but if you know where to look, there are spots to relish its distinctive scent. There are a few hoa sữa trees on Hoàng Sa and Trường Sa streets, one in Vĩnh Lộc Industrial Park, and some individual trees in residential areas across town.

Outside of Vietnam’s colder regions or metropolises, I also bumped into hoa sữa during my trips to the Mekong Delta in autumn, like in An Giang. A friend once told me that to get from Ngã Ba Lộ Tẻ in Châu Thành District to Ngã Tư Đèn 4 Ngọn in Long Xuyên City, there are six hoa sữa “checkpoints.” The aroma is most intense around the area of Hoàng Diệu Bridge and Nguyễn Trãi Street. Though the tree and blossoms still look the same, somehow in my mind, it doesn’t have the same grace like those people often rave about in Hanoi. Perhaps it’s because you can take an icon out of its homeland, but you can’t separate the land from the icon.

Hoa sữa and an indictment: guilty or not?

Hoa sữa only does what it evolved to do in nature, but its existence has become victim to much censure by the public.

Fascinatingly, there were quite a number of legal suits involving hoa sữa in history, as those living near flowering trees cannot stand its head-splittingly intense scent. In 2004, locals in Tam Kỳ City, Quảng Nam filed a complaint against the flower, alleging that its pungent smell caused constant bouts of allergy, asthma, and migraine. Residents of Trà Vinh City in the Mekong Delta also once threatened to sue the local people’s committee as the city’s illogical hoa sữa density caused much inconvenience to their livelihood.

Following the uproars in many cities across Vietnam, localities started removing milkwood trees and replacing the plots with other non-flowering trees to reduce the concentration of hoa sữa. Via these incidences, I learned that this is not just a problem unique to Vietnam, but also in a number of other Asian countries where the plant is endemic.

As an evergreen tropical species, hoa sữa shows up in other Southeast Asian nations as well. The newspaper Bangkok Post once wrote a piece suggesting the use of hoa sữa to combat unpleasant smells in the neighborhood. In Indian, local opinions about the tree are also just as polarizing: some think that it’s so aromatic that “no matter how busy one is, they must stop to enjoy it,” but others believe that its intense smell causes a lot of troubles in their daily lives.

Hoa sữa lining local streets. Photo via ivivu.

A government directive from Noida, a city in northern India, reads: “If asthma sufferers stand under a milkwood tree for too long, they can have respiratory problems.” The city has since replaced hoa sữa with purple jarul trees. In Taiwan, over two-thirds of milkwood trees at Chihcheng Secondary School were axed as their scent negatively affected students.

Preserving the fragrance of the Hanoian autumn

Above all, whether they love, hate, or threaten to chop all the trees down, I know that deep inside their hearts, Hanoians still value their role in the city landscape and the memories they’ve built with hoa sữa. In the collective subconscious, there’s always a sense of anticipation before the first blossoms show up, signaling an impending autumn.

To conserve that elegance and ease the people’s discomfort, I think there needs to be deliberate efforts to space out hoa sữa trees to a manageable distance like 50 meters. In reality, some localities went too hard on the planting with just 2–3 meters between trees. By relocating or removing some trees in central areas, the city can still protect one of Hanoi’s most iconic autumn features while ensuring the health of its people.

A Case for the Sweet-and-Sour Tamarind as Saigon's Official Municipal Tree

2024-12-05T17:00:00+07:00

What is the municipal tree of Saigon? In popular culture, Hanoi is perhaps intricately linked with the paralyzing but often romanticized aroma of hoa sữa, while just over a hundred kilometers to the east, Hải Phòng proudly brandishes the name “the city of red phượng flowers.” Đà Lạt has too many flower varieties to choose just one, and settles for “the city of a thousand flowers.” Down south, Bến Tre’s abundance of coconut trees is famous nationwide. Ask any Saigoneer this question, and you’re likely to get one of two answers: chò nâu (dipterocarp) or me (tamarind).

Chò nâu and me share a propensity to let go of parts of themselves when the wind sweeps by, peppering the streets of Saigon with twirling chò seeds and a carpet of minuscule tamarind leaves. This is the simple joy of Saigon living: to crane your neck up every time a gentle zephyr picks up, to be greeted with a mesmerizing sight often seen in schmaltzy soap operas. While chò nâu’s spinning seeds are undoubtedly more whimsical, I always reserve a special corner of my psyche for tamarind, the seed pods with a sourness that sings of Vietnamese flavors.

Nguyễn Văn Bình, Saigon's first-ever book street, is cool and pleasant thanks to its rows of tamarind trees. Photo by Brian Letwin.

For any armchair botanist fascinated with the local flora of Vietnam, the sooner one makes peace with the fact that a significant amount of the plants you know and love aren’t indigenous to the country, the better. I find it comforting once I realize it’s a sign our climate and soil are so nurturing that new species and cultivars can flourish with aplomb and integrate so well into the local ecosystem — an apt if slightly ham-fisted metaphor for the welcoming nature of Vietnamese culture. Like lêkima, phượng vỹ, and even dragon fruit, tamarind is not native to the country, but it’s been a crucial part of our daily lives for so long that it’s hard to imagine a Vietnam without it.

From Africa to Saigon

Tamarind (Tamarindus indica), known in Vietnam as me, originates from Africa, though there are several theories regarding its exact spawning ground. One points to the drier savannah of the Sudanian region spanning Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger today; while another places me’s root in Eastern Africa in the Nile Valley. There are archaeological proofs showing that Egyptians started cultivating tamarind as early as 400 BCE. Thanks to human dispersal, tamarind is now present in every nation in the tropical belt, and has become particularly significant in the culture of the Indian subcontinent, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Like lêkima, phượng vỹ, and even dragon fruit, tamarind is not native to the country, but it’s been a crucial part of our daily lives for so long that it’s hard to imagine a Vietnam without it.

You can find cây me throughout the topographies of Vietnam, especially in places further south with hotter climates that me evolved to withstand. It’s challenging to determine when tamarind arrived in Vietnam from Africa and who brought the brown, sour pods to bury beneath the monsoon-battered soil of our wilderness, giving them the golden opportunity to thrive with unbridled glee. Tamarind in the wild could have hitch-hiked with Indian traders at southern ports, or alongside Vietnamese repatriates from Réunion Island or other French territories based in the Tropics. Still, if you harbor as much affection for Saigon’s rows of street tamarind trees as I do, know that they were the result of French urban planning.

An illustrated map of Saigon in 1881. The Saigon Zoo, where many exotic trees were first cultivated, is on the right along the river. Image via Fédération Nationale du Patrimoine.

Botanist Eugène Poilane describes tamarind in his article “Les arbres fruitiers d'Indochine” (The Fruit Trees of Indochina, published posthumously in 1965) as a local fruit enjoyed by people of diverse backgrounds: “Many have been planted along the streets of Saigon. Indians buy the fruits, which have laxative properties. The Vietnamese preserve them in sugar, harvesting the fruits just before they reach full maturity. The fruits are peeled but the fruit’s peduncle and the four fibers holding the fruits are kept intact. They are also used to make soups and drinks. The young, tart leaves have a flavor somewhat similar to sorrel and are edible.”

From the nursery to the mean streets of Saigon

Jean-Baptiste Louis-Pierre, a French botanist, was often credited as the father of Saigon's first green spaces. Image via Wikimedia.

Jean-Baptiste Louis-Pierre was born in 1833 on Réunion Island into a rich sugar plantation family, which allowed him to study medicine in Paris and then specialize in botany in Strasbourg. In the 1850s, he took up a post with the British under Sir Dietrich Brandis, the “father of tropical forestry,” in Calcutta, India. His talent for tree-whispering eventually got him the promotion to Head of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens.

Towards the end of the decade, the French took over Saigon, and began planning a city center that would eventually become District 1 today. In 1864, they greenlit the establishment of the Jardin botanique et zoologique de Saïgon on a 12-hectare patch of land by the Bến Nghé Creek to research plant and animal species for economic purposes. The facility exists nowadays as the Saigon Zoo & Botanical Garden. Louis-Pierre was hired in 1865 as the institution’s first-ever director, who used his knowledge of Indian and Indochinese flora to cultivate one of the region’s most prolific plant collections. When it was time to beautify Saigon streets with trees, many of the choices were species collected and grown by the research institute, including tamarind and mango.

A bust of Louis-Pierre at the Saigon Zoo. Photo via Tuổi Trẻ.

In sociologist Trần Hữu Quang’s book Hạ tầng đô thị buổi đầu (Urban Infrastructure in the Early Era), it’s reported that by 1866, many central thoroughfares had been made over with ornamental trees, such as tamarind, mango, and bàng, planted every 5 meters on major streets like Rue Catinat (Đồng Khởi today). The fruit-bearing species were growing so well that their scattered fruits turned into a major nuisance, while their luxuriant canopies were blocking the sun, causing major mold and dampness problems. This prompted the Colonial Council to cut down many to reduce the frequency to 10 meters between trees — how surreal is it to discover a time when Saigon had too many trees?

Me as a reminder of Saigon's downtown charms

It’s very easy to love tamarind trees. The trees never grow to be too towering or too stunted, just enough to provide shade with their layers and layers of perfectly pinnated tiny leaves. The young fruits are an amusing snack for school children, while ripened ones are a truly rare, unctuous treat filled with fudgy, toasty, sweet flesh. And they’re not too heavy to cause head injuries, should errant me pods fall onto your head — can you imagine an alternative history of Saigon when Louis-Pierre selected durians to be ornamental trees?

Me can be eaten raw (me dốt) or processed into a range of different confectioneries, like me ngào chấm bánh tráng đỏ.

Most of Saigon’s oldest educational institutions are based in French-style campuses scattered around the downtown area, which is naturally surrounded by rows of tamarind trees, so generations of students in Saigon — no matter where they live — have spent their formative years under the romance of tamarind canopies. One such student was writer Bình Nguyên Lộc, who was born in Biên Hòa, but studied at Lycée Petrus Ký (now Lê Hồng Phong High School). His time in Saigon has too endeared him to the charms of tamarind trees:

“Oh, the rows of tamarind trees in Chợ Cũ, the tamarind trees of Gia Long Street, the tamarind trees of Tản Đà Street, the trees that accompany pedestrians every noon; the trees that curiously peek into the windows of private residents, sneaking tiny leaves into the hair of little girls; the trees with dark green canopies lingering after the piano melodies of an unknown player pouring out from some windows. [...] The aching for their hometowns of Saigon’s crop of outsiders is abated in parts whenever they look at the changing colors of the rows of tamarind trees on Nguyễn Du and Hồng Thập Tự.”

Is Dã Tràng Vietnam's Cutest Sand Artist or a Folk Symbol of Fruitless Pursuits?

2024-10-10T15:00:00+07:00

Strolling along Vietnam’s beaches when the tides are low, one might encounter a number of whimsical patterns created by countless sand pellets. These are the works of a tiny species of crustacean called dã tràng. Not only are these little crabs fascinating, thanks to their sand-sieving mechanism, which is how they obtain food, but they are also the subject of an intriguing folktale that often leaves readers pondering its philosophical implications.

The little artists of the coastlines

A rare sighting of the artist amid his artwork, even though this artwork is more like the empty wrappings after you've eaten all the chips. Photo via seb247.com.

Known as còng gió or dã tràng in Vietnamese depending on the region, sand bubbler crab is a species within the Dotillidae family that inhabits the Indo-Pacific region. They come out in droves once the tide recedes to begin their feasting sessions. Sand is their sustenance; more specifically, they eat the microorganisms that live in the sand.

When you’re at the shore, the work of these tiny crabs might catch your attention before you even notice the crabs themselves, as they only grow to approximately 1 centimeter. The somewhat random patterns created by these crabs might resemble fireworks, galaxies, or lines connected by circular shapes. These patterns always circle the holes where sand bubbler crabs emerge.

The patterns left behind by sand pellets have a certain poetic quality to them.

Dã tràng consumes the microorganisms found in the sand through a sieving process. Using special mouthparts that have evolved to become a sort of filter, the crustaceans pass the sand through their mouthparts, then use a circular motion to take in what’s edible — often detritus and plankton — and spit out sand pellets. In order to get a decent meal, the crabs have to work and eat for up to 5 hours a day. Watching these crabs in action reminds me of what I must do whenever I eat fish that has not been deboned. Having to swirl my tongue around to locate and then separate the bones, no matter how delicious the fish may be, removes the pleasure of it all. I don’t know how the crabs do it.

Dã tràng as portrayed in folklore

While dã tràng might hail from the humblest of origins compared to its other famous cousins like blue crab or king crab, the tiny sand crab has an entire fable dedicated to its origin in Vietnamese folk culture.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Dã Tràng who lived with his wife in front of a cave, home to a pair of snakes. Once, Dã Tràng saved the husband snake from being killed by its wife. To return the favor, the snake gifted Dã Tràng with a jewel that granted him the ability to understand animal speech. Later on, a murder of crows came to Dã Tràng and informed him of a dead goat atop a mountain. The crows told Dã Tràng to take the meat for himself but spare them the organs. Dã Tràng did as instructed and even informed his neighbors so they could get some meat as well, but he carefully advised them to leave the organs. The greedy folks, however, took everything. The crows confronted Dã Tràng and, despite his best efforts, the crows refused to accept his explanation. In the heat of the argument, Dã Tràng shot his arrow at the crows to scare them away, but the crows took the act as something more nefarious. They framed Dã Tràng for the death of a drowned human by sticking an arrow with Dã Tràng’s initials into the dead body. Their trick worked and Dã Tràng was apprehended by the local authorities. On the way to the capital to meet the king for judgment, Dã Tràng overheard a flock of sparrows telling one another to gather the food spilled by a nearby army, which was planning an ambush on Dã Tràng’s nation. Dã Tràng relayed the information and helped stop the attack, and for this, he was spared from prosecution.

On his way home, Dã Tràng stopped by a friend’s house to rest. The friend was glad to see him and told his wife to slaughter one of their geese to make a feast. The pair of geese was saddened to hear the news, and the male goose hatched a plan to save the female geese and their offspring by sacrificing himself. So moved by the geese’s gesture, Dã Tràng stopped his friend from slaughtering the geese. Touched by his good deed, the geese gifted him with another jewel that enabled Dã Tràng to walk underwater and could even allow him to reach the bottom of the ocean. Dã Tràng took the jewel for a test run and indeed reached all the way to Long Vương, the Dragon King of the undersea kingdom himself. Terrified by this power, Long Vương treated Dã Tràng with great generosity, but the kindness was simply an attempt to hide the plot he had devised.

Dã Tràng returned home and, with the help of the jewels, became very rich. He never let the jewels out of his sight except for one day, when Dã Tràng was rushing home from a relative’s death anniversary, he anxiously realized he had forgotten to bring the jewels with him. Upon his return, the jewels were gone, and so was his wife. He picked up a note that read: “Long Vương will crown me queen for bringing him the jewels. I am gone, don’t even bother looking for me.”

While dã tràng might hail from the humblest of origins, the tiny sand crab has an entire fable dedicated to its origin in Vietnamese folk culture.

Dã Tràng was furious. Driven to madness, he moved to the beach and swore to fill up the ocean with sand so that he could enter it to look for the jewels. But how could one ever fill up the ocean? Eventually, Dã Tràng became the sand bubbler crab, spending eternity filling up the beach with sand, forever lost in a hopeless endeavor. This fruitless pursuit enters Vietnam's lexicon in the phrase “công dã tràng,” used to described actions that surely won't yield any success.

Sisyphus and Dã Tràng, two faces of the same tragedy

Though dã tràng can be very efficient in sieving sand, filling an entire ocean is not a simple task. Photo by ngobmt via Pixabay

Dã Tràng’s ending may conjure the image of Sisyphus, the figure from Greek mythology who was condemned by the Gods to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity only to have it slide down once it reached the top. The Myth of Sisyphus has been dissected from numerous perspectives. Famously, Albert Camus interpreted the story in an existential sense as a matter of the absurd. Only by becoming aware of the absurdity of his fate can Sisyphus find happiness and contentment in his situation. In many ways, Dã Tràng is similar to Sisyphus, as both are forced to perform a futile act for all eternity.

“Dã tràng xe cát biển đông / Sand bubbler crabs rolling sand at the East Sea
Nhọc lòng mà chẳng nên công cán gì / Much labor for none of the accolade.”
— Ancient proverb.

I used to look at Dã Tràng and Sisyphus as great tragedies. And in a sense, they really are tragedies, but so then is life for many real human beings. The plight of Dã Tràng and Sisyphus seem relevant to many of us, whether it is because we are experiencing a lifetime of repetitive tasks or facing a betrayal that deprives us of hard-earned earthly possessions. And if it’s not these two particular particular tragedies that resonate, then it will be something else. We simply cannot escape the human predicament. Only through the realization and acceptance that life is harsh and irrational can we even begin to proceed with our lives. I once thought that accepting the universe as cruel and devoid of meaning is a defeatist mindset, but I have since learned that doing so can help us to find happiness, especially if we are forced to perpetually shovel sand.

One Nation's Beloved Cá Lóc Is Another Nation's Horror Movie

2024-08-13T13:00:00+07:00

America has been losing its shit over snakeheads. All summer long my algorithm-led newsfeed has been alerting me to ominous headlines including “‘Horror movie’ snakehead fish that can slither on land invading Missouri amid fourth sighting,” “Voracious, invasive ‘frankenfish’ reeled in from Delaware River at Easton,” and “Snakehead Fish Found in Georgia: ‘Kill It Immediately.’”

Movie poster for Frankenfish (2004). Photo via IMDB.

This is nothing new. For decades, American media has been trumpeting hyperbolic reports of the dangers of snakehead and their potentially catastrophic impact on local ecosystems. Since the start of the millennium, fear-mongering missives have claimed the insatiable import is able to breathe air, walk on land and will stalk and attack pets and humans, to say nothing of their impact on fellow lake and river dwellers. Between 2004 and 2006, Hollywood even released three low-budget horror movies about them.

I first learned about the fish species from the 2003 non-fiction book Snakehead: A Fish Out of Water by Eric Jay Dolin. It details the fish’s 2002 release into a Maryland pond and the ensuing chaotic coverage of its potential proliferation in American waterways which was even referenced on popular TV shows including The Office and The Sopranos. Ponds were drained, waterways scoured and fishermen put on high alert to kill any specimens they found. Officials warned it could be an invasive disaster on par with zebra mussels in the Great Lakes or cane toads in Australia.

Image from a Vietnamese cooking video for steamed cá lóc. Photo via Bếp Vợ Nấu YouTube Page.

While snakeheads indeed remain a detrimental species for wildlife officials to manage with occasional individuals being identified and eradicated, they have not yet lived up to their horror movie depictions in America. Still, what a surprise to move to Vietnam and discover snakehead, or cá lóc, served with great regularity. From fermented cá lóc in An Giang to braised cá lóc in Bến Tre to steamed cá lóc in Đồng Tháp, I find it everywhere. Ubiquitous throughout miền Tây, where it is native and extensively farmed, I’ve had it grilled, deep fried, dropped into porridge, stuffed in bitter melon and served in hủ tiếu. Decidedly a southern fish, it is nonetheless available throughout the country and even one of several white fish used for preparing Hanoi’s popular chả cá Lã Vọng. And despite all this, I’ve yet to talk with someone here who is aware of the associations its English name has in my home country.

Bánh canh cá lóc (left) via Mia and khô cá lóc (right) via Dân Việt.

Not the cá lóc you think it is

For breakfast this morning, I enjoyed a bowl of bánh canh cá lóc here in Saigon. The flaky, meaty chunks of flesh bathed in a peppery bath complimented the chewy noodles for a fresh and light breakfast. While eating, I began to arrange this article in my head. I initially expected to linger over the theme of invasive species. I planned to compare how cá lóc lives harmoniously in the Mekong Delta’s murky rice fields, opaque lotus ponds and brackish rivers, yet causes calamity in America is similar to the story behind crayfish (tôm hùm đất). Wildlife officials in Vietnam have recently had to remind people that crayfish, often imported via China, is banned in Vietnam because of the potential for the shrimp-esque crustacean to get loose and outcompete native species. Yet, crayfish are perfectly common in the US and don’t threaten other creatures in its ecosystem there.

Photo of an invasive northern snakehead, or cá lóc Trung Quốc, captured in American waterway. Photo via US Fish and Wildlife Service.

I abandoned plans of exploring this theme of invasiveness immediately once I delved further into cá lóc. There are a lot of cá lóc in the world; more than 50 species spread across Asia and Africa. The one currently setting Americans on edge is the northern snakehead (Channa argus), native to Northern China, Russia, South Korea and Mongolia. Vietnam is not home to these cá lóc Trung Quốc.

Matters of species get more complicated when taking into account regional names for the same type of animal. In the south, the fish is called “cá lóc,” but known as “cá quả” in the north and “cá chuối” and in the central region. These terms can be used as a catch-all for different species unless further specified, which it rarely is on menus or product lists. But I promise not to let another Natural Selection feature devolve into an unpsooling of tangled naming conventions.

Illustration of cá lóc đồng or striped / common snakehead (Channa striata) via Wikimedia.

To keep it simple, know that Vietnam is home to numerous snakehead species including cá chuối hoa, or blotched snakehead (Channa maculata) which is native to northern Vietnam; cá chòi or dwarf snakehead (Channa gachua); cá lóc bông or giant snakehead (Channa micropelte); and cá lóc đồng or striped / common snakehead (Channa striata). These latter two are extensively farm-raised in the delta, with cá lóc đồng being the most common to encounter; when you see cá lóc on a menu or captioned in a photo, it is most likely referring to one of these two. And as I recently learned when speaking with a street vendor selling grilled cá lóc, locals arent necessarily aware which variety they are selling or that there even are different species of cá lóc.

While sharing a common ancestor, each species of cá lóc has evolved over time to fill different ecological niches. Cá lóc bông, for example, can grow up to 1.5 meters and weigh 45 kilograms. It is an apex hunter able to feed on even carps and ducks. Meanwhile, cá chòi often measures less than 28 centimeters and subsists on insects and tiny fish. Other than the obvious differences in diet, larger snakeheads tend to build nests near the water’s surface while the smaller ones are mouthbrooders, meaning fertilized eggs are kept safely in a parent’s mouth until they hatch. Regardless of the incubation method, parents defend their offspring ferociously, leading to their reputation as aggressive.

A fish fit for celebrations and sustainability

Photo of cá lóc being dried for sale. Photo via Báo ảnh Dân tộc và Miền núi.

An exciting element of southern Vietnam’s culinary landscape, cá lóc is also an important part of the nation’s economic growth and stability. Despite fluctuating prices, they are particularly vital sources of income for impoverished households. For example, they are integrated into initiatives in the Mekong Delta to advance more sustainable agriculture and land-use practices. Because they are easy to raise and popular as a food good that can be dried and stored, local officials encourage small-scale fisheries to supplement other income sources and protect against fluctuations in other commodity prices. It’s difficult to recognize them being raised in any specific body of water, but travelers to the region will frequently notice them being dried in the sun. Saigoneer was able to witness this first hand when we traveled to Long An to observe a WWF-implemented Climate Resilience by Nature project that saw farmers abandon the year’s environmentally ruinous third rice harvest and instead use the land for other small-scale business endeavors, such as farming cá lóc.

Photo of a farmer in An Giang feeding the cá lóc being raised in a pond formerly used to grow rice. Photo by Alberto Prieto.

While eaten throughout the year, on Ngày vía Thần Tài or God of Wealth Day, cá lóc takes center stage. On the tenth day of the first lunar month, people will witness the fish with a stalk of sugarcane stabbed through their throats being grilled on sidewalks and in markets all throughout Saigon. In addition to buying gold and burning votive paper to honor Thần Tài’s birthday and hopefully usher in a financially prosperous year, citizens feast on cá lóc.

The precise reason for the association of cá lóc with Thần Tài has been lost to time. Some theorize that it represents a rare extravagance held over from more impoverished days. Others claim it was selected because it symbolizes Thần Tài’s love of nature. Or maybe, others say, it simply is Thần Tài’s favorite food.

Cá lóc being grilled and sold for Ngày vía Thần Tài. Photos via Dân trí.

Whatever the specific reasons, the city absolutely turns out for cá lóc on the holiday. Astounding reports of its popularity fill local media every year. In 2022, one local vendor claimed to have imported 3,000 cá lóc from the Delta, totaling five tons for the day alone. To accommodate the leap in demand, shops call in dozens of extra employees and work around the clock. Predictably, the prices rise on this specific day, reaching VND250,000 for an average-sized fish weighing between one and two kilograms in recent years.

Vietnam’s common cá lóc and the dreaded northern snakehead, while different species, closely resemble each other in size and general appearance. And before I knew the difference, I would walk amongst the stalls of skewered cá lóc on Ngày vía Thần Tài, marveling at the idea of Vietnamese welcoming good fortune by dining ravenously on a fish that keeps Americans up at night. The cultural divide seemed stark. Perhaps, I thought, the clichéd adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” could be changed and abbreviated to simply “one nation's cá lóc.” But after learning about the many species that are casually called snakehead and how Vietnam’s cá lóc is an important income source that is even exported to America and sold under alternative names, the phrase should be “one nation's cá lóc is another’s white grouper.”

Sấu Ushers in a Hanoian Summer of Sweet-and-Sour Nostalgia

2024-06-17T15:00:00+07:00

A former coworker called me to playfully nag me about my previous plan to visit Hanoi: “Are you waiting for all the sấu to drop before making a move?”

“Is it sấu season already?” I replied. It’s been nearly a year since I was last under the sweltering capital sky, strolling past shadow-streaked yellow walls, and huddling in a corner cafe with a view towards a summer-drenched street. Summer arrives in the city sporadically, sometimes at a sleepy speed, but occasionally as hurriedly as the way the rows of sấu trees on Phan Đình Phùng and Trần Phú bear fruits.

Generations of Hanoi’s children and anyone who happens to be in town during the season can’t help being enamored by this homely but unique fruit. With summer comes the sấu season, bringing about clusters of plump fruits alongside the chorus of cicada buzz. They start showing up everywhere, from family meals and sidewalk beverages to memories frolicking beside snack vendors. Sấu is not merely a fruit, it’s part of the cultural tapestry of a distinct and elegant Hanoi.

Sấu appears everywhere, from family meals to sidewalk beverages to memories frolicking beside snack vendors. Photo via VnExpress.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Once I was tricked into believing a rather facetious explanation of sấu’s name: because the fruit is so sour, when one gives it a taste, their face will crumple into a “xấu” grimace — “xấu” is ugly in Vietnamese. I’ve since learned that the fruit’s name might derive from the Nôm character 瘦, meaning “gaunt.” It’s likely that the name is also used to describe the facial expression one subconsciously sports when tasting sour food.

The scientific name of sấu is Dracontomelon duperreanum, but it’s also known colloquially as sấu tía or long cóc. Sấu a species of drupe, produces clusters of fruits that are spherical, spanning around 2 centimeters. The flesh is white and crunchy, surrounding one hard seed. Sấu is juicy but sour when young; as the fruit ripens, it turns yellow and fragrant. Sấu is a woody plant, with wide canopies and a long life span reaching up to 10 centuries. It thrives in alluvium-rich soil of temperate, hilly regions with the average temperature ranging 20–25°C. Sấu is commonly found across Northern Vietnam and high-altitude Central Vietnam.

Sấu is juicy but sour when young; as the fruit ripens, it turns yellow and fragrant. Illustration via the University of Southern California.

Beneath the rough skin, sấu contains many beneficial nutrients. According to traditional Vietnamese medicine, sấu is an ingredient for coughing and sore throat remedies, etc. The sourness promotes digestion and reduces nausea.

Sấu’s abundance and unique flavor understandably lead to its widespread appearance in northern cuisines. Once you’ve tried it, it’s hard to forget, like an intense first crush, encompassing all the longing and anticipation of a new summer and its resulting sấu harvest.

A mainstay on Hanoi streets

Ambling along Lê Phụng Hiểu and Lê Thánh Tôn streets in the historic areas of Hanoi, and new thoroughfares to the west of the city like Dương Đình Nghệ and Phạm Văn Bạch, pedestrians will enjoy the cooling shade of rows of luxuriant sấu trees.

A new season of minuscule sấu blossoms has begun. They look like tiny white bells on the branches, giving off a gentle scent, both pure and relaxing to heave in a lungful. Oh and how delicate are sấu blossoms! With every light breeze that can barely shake the branches, a light blanket of petite flowers will scatter on the busy pavements, on passersby’s shirts and hats.

“Just merely flowers days ago
Once gushing with passionate smell
It only takes a budding of doubt
for the fruits to be born for real.”
— ‘The young sấu up high’ (Quả sấu non trên cao), Xuân Diệu

Like Xuân Diệu’s stanza describes, bunches of baby sấu materialize as quickly as summer arrives, dotting the tree with emerald green marbles. In a few days, fruit pickers will show up, and then mobile vendors will start ferrying bamboo trays filled with piles of green sấu across town.

Mobile vendors will start ferrying bamboo trays filled with piles of green sấu across town. Photo via Pixabay.

The first mention of sấu appeared during the Nguyễn Dynasty, in Đại Nam nhất thống chí (Đại Nam Comprehensive Encyclopaedia). At the time, residents of Bất Bạt District (Ba Vì today) and Mỹ Lương District (Chương Mỹ today) widely cultivated sấu and trán đen (Canarium tramdenum), the former for eating fresh while the latter were used to press for oil.

In 1883, Resident-Superior Jean Thomas Raoul Bonnal ordered a makeover of the Hoàn Kiếm and Ba Đình areas, imposing a guideline on which species to plant. The trees must have vertical trunks, tap roots to minimize being toppled over by strong winds, expansive canopies to shield streets from the sun, no toxic sap or unpleasant scents. Sấu satisfied every requirement.

Phan Đình Phùng Street is amongst the prettiest streets in Hanoi with three rows of sấu trees. Photo via VnExpress.

In the first decade of the 20^th century, streets from the south of Sword Lake to the western side of the city were outfitted with sấu trees. According to statistics from the Hanoi Park Company, during the subsidy period, sấu made up as much as one-third of all public trees in Hai Bà Trưng, Đống Đa, Ba Đình and Hoàn Kiếm districts. Another data set shows that, in 2017, out of 334 trees on Hai Bà Trưng Street, 86 were sấu.

The soul of Hanoi’s snack scene

It’s unclear when sấu started entering the Vietnamese culinary landscape, but historical documents show that even during the earliest times, locals used molasses to dry sấu and then simmered with sugar to produce candied fruits. During festive occasions, the fruit is also used to flavor chicken and duck, or pickled with salt to make condiments. Gradually, sấu has persisted over generations, in the minds and stomachs of foodies in the north.

A bowl of vegetable broth with sấu is an indispensable part of a summer meal. Photo via VnExpress.

For kids, the peppering of sấu blossoms signals a time when school seems like a distant memory and when the fun doesn’t stop. Children pluck the flowers from the ground and string them together to create jewelry for make-believe weddings. And then when the fruits are big enough, the trees become a rendezvous place for tree-climbing sessions to pick sấu to dip in salt, a hot commodity despite the sourness.

To home cooks, getting an ideal batch of sấu is like playing the lottery. Maybe you’ll bump into a vendor featuring freshly picked fruits straight from the branch, but sometimes, you’ll have to settle for harvests that have come in on trucks from surrounding provinces, especially Thái Nguyên. The result is a cooling bowl of vegetable broth with the tangy juice from several mashed sấu. A rustic northern meal is not complete without a plate of blanched greens, a bowl of crunchy pickled baby eggplants, and a big pot of tart sấu broth. These days, with a growing appetite for more substantial food, many new dishes have been created, like sấu-braised short ribs, caramelized shrimps with sấu, sấu braised duck, etc.

Sweet, sour and spicy ô mai is a famous Hanoian delicacy. Photo via Ô mai Huyền Béo.

Once sấu abundance reaches its climax each summer, excess fruits are sequestered away in jars for pickling. The treatment is simple but effective in retaining the fruit’s natural texture and tempering its sourness. Candying is also a popular way to ensure that sấu is available for munching year-round. Mature sấu is sun-dried to remove extra water, then soaked with sugar, salt and ginger to make ô mai sấu. These nuggets also have an important place in the culture of Hanoi, enthralling eaters with their complex flavors of sourness, spiciness, sweetness, and saltiness, in addition to a soft inside and chewy exterior.

Sấu juice is a refreshing thirst quencher. Photo via Flickr user tayngang.

As the season comes to an end, sấu turn golden on the trees, taking on a distinctive sweetness that’s perfect to snack on with chili sauce or beef jerky. With every bite, your palate is inundated first by the heat of chili and the sweetness of the fruit, but then, a timid tartness lingers on the tongue. This fascinating flavor profile will keep you wanting more.

From rows of verdant trees along streets to rustic snacks of our childhood, sấu has become a true sliver of Hanoi heritage. Whenever I stop by a bún đậu eatery in Saigon, I always order a glass of sấu juice. Perhaps I’m compelled by my affection for sấu’s unique flavor, or by the inseparable connection between sấu and Hanoian culture. Sipping on the sweet-and-sour liquid, I feel as if I’m on the pavement of Hàng Khay, watching the capital’s traffic rush by.

10 Species of Lesser-Known Fruits to Get to Know Vietnam's Biodiversity

2024-06-11T17:00:00+07:00

In the Vietnamese language, the suffix “cỏ” — meaning “grass” in the literal sense — is often used to signify that something is locally grown, no frills, and charmingly rustic; grassroots, if you will. Chó cỏ is the general term for the adorable mutts, usually mixes between Vietnam’s native dog species, born without the prestige of named breeds, while gym cỏ and net cỏ denote the casual gyms and internet cafes in one’s neighborhood. In the same vein of logic, may I put forth a new name for a special genre of Vietnamese fruits: trái cỏ?

The fruit industry is now a multi-million dollar sector that makes up significant portions of national GDP figures across the world. We have all read headlines heralding the astounding prices of specially bred Japanese grapes or cantaloupes, brought up with classical music playing in the background and watered using ultra-precise drip methods. Malaysia and Thailand have made a name for themselves as leading world exporters of durians, while Vietnam is also gradually building a reputation overseas for tasty dragon fruits and lychees.

Trái cỏ are wild, untamed trees and bushes that exist in unexplored patches of the jungle or homestead backyards, bearing fruits purely for the survival of their species and not for the insatiable appetite of fruit-loving humans.

Over centuries, thanks to major technological advancements in genetics and agricultural practices, the fruit cultivars that we produce today have been bred to be sweeter, larger, prettier, more bountiful, and more shelf-stable than ever, so it is fascinating to learn that at one point in history, they too were once trái cỏ — wild, untamed trees and bushes that exist in unexplored patches of the jungle or homestead backyards, bearing fruits purely for the survival of their species and not for the insatiable appetite of fruit-loving humans.

A 17^th-century painting by Italian still life painter Giovanni Stanchi is particularly beloved by botanists, for his depiction of a half-cut watermelon reveals a curious snapshot in the cultivation history of the cucurbit: Stanchi’s melons are nearly white in the middle, save for the usual pitch-black seeds and a few swirls of pinkish-red that radiate from the center. Watermelons first took roots in Africa as early as the eras of ancient Egypt; while they have always been sweet, the inviting shade of crimson red of watermelons enjoyed these days is the result of aesthetic-minded selective breeding, and past pharaohs were likely to have feasted on dưa hấu cỏ that looked closer to those in Stanchi’s painting than at today’s Co.opmarts.

Giovanni Stanchi, ‘Watermelons, peaches, pears and other fruit in a landscape,’ oil on canvas, 98 x 133.5 cm. Image via Wikimedia.

Vietnam’s tropical climate and diverse biomes have bestowed us with an abundance of native fruit-bearing species, many of which have been developed and engineered to be very commercially viable while others have remained relatively untouched by the hands of agriculture, happily swaying alongside rural paddy fields and in meandering alleys in townships and hamlets. I have loved fruits since the moment I discovered the magical existence of taste buds; with every fruit species I’ve had the pleasure of sampling, a new friend is made, and a new sweet, tangy, tannic, velvety, spongy core memory is made. The 10 types of trái cỏ I’ve selected to highlight in this Natural Selection feature belong firmly in the latter category, as one probably will never find them in supermarkets and decorated fruit baskets, but in bamboo trays and styrofoam boxes in wet markets and on the pavements, arriving straight from someone’s backyard trees.

1. Lêkima | Pouteria lucuma

Native: Andes Mountains, South America
Distribution in Vietnam: Mekong Delta, South-Central Coast

Photos via Ascension Kitchen.

No fruit in this list is as famous nationwide as lêkima, whose presence is intertwined with the wartime legend of Võ Thị Sáu, a guerrilla fighter who was executed by French colonists on Côn Đảo Island. Her resistance was immortalized in a song that happens to feature lêkima blossoms, a common flora in Đất Đỏ, her hometown. Lêkima is also known in Vietnam as the “egg fruit” thanks to its turmeric-colored, and rich, buttery flesh that brings to mind the texture of cooked egg yolk.

Read Saigoneer’s Natural Selection feature on lêkima here.

2. Trứng cá | Muntingia calabura

Native: From southern Mexico to western South America
Distribution in Vietnam: Nationwide

Photo via Flickr user Forest and Kim.

I grew up with the shade of trứng cá canopies enveloping our front yard, thanks to our neighbor’s particularly fertile tree. Trứng cá, meaning fish roe in Vietnamese, gets its name from its tiny, plump, juicy fruits that burst out their honey-sweet, sandy content upon a bite — like a salmon roe or crystal pearl in a boba tea. As trứng cá fruits ripen, they turn from whitish-green to scarlet orbs peppering the tree’s neatly arranged leaves. During trứng cá’s most prolific fruit-bearing days of my childhood, waking up every day was a joy, as we got to our yard each morning welcomed by a carpet of fallen trứng cá fruits on the terracotta tiles, ready for our little fingers to pick up, to be snacked on as summer’s sweetest offering.

3. Xay | Dialium cochinchinense

Native: Borneo Island and mainland Southeast Asia

Photo via Peckish Me..

Xay might have many different spellings for its name in Vietnamese, but is known in several languages as “velvet tamarind.” The fruit turns black when ripe, spotting a soft, mossy, velvety texture around the shell. To eat xay, crack the carapace to retrieve the flesh inside, a powdery nugget awash in a light coral color that tastes like tropical Tang drink mix. Once the initial tanginess is gone, a subtly sweet flavor remains on your tongue. You munch on the inner membrane, spit out the seed, and pick up another, another, and another — until there is a small mound of xay shell fragments in front of you. Xay is a textbook trái cỏ, as few localities in Vietnam cultivate it commercially; when it’s xay seasons, local natives venture deep into the forest with baskets on their back and return with branches heavy with xay’s velvety black shells.

4. Bình bát | Annona glabra

Native: Florida, US and from the Caribbean to South America
Distribution in Vietnam: the Mekong Delta

Photo via Long Châu.

Bình bát belongs to the same genus as soursop and custard apple, but if the latter two are greatly appreciated by Vietnamese young and old, and are featured prominently in Tết fruit platters and smoothies, bình bát remains an obscure rural treat only known by those hailing from the Mekong Region, like my father’s side of the family. On the boat ride along the canal towards my grandma’s farm in Kiên Giang, I distinctly remember the yellow pops of ripe bình bát like stars dotting a green galaxy. Similar to soursop, the inside of bình bát comprises numerous black seeds enveloped by a layer of thin white flesh that turns sunshine-yellow when ripe. In the delta, it’s most common to peel the fruit and macerate the pulps with sugar or condensed milk. The result, with added shaved ice, is a cooling treat that’s as fragrant as summer itself.

5. Trâm | Syzygium cumini

Native: the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia

Photo via Báo Long An.

Judging by the reactions of my coworkers to trâm, it might as well be renamed “fool’s grape.” Trâm might look like a grape, but instead of a juicy bite, one is immediately taken aback by how big trâm’s seed is, for the fruit is at least 80% seed. The taste, which is concentrated in the peel, is tannic, subtly sweet and sour, the combination of which might prove to be quite astringent to eat on its own, but surprisingly delightful when shaken with chili salt. Walking through markets in Mekong Delta provinces, one will inevitably bump into vendors sitting on the floor beside pot lid-sized bamboo trays padded with banana leaves. On the top, of course, is a purplish black mound of trâm berries that are well-marinated in spicy salt. I am already drooling.

6. Ô môi | Cassia grandis L.f.

Native: Southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America
Distribution in Vietnam: Southern Vietnam

Photos by Lâm Long Hồ via Người Lao Động.

Instead of the bright yellow of mai flowers, families living near ô môi trees look at the pink shower of their blossoms as the harbinger of spring. Once the pink arrives, ô môi’s giant fruits will show themselves soon after, first as pods that resemble gargantuan green beans, and then, as the pods ripen, they transform into hardy shells as black as tree bark. To eat ô môi, kids often look for the easiest harvest: fallen pods on the floor. In the middle of the arid black fruits are segments, each housing a seed and sticky pulp that tastes like molasses with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Ô môi is not a particularly delicious fruit, but in the minds of Vietnamese children, it is always free and can double as a sword for make-believe Power Rangers play sessions. What more could a kid need?

7. Tầm bóp | Physalis peruviana

Native: Chile and Peru
Distribution in Vietnam: Central Highlands

It’s hard not to be astounded by tầm bóp. At a glance, it might pass for a withering flower bud with brittle petals, but once the “petals” are removed, a golden-yellow orb pops out in the palm of your hand, as shiny and smooth as a gemstone. For years, tầm bóp has existed as bushes that proliferate across Vietnam’s bucolic countryside, but since 2021, social media has elevated its status from wild forages to “superfruits” sought after by wellness blogs. Tầm bóp hails from the same nightshade family as tomato, eggplant, and chili, so I have found that it tastes vastly similar to a cherry tomato with a tropical touch.

8. Nhót | Elaeagnus latifolia

Native: the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia
Distribution in Vietnam: Northern Vietnam

Photos via Người Lao Động.

Every March and April, there’s one thing to expect walking on the streets of Hanoi: the carpet of bright red nhót on mobile vendors, as referenced by poet Phạm Tiến Duật in his poem ‘Lửa đèn’ (Lantern Fire): “Nhót is like a guiding light / shining the path into summer.” The oblong, pudgy fruit epitomizes a success story in which a homely countryside snack has become a serious means to make a living for northern farmers, as urbanites in Hanoi have recently developed a fondness for the sweet flavor of nhót. Unripe nhót is also a popular children’s snack for it allows maximal dipping in chili salt, while homemakers often borrow its distinct tartness to flavor canh chua nhót.

9. Chùm ruột | Phyllanthus acidus

Native: Madagascar and the Indian subcontinent
Distribution in Vietnam: Nationwide

Photo via Wikimedia.

There’s an indescribable joy in looking up into the luxuriant canopies of a chùm ruột tree just to spot clumps of ripening fruits dangling in the air. While apples or mangos grow in separate stalks that might be hard to spot, chùm ruột surfaces in clusters peppering all over the branches, forming a bright yellow scarf that brightens up wherever they appear. Even ripe, chùm ruột is incredibly tart to be eaten raw, but its crunchy flesh means it is great for candying and pickling.

10. Thị | Diospyros decandra

Native: Indochina and South-Central China

Photo via Lao Động.

Thị is a fruit of extremes: it is perhaps one of the most fragrant fruits in the country, but may also take the crown for Vietnam’s least edible fruit. Even though munching on a slice of thị might not kill you, it will not be a pleasant experience, for the fruit’s high tannin content will coat your tongue and cause bowel obstruction if consumed in large quantities. For this reason, thị is fated to be a trái cỏ, existing just to perfume humanity but not to feed it.

Read Saigoneer’s Natural Selection feature on thị here.

Trái Thị: The Fruit of Heavenly Smell and Infernal Taste

2024-05-29T08:00:00+07:00

If you had to pick a national smell that represents Vietnam, what would it be? There are a host of strong contenders: durian, lotus-scented green tea, fragrant pandan sticky rice, that enticing aroma of shallots crisping up in hot oil. It’s hard to say no to tasty things, but for me, that honor unequivocally belongs to trái thị, the golden apple of Vietnam.

Trái thị, the golden apple of Vietnam.

Thị (Diospyros decandra) is not a particularly eye-catching fruit; at best, one can describe its appearance as homely. Even at its ripest, thị wears a pale yellow peel with a peppering of black dots on a matte coat, a far cry from the glossy sheen of its closest cousins, persimmons (Diospyros kaki).

But there’s a hearty authenticity to a basket of plump thị that has always endeared me to it. Modern crops like apples, carrots or rice have all gone through centuries, if not millennia, of selective breeding to engineer them for supermarket shelves. With the fruit’s limited commercial viability, the genetics of thị trees have rarely strayed far from its naturally selected self, firmly keeping its thick canopy and sweet scent rooted in Vietnamese culture.

What trái thị lacks in appearance, it makes up for in divine aroma.

That aroma — where do I begin? It’s as sweet as honey, but not as cloying; as memorable as mango, but not as tropical; as floral as jasmine, but not as piquant. It’s a gentle but assured reminder of how nature is capable of grasping us by the nostrils and exclaiming “remember this feeling” in bold neon letters. Sometimes my brain doesn’t archive memories by narrative sequence, but by senses. In my temporal lobe, there’s a file labeled “thị” that dates back to a childhood memory with my mom; the file that, when opened, will give off a thị perfume the way a Christmas card reeks of frankincense.

In his essay collection Sương Khói Quê Nhà (The Remnants of Home), children’s literature author Nguyễn Nhật Ánh describes encountering thị in Saigon like meeting up with an old acquaintance from one’s hometown. He was driving past a market in the city one day when something stopped him in his tracks. An unknown force made itself present in his subconscious even before he could identify the source of the attraction. As he slowly backpedalled, there that something was: a basket full of freshly picked thị, as golden as the Quang Nam sunrise.

Did you know?

Two 600-year-old thị trees at the Citadel of the Ho Dynasty in Thanh Hoa Province were officially recognized by the Vietnamese government as national heritage trees.

“Children buy thị to put inside their school bag, desk drawer or rucksack, enjoying the fragrance for three or four days until the fruit turns mushy. Then, they peel it to eat and carefully tear the peel into a flower shape to stick on the wall,” he reminisces. When I was just a child, my first thị was with me on the desk through an entire day of arithmetic and algebra homework. In between equations, I would lift the fruit up, press it to my nose and breathe in a lungful.

Thị enters the fabrics of Vietnamese culture in one of the most prominent folk stories in history, The Tale of Tấm Cám. After her father passes away, Tấm lives with her stepmother and stepsister Cám, suffering from their abusive antics every day. A chance encounter with a missing shoe at a party catches the prince’s eyes and Tấm is married into the royal family. Jealous of her matrimony, the stepmother asks Tấm to climb up a palm tree to pick areca nuts for the father’s death anniversary. She chops the tree down, and Tấm falls to her death.

Tấm reincarnates as a thị tree that only bears one fruit. Day by day, the fruit’s lonely existence catches the attention of an old lady who mans a humble drink stall nearby. She whispers to herself: “Thị ơi thị à, thị rơi bị bà, bà để bà thơm chứ bà không ăn / O thị my thị, fall into my bag, I’ll only enjoy your smell and won’t eat you.” To her shock, the fruit gently slides into her burlap sack and she takes it home.

Thị ơi thị à, thị rơi bị bà, bà để bà thơm chứ bà không ăn.

O thị my thị, fall into my bag, I’ll only enjoy your smell and won’t eat you.

When her cohabitation with trái thị began, she would leave for work only to return to a pristine home with a delicious dinner awaiting. One morning, she pretends to depart but instead hides in a bush, and a miracle unfolds before her eyes: a young woman, Tấm, steps out of the fruit and begins cleaning the house. The lady, moved by Tấm’s kindness, convinces her to abandon the fruit and live with her as the daughter she has long wished for but never had.

The story ends happily for Tấm, delivering a hopeful message that goodness will prevail. It also consolidates the popularity of thị in our collective culture: no other fruit could propel the narrative forward like trái thị can. Could a frugal working-class lady bear to waste a perfectly ripe, nectariferous mango just because she made a promise to just smell it? This is the starring role tailored just for thị, the fruit that smells like heaven and tastes like hell.

Trái thị is the fruit that smells like heaven and tastes like hell.

I longed to try my first thị for days, despite my mom’s stern and repeated warnings that it wouldn’t taste good. However, to an adventurous child who had once bitten into candle wax, scented soap and mangosteen rind, such advice was impotent. I cut out a slice of thị and placed it on my tongue. A feathering of sweetness filled my palate, followed quickly by a hostile, repulsive washing of tannic sap. Sometimes, when you eat a not-quite-ripe persimmon, there’s a grittiness that coats your tongue amidst the soft fruit flesh. This was like that, plus the aftertaste of the bitterest green tea. Thị is a vivid, unforgettable lesson in temperance that any voracious Vietnamese kid will probably retain in their memory for a long time.

Beside a winning supporting role in a popular folk tale, there are other slivers of thị in Vietnamese culture. The asterisk is called dấu hoa thị, or the thị flower symbol, as it resembles thị’s delicate white blossoms. In temples, courtyards, mausoleums, and shrines across the country, centenarian thị trees stand tall like ancient guardians, a few of which are as old as 600 and officially recognized as artifacts of national heritage.

The asterisk is called dấu hoa thị, or the thị flower symbol.

Trái thị has its place in our mythology and geography, but perhaps nowhere is it as venerated and loved as inside the psyche of Vietnamese children. The fruits grow and ripen from late summer all the way to autumn, just in time for Trung Thu, a children’s festival. Nguyễn Nhật Ánh writes that thị is less a fruit to eat than a fruit to play. My connection with thị has my mother as the key link, and I’ve since bought thị whenever I spot them on the street to give to friends and coworkers. It’s a gift bestowing newfound fascination rather than just a typical sweet treat. It anchors shared memories, as Ánh perfectly puts:

“Later, after I’ve moved to the south, the season of ripe thị only reappears in wistful dreams. So yesterday afternoon, a basket of thị on the side of the road compelled me to stop to look back at my past. Of course I bought the entire basket, without hesitation or bargaining. Because I didn’t buy a piece of merchandise, I bought a memory.”

Because I didn’t buy a piece of merchandise, I bought a memory.

This article was originally published in 2021.

Top image by Phan Nhi, Jessie Trần.
Graphics by Phan Nhi, Patty Yang, Hannah Hoàng, Phương Phan, Jessie Trần.

Crickets Are More Than Just Chirpy Reminders of Our Childhood

2023-12-15T10:00:00+07:00

Cricket song. You read the words and immediately hear the chirping. That thrilling trill of strummed air. Humans have been hearing that quivering echo since we first came into existence. And over time, we’ve attached a variety of meanings to it and the creature that makes it.

Image via Kim Đồng Publishing.

Perhaps the most overt association people have with crickets in Vietnam is Tô Hoài’s Dế Mèn Phiêu Lưu Ký (Diary of a Cricket). The beloved tale and holder of the distinction of “Vietnam’s most translated story,” is an imaginative fantasy that follows a cricket as he goes on adventures. In the process of escaping from the Kingdom of Frogs, battling a menacing mantis and very nearly succumbing to an army of ants before restoring peace to the land, he learns numerous life lessons including the importance of resilience, generosity, justice and renouncing violence. The book’s simple moral teachings make its inclusion in school curriculums obvious, but its ability to depict a charming magical world imagined from familiar fields helps explain why you’ll find it in bookshops and toy stores throughout the country.

The most overt association people have with crickets in Vietnam is Tô Hoài’s Dế Mèn Phiêu Lưu Ký, a beloved tale and holder of the distinction of “Vietnam’s most translated story.”

Diary of a Cricket contains very little reference to the cricket’s ability to chirp. However, for me, it is very much a sound-evoking narrative. Several years ago, the HBSO staged a special performance of the story as interpreted by the full orchestra. So while I know what sound a cricket makes, when I see one springing from grass blade to grass blade, I catch whispers of Phạm Vũ Thiên Bảo’s viola prancing atop cello notes.

Truthfully, a cricket doesn’t make noise all that differently from the way one plays a string instrument. Crickets stridulate. That's the technical term for producing sound by rubbing two body parts together. Male crickets rapidly drag rough patches on the undersides of their large forewings across each other. Their scraper rasped across their file is similar to rubbing your finger over a comb. They do this to attract mates and then incite copulation, as well as threaten rival males and intimidate predators. Nature thrives on gender imbalance, and thus only male crickets have the ability to make noise, leaving the females as silent as women in Christopher Nolan movies.

Thinking about Diary of a Cricket may evoke nostalgia for childhood, but the association goes deeper than fond recollections of a story read in youth. In economically leaner and technology-limited times, cricket fighting was a popular hobby for kids throughout the country. They would spend afternoons digging around in the dirt to capture the biggest, meanest-looking specimens. Groups of friends would gather to erect makeshift rings for the prizefighters. Tussling, tugging, thrusting and biting, thankfully the bouts were rarely deadly with the loser choosing to retreat before being mortally wounded.

Photo via Tuổi Trẻ.

The activity’s association with an era that feels increasingly simpler with each passing year is exemplified in Phạm Hổ’s 1957 poem ‘Những ngày xưa thân ái’ (Tender and Beautiful Days Gone By) and translated by David Payne. The poem includes the stanza:

Tender and beautiful days gone by,
he has forgotten them all
but I remember still:
the fields of my village, huge ocean of rice
the morning dew, white pearls by the roadside
us two
our school books clasped together
our clothes crumpled by sleep
our bare feet moving together side by side
in swinging hands the handful of rice
our mothers ground in a leaf of areca palm
our wide conical hats with their bands too long
in a pocket a matchbox, a cricket inside…

The pastime of fighting crickets hasn’t disappeared completely, however. It remains popular in rural and impoverished areas. And even if someone has long ago re-trained their cricket-digging fingers to scroll social media, their eyes are liable to light up when reflecting on it. Bliss emerges amidst explanations of how tying hair to a fighter’s leg and spinning it around would compel a favorite cricket back into battle.

Interestingly, scientists recently discovered that the secretion of nitric oxide in the insects’ brain is responsible for determining when a cricket decides to stop a fight and flee. This is just one of an incredible number of scientific studies that have been performed on crickets generally, and their songs in particular. We now know how their calls have evolved, the ways in which they rely on geographic features for sound amplification, and even the caloric impact of making such songs. Because of their size and ease of care, crickets are proving valuable for research that extends to other species as well. Scientists use them to conduct a variety of experiments to learn more about genetics, stem cells and brain development that impacts humans and other organisms.

Photos by Michael Tatarski.

One reason there are so many crickets around to study relates to a newly emerging association people have with the cacophonous sound of a trillion cricket cries: cash. Indeed, the insects have been identified as a cheaper and more environmentally sustainable protein source than beef, pork or chicken. Vietnam is home to several companies harvesting crickets on an industrial scale for protein powder. Meanwhile, several companies here have introduced snacks that leave crickets in their full form and simply dash them with some seasoning such as wasabi or cheese salt. Saigoneer has tried the snack crickets, inviting a new sound to associate with crickets: the crunch. Grassy, earthy, and hay-strewn — the flavor has left our office very much divided.

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

So what does a cricket call make you think of? Hard work, tenacity and moral uprightness? Carefree childhood days? A more sustainable future cuisine? A joke you told that landed utterly flat? Loneliness when heard as you sit by yourself on a desolate evening? Malicious interrogation as it berates you from an unseen nook outside your backdoor for nights on end? Maybe it’s none of these. And maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe we shouldn’t burden crickets with our human metaphors and self-important attachments and instead allow them to be simple, singular insects, as pled for in the translation of a Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ poem:

So please just let me be a cricket
Singing nonsense words in the silent grass
Watching stars as my song echoes through the field
Drinking in the sweet sun like honey
Please just let me be a cricket.

An Ode to Lục Bình, Vietnam's Invasive, Destructive, Beautiful Aquatic Jerk

2023-09-20T16:00:00+07:00

Knotted gnarls of lush stems, leaves, vines; a verdant scrimmage of tangled plant matter kept afloat by buoyant bladders accented by pleats of pink petals that resemble the skirts of ballerinas trapped inside music boxes: the water hyacinth.

We currently live in a geological age known as the Anthropocene, so named because of humanity’s overwhelming influence on the planet. What is or is not natural is increasingly difficult to determine, let alone how one should assess the effects of the many rapid changes our species has caused. If the age were to have a symbol, none would be more fitting than the water hyacinth. Dubbed “the million-dollar weed,” “Bengal terror,“ “blue devil” and “enemy number one,” lục bình — as it is known in Vietnamese — savages ecosystems, stymies transportation efforts, clogs electricity grids and upends agricultural systems around the world. Yet, in Vietnam, the invasive plant has recently provided surprising benefits for economically disadvantaged communities, and may provide insights into how humans will interact with the natural world in the turbulent decades to come.

Lục bình growing in Long Mỹ District in the Mekong Delta. Photos by Paul Christiansen.

In love and war

Water hyacinth played a curious role during the American War. Natural and expanded canals turned remote regions of the Mekong Delta into chessboards upon which opposing sides would place bases, sometimes within 1,000 meters of one another. Mines and barricades littered the lands in between. Guerrilla soldiers learned to sneak out at night and slip into the murky waters of intertwined waterways, slowly moving beneath a mat of water hyacinth, the only thing betraying their presence a small straw poking above the surface. They could thus move unnoticed right past enemy encampments.

The soldiers were not launching sneak attacks on their enemies, however. They were, after all, practically kids. Even during war, times of great danger, death and hardship, young love couldn’t be denied. They were using the hyacinth for cover so they could rendezvous with their sweethearts at other bases. No doubt the plant played silent witness to innumerable sweet nothings and moonlight kisses.

Hearing this story while overlooking Long Mỹ’s weed-snarled canals wasn’t my first introduction to the complex history of water hyacinth, however. It has been reproducing out of control in my native America since it was inadvertently released during the 1884 Cotton States Exposition in New Orleans, and a brilliant piece of long-form journalism in the Atavist details an outlandish scheme to import and raise hippopotamus to keep it under control. Oddly, it failed not because the plan was unsound, but rather because of political gridlock and an inability to convince Americans that hippo meat was truly no stranger than cows or pigs when you think about it.

A plant that needs no passport

In the 1990s, the world collectively spent nearly US$3 billion to try and control water hyacinth, and largely failed. You’ve no doubt seen it before. The dreadlocked leaves and thick stems float effortlessly on waterways throughout Vietnam and more than 50 nations on five continents. Classified as a free-floating hydrophyte, along with water cabbage and Salvinia, the Eichhornia crassipes, or water hyacinth, doesn’t anchor its roots in submerged soil like a water lily, instead, it drifts atop the surface the way clouds waft over empty fields.

Water hyacinth is native to South American jungles, but from the 16^th century through the 20^th century it was brought by biologists, botanists and travelers to Africa, Europe and Asia. It is believed to have arrived at the Bogor Botanical Garden in Java in 1894 for decorative use in ornamental baths and spread from there throughout the region for similar reasons. It slipped out from the Bangkok gardens and found its way into the Mekong River and expanded, a great green tendril, reaching down the slow-moving river. By 1902 it was brought to Hanoi, and from there spread into China and Hong Kong, where it was also used by locals to feed pigs. It’s surmised that in numerous places it made its way into local rivers, lakes, rice paddies and other natural bodies of water via accidental release.

Water hyacinth has thrived thanks to a number of factors. In general, the hearty plant can survive in and adapt to a variety of conditions, including a range of water temperature and pH levels. While ideal conditions, including abundant nutrients, result in rapid growth, it can tolerate harsher climates and has been known to survive on damp soil for months and recover from leaves that have frozen during frosts. The world’s fastest-growing free-floating plant, under the right conditions, a mat of hyacinth can double in size in just a week or two.

Photo via Jots and Jaunts.

Moreover, like the way maggots thrive inside a decaying body, water hyacinth proliferates in polluted water. Factory sludge, household waste, chemical- and fertilizer-rich agricultural runoff change rivers and lakes’ natural nutritional compositions, allowing hyacinth to gorge itself, growing wildly out of control.

In its native habitat, the glorious, glorious, oh so glorious manatee feeds on hyacinth, which keeps them in check. However, in what is surely proof that god either doesn’t exist or is a vile, vengeful lord, manatees do not live all around the world. In areas where the plant has been introduced, no creature has made it a significant food source, and few insects or diseases impact it.

Modern Vietnam’s enemy number one?

"Though the two banks are just 40 meters apart, it takes me at least two to three hours to go to the other side by motor-boat [because of the plant]," said Tây Ninh resident Nguyễn Hữu Danh. Indeed, the unmitigated growth of hyacinth has made navigating waterways arduous at best. Needing to wait for currents to clear it, or having to hack a path stem by stem, directly translates to extra costs in shipping and supply chains, as well as numerous encumbrances for daily lives. Võ Thị Hội, a small merchant from Đồng Tháp, explained that after 30 years, “we cannot carry goods from Đồng Tháp to Tây Ninh because the water hyacinth has blocked our way. I have suffered large losses due to late deliveries.”

Photo via Môi Trường.

The thick green mats floating on the surface of rivers and lakes ensnare nets and lines, making fishing impossible as well. It forces fishermen to seek new waterways or find alternative income sources. Additionally, in some countries, water hyacinth has clogged hydroelectric power plants.

Not only does the weed entangle propellers, it harbors enemies, like the empty innards of a wooden gift horse. By flummoxing water flow, it provides ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes carrying malaria, dengue and other diseases, while killing the many fish and amphibians that would normally eat the insects. The stagnant water also often acquires a foul odor and may be unusable for human use.

Not only does the weed entangle propellers, it harbors enemies. By flummoxing water flow, it provides ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, while killing the many fish and amphibians that would normally eat the insects.

Along with the immediate negative impacts on human lives, hyacinth upends ecosystems with unpredictable effects. In addition to out-competing native plants for light, nutrients and oxygen, it kills fish and other aquatic animals by changing the amount of sunlight that enters the water and throwing fragile biomes horrifically out of wack; spawning grounds decimated, migratory patterns upended and food chains shattered. The domino effect of this disruption is as wide-ranging as it is impossible to quantify.

In Vietnam, all of these problems come at great cost. In March 2019, Saigon authorities announced plans to spend more than VND28 billion (US$1.2 million) to clear municipal canals of water hyacinth, along with other weeds and trash. Constituting an estimated 30% of the total waste clogging the waterways, water hyacinth collection demands a significant portion of the VND1.1 trillion (US$47.4 million) the city spends to maintain its drainage system and the VND2.8 trillion (US$120 million) allocated to collecting garbage.

Photo via Deep in the Delta.

Cleaning water hyacinth in the city largely involves laborious and low-tech methods, including stringing ropes across canals. Tidal currents result in a disgusting mashup of Styrofoam boxes, plastic bags, bottles, cans, tins and other urban detritus held together by thick hyacinth clumps which workers on boats must collect using long poles or, in some cases, generator-powered cranes bolted onto their skiffs.

In 2013, a group of scientists from the Industrial University of HCMC designed special water hyacinth-harvesting machines that they hoped would improve the clearing initiatives and reduce the physical toll of the workforce. They were first unveiled in Bình Thạnh District, and the following year, department director Phạm Danh said they were being rolled out in Bình Dương Province. The cutting machines were said to reduce costs to just VND220,000 (US$10) per ton of gathered hyacinth compared to VND700,000 (US$33) per ton when done manually. However, just one month after the cleaning operation in Bình Dương, the canal was again completely clogged in some places as the weed grew back.

Photo via Văn Hiến.

Authorities had said that if the machines proved successful, they would also be used in the Mekong Delta. No official report has been released assessing their efficacy, however, and considering that at the time of writing, a long rope stretches across the canal behind the Saigon Zoo gathering hyacinth that city workers regularly hand-clean, it's safe to assume the machines were not the great gear, grease and exhaust saviors the city had prayed for.

There is nothing, however, stopping inventors and entrepreneurs from pitching in. The machines produced by numerous multinational companies are readily available for purchase, with prices ranging from US$2,000 for small models to well over US$100,000 for large industrial models. Theoretically, one could forgo brunch and instead spend a Saturday morning on a clogged canal killing plants to save the planet.

Other nations similarly plagued by the water pest have experimented with a wide range of other ways to remove hyacinth. Various chemicals and pesticides can kill them, however they also put humans, other plants and animals at risk, and if not removed, the large amount of dead hyacinth that sinks to a river- or lake-bed also has significant effects. Releasing black fly larvae and other insects to feed on the plant has been proposed as a possible solution, though more research and experimenting needs to be performed before anything can be introduced on a large scale.

Is that a silver lining or a piece of tin foil?

Em ngồi đan kết sợi đêm.
Lục bình bầu bạn dỗ niềm tâm tư…
Người đi tức tưởi nửa chừng
Để em gánh hết chất chồng gian nan…
Nghiến răng ghìm sóng giữa làn.
Đò em chao lắc, tay đan khỏa niềm

This Đàm Chu Văn poem, which roughly translates to “I sit and knit the threads of night. / Hyacinth comforting the mind... / You walked the halfway / Let me bear the load of all the hardships... / Grind my teeth to tame the waves amidst the current. / My boat jostles, my hands clutched,” introduces the possible upside of the spread of water hyacinth in Vietnam.

Photo via Life at Home.

In recent years, Vietnamese have begun using water hyacinth to craft a wide variety of products for domestic use and sale. Since 2011, the Phú Lâm Export Weaving Cooperative in Đồng Nai Province has used it, along with other local plants, to create baskets, trays, tables, chairs and crates that are then exported to Europe, Japan, South Korea and the US and sell for approximately US$20–30 each. Workers there can earn several million dong a month, which is a significant amount in the generally poor region and allows families to send their children to school.

Photo via Viet Craft.

Similarly, farmers in Hậu Giang Province are able to supplement their income with an average of VND50,000 a day by weaving water hyacinth in their free time. Dried hyacinth can sell for VND16,000 per kilogram and prices are more stable than some other conventional crops. This has led people to plant and care for their plants, with hundreds of households now seeing it not as a weed, but as a potential source of income.

Way back in 1996, IKEA became one of the first companies to begin using water hyacinth, largely sourced from the Mekong Delta, for home items such as napkin holders. The practice has even spread to northern Vietnam, with people in Ninh Bình using the plant to make handicrafts and as biofuel to grow mushrooms since 2005.

Photo by Paul Christiansen.

Trịnh Thi Long, program coordinator for water projects at WWF Vietnam, explains that his organization supports the use of the plant for such crafts because it can help remove it from infected areas. It is also preferable to using plants that are native and slow-growing.

The economic viability of water hyacinth products, however, has had an unforeseen effect. Quality amongst the wild-growing plants varies widely, and thus people have begun planting and tending it. Those that don’t live on land with ponds or access to canals will even go to public lands to plant it. These cultivators ignore the wild hyacinth when doing so and thus don’t help address the issue, instead they simply add to the overall invasion.

Producing commercial bags, baskets, place mats and bins requires chemicals and lacquers which are not biodegradable. Thus, when discarded, they linger in landfills and ultimately contribute more negative materials to the planet than the plants would if otherwise allowed to decompose naturally.

In Vietnam, lục bình has recently provided surprising benefits for economically disadvantaged communities, and may provide insights into how humans will interact with the natural world.

In addition to home products, some entrepreneurs are feeding them to turtles and even using them to raise worms that are used for feeding fish, chickens, ducks, pigs and other livestock. Indian students have developed a way to make them into tampons as well as disposable plates, ready-to-plant biodegradable nursery pots, egg and fruit trays, cartoon models, toys, file boards, multi-purpose boards, and special canvas for paintings. It can also be utilized as ropes, cigar wrappers and, when combined with charcoal dust, made into briquettes. And while they are purported to give some people an allergic reaction even when cooked, some advocate for the eating of young shoots.

In addition to using it for products, paradoxically people around the world are looking to hyacinth as a way to save water systems. When carefully managed, water hyacinth has proven an effective way to remove pollutants and actually improve water quality. If a strict control plan is in place, the hyacinth can be introduced and allowed to thrive and thus absorb a wide range of toxins, while also serving as a bioindicator for the presence of heavy metals. In Indonesia, China, and across Africa, people are using it for those purposes in a variety of waterways.

Photo via Dan Tri.

Critics warn of the accidental release or mismanagement of water hyacinth involved in these water-cleaning operations. Moreover, some studies conclude that the purposeful cultivation of water hyacinth for commercial purposes ultimately results in more harm than good. Doing so comes with all the problems of ecosystem disruption, the establishment of disease vectors, water degradation and disturbances to transportation and daily life. So while people harvesting the plant as it grows wild to use for a variety of commercial purposes may appear an ingenious solution, the inevitable transition to planting and tending it should cause distress. Yet wealth disparities and economic realities makes it difficult to fault those who look to it to escape poverty.

Our reckless and arrogant relationship with nature resulted in the spread of water hyacinth, and those same qualities seem to manifest themselves in our belief that we can harness it to rectify the pollution we have introduced into the world. Whether it's the Asian lady beetle in America or the cane toad in Australia, time and time again we’ve seen that adding more non-native species into an ecosystem cannot clean up the damage wrought from other invasive species. Yet, past experience always wilts in the face of profound hubris.

So what should we collectively make of water hyacinth? Certainly, it serves as a perfect symbol of our failure to co-exist responsibly with nature. But sitting along the Saigon River at sunset, I see a tuft float past alongside hulking barges weighed down with Mekong sand dredged for concrete that will soon constitute the foundation of some bubble tea shop or cellphone showroom; dinner boats ferrying overeating guests; and cargo ships crammed with fast fashion destined for distant shores. Sunlight slips through the skeleton of an in-progress skyscraper and falls on the floating plant with its single pink flower. I can’t smell it, but the subtle fragrance would no doubt satisfy the pleasure sensors of my simple animal brain.

Photo via Mississippi State University.

The Rise and Fall of Phượng Vĩ, the Summer Icon of Our Teenage Dreams

2023-05-18T16:07:58+07:00

I was a teenage cliché. No matter how much I try to rack my brain to find any other personal connection to the incandescently red tree that is phượng vĩ, I keep going back to my middle school crush and that one tree in the front yard of our school.

Phượng vĩ is the Vietnamese name for Delonix regia, also known as royal poinciana, flamboyant tree or flame tree in English. These names are no doubt inspired by the tree’s uniquely vivid flowers that can light up an entire neighborhood when they bloom. Nothing can signal the passage of time quite as dramatically as phượng does. Every year, from April to June, poincianas across the country erupt in joyful parades of fiery blossoms and cicada symphonies, letting you know that summer has arrived. For school children, this often dovetails with the end of a school year and, if you’re part of the graduating class, time to say goodbye to a chapter of yourself you never thought you would miss. Generations of Vietnamese students have grown up bidding farewell to their formative years with the tint of phượng flowers coloring their most sentimental memories, so phượng has earned a deep-rooted reputation as the symbol of summer, school years, and teenage dreams.

A road in Hậu Giang sandwiched in between rows of phượng trees. Photo by Lý Anh Lam Photography.

For a plant with so much cultural significance in the country, it might be unbelievable to learn that phượng vĩ didn’t originate from Vietnam or even the continent of Asia. But such is the intricate, complex relationship between mankind and nature. Plants, birds, critters, and mushrooms have few thoughts for our arbitrary national borders and would flourish with reckless abandon wherever they feel most nourished. Like lêkima and dragonfruit, which were brought to Vietnam from South America, phượng vĩ is native to Madagascar Island in Africa, but our climate proved hospitable enough for them to take root, prosper, and enchant us into propagating them everywhere.

How phượng vĩ infiltrated our schools

Scarlet flowers light up a road in Nha Trang. Photo by Flickr user Khánh Hmoong.

Historical records point to the French colonial government as the reason behind this botanical migration. In his book Hà Nội còn một chút này, essayist Nguyễn Ngọc Tiến details how the deciduous African tree became a fixture in public schools in the capital. A year after Hanoi was subjugated by the French, in 1889, the colonial administration established a botanical garden in the northern area of the town near today’s Hồ Tây. The garden served two purposes: first, to cultivate a range of vegetables familiar to the French palate but didn’t exist in Vietnam at the time, like lettuce, carrot, kohlrabi, and cauliflower; and second, to be a botanical playground of sort to test out various species of ornamental trees to plant across the city’s public spaces, parks, and government buildings.

Each phượng blossom has four red petals and one variegated petal. Photo by Rohit Tandon on Unsplash.

The push for diversity in tree-planting was meant to ensure trees would shed their leaves during different seasons, reducing the workload of maintenance workers and ensuring local streets would stay luxuriant year-round. Phượng vĩ, palm and African mahogany (xà cừ) arrived in Hanoi from Africa, alongside senna alata (muồng) from South America, and ylang ylang (hoàng lan) from Malaysia. Phượng vĩ quickly caught the eyes of the then-government for many reasons. It grows fast. Its canopy spreads widely instead of tall. Instead of broad, paddle-like leaves, phượng branches are peppered with rows of tiny compound leaves like verdant teeth of giant combs, making them less likely to clog up the sewage system. And, of course, who can resist the allure of those gorgeous scarlet petals?

Generations of Vietnamese have grown up with phượng flowers, so it has earned a deep-rooted reputation as the symbol of summer, school years, and teenage dreams.

Phượng vĩ first appeared on Hanoi streets like rue Paul Bert (now Tràng Tiền) and rue Kô-Ngü (then Cổ Ngư, now Thanh Niên) and by that summer, many French-run schools in Hanoi started planting phượng trees to help provide shade. The southward migration of phượng began a bit later with a decree issued in 1906 by Governor-General Paul Beau to standardize the schooling system, which, until then, was quite messy.

Amongst other operational guidelines, the decree stipulated that school years begin in September and end in May, and that campuses must plant trees for shade. Phượng vĩ had already been sashaying all over schools in town by then, and the new school calendar perfectly timed its most spectacular blossoming with the end of the curriculum, enshrining its status as an emblem of pedagogical farewells. The mayor of Hanoi encouraged new schools to plant it, and as more schools were founded in Central Vietnam, they too adopted the plant in accordance with the decree. By 1912, all 24 of the capital’s private institutions were growing phượng vĩ in their yard.

The cultural significance of phượng vĩ

A "chicken fight" using phượng stamina. Photo via Flickr user Thái Anh Dương.

Like many of its predecessors, my secondary school has a phượng tree right in the middle of the front yard, reinforced by a square granite foundation and surrounded by stone benches. Unrelated coexistence is how I would characterize our relationship. Like two untouched Venn circles, we went about our lives separately, until one day, when the circles began to overlap for the first time. Under the canopy of our phượng tree, my school crush showed me how to do “chicken battles” with phượng blossoms. She would find the biggest flower buds, peel off the outer verdant sepal, and pluck out the strongest-looking contenders from the bud’s stamina. Each “chicken” is a strand of stamen with an anther still attached on top and each battle begins by locking the anthers together and then pulling them apart rapidly. Whichever “chicken” is beheaded first loses. I rarely ever think about phượng flowers or my time in secondary school today, but I returned home that day knowing that rare occasion when the Venn circles overlapped would stay with me for a long time.

How to make butterflies from phượng blossoms

For many generations of financially strapped Vietnamese students, crafting butterflies from phượng petals is the best way to craft keepsakes on a budget, as it doesn’t require anything but fallen flowers and nimble fingers. Once completed, the butterflies could straight away be pressed in notebooks and agendas for drying, ready to surprise you decades later when you accidentally flip through the pages just to see them fall out, looking as faded and sepia-tinted as your memory of their creation. Truly a friend of impoverished students, phượng blossoms can also serve as a free ingredient in student meals like gỏi hoa phượng or canh chua hoa phượng thanks to their subtle sourness.

For my part, I am content with my own teenage cliché, a happy memory of phượng and my secondary school crush, but not everyone is as lucky. Composer Thanh Sơn’s story is instead one awash in longing and the ache of missed connections. Sơn grew up in Sóc Trăng in the 1940s in a family of 12 siblings. When he was 13, one of his classmates was a sweet, affable girl named after the scarlet flower: Nguyễn Thị Hoa Phượng. She attended the school after her family moved to town from Saigon for her father’s job as a civil servant.

The music sheet for 'Nỗi Buồn Hoa Phượng,' first released in 1966.

“We were friends for more than a year and got really close,” Sơn shared in an interview. “Suddenly, the next summer, she told me that her family got reassigned to Saigon, so she wanted to meet me to say goodbye.” When he asked for an address so they could keep in touch, Phượng said in tears: “My name is Hoa Phượng. Every year, when summer comes, if you see the flowers bloom, remember me.” They have lost touch since.

In his young adult years, Thanh Sơn moved to Saigon and became a successful composer. In the summer of 1963, seeing phượng blossoms while walking past a schoolyard reminded him of his childhood friend, so he penned a few lines to express how he felt. Those heartfelt words would go on to become the lyrics for ‘Nỗi Buồn Hoa Phượng’ (Hoa Phượng Sorrow), the biggest hit of Thanh Sơn’s music career and phượng’s most prominent cameo in pop culture, one that has endured until today as a timeless bolero classic. While it was first recorded by Thanh Tuyền, today the iconic summer ballad can be heard via the voice of numerous performers and karaoke sessions all over Vietnam.

Thanh Tuyền was the first performer bringing the song to stardom.

The tipping point

By the 2020s, phượng vĩ’s role as a cultural icon, especially in association with students and school nostalgia, might seem unshakeable, but our relationship with the tree was about to change, perhaps for good. It was a typical morning almost exactly three years ago, on May 26, 2020, at Bạch Đằng Secondary School in District 3 of Saigon. The school entrance at 6am was buzzing with purrs of motorbike engines, vendors of morning snacks belting out street calls, and school children roaming about. Gaggles of kids were sitting around the schoolyard’s phượng tree enjoying their breakfast when the tree suddenly toppled over, trapping them beneath its heavy but hollow trunk. In the end, 18 pupils were injured, and one of them, a sixth-grader, didn’t survive the unexpected accident.

It was later discovered that, even though the tree looked healthy and lush from the outside, its trunk was rotting from the inside. The incident is not unheard of either, as phượng trees have fallen down in Huế, Biên Hòa, and Sóc Trăng, sometimes maiming or even killing passersby. A number of botany and urban planning experts have since cautioned against widespread planting of phượng vĩ in civic spaces. Dr. Đặng Văn Hà from the Vietnam National University of Forestry acknowledges its cultural role, but warns against putting it in schools.

Trần Phú Secondary School in Pleiku decided to fence off the tree to prevent future accidents. Photo via Người Lao Động.

According to Hà, it’s fast-growing, but grows into soft branches and trunks that are prone to rotting. Its roots are shallow and fragile, requiring special care to prevent destabilization. It often has a short lifespan and starts deteriorating by the 30-year mark. The way phượng is planted in school yards, caged in by concrete and hampered by a lack of soil, also contributes to the weakening of roots. There are ways to safely grow phượng in school, Hà shares, but administrators must monitor its health closely and prune it properly during rainy seasons.

No matter what, the fallout of the tragedy at Bạch Đằng was swift: across the country, school management boards ordered extensive trimming and axing of phượng vĩ and other heritage trees in fear of another tree-toppling. From a school icon that entered bolero hits and poetry, many phượng trees were reduced to chunks of lumber strewn on concrete. When tragedies strike, it’s often in our nature to start placing blame. As much as I am fond of trees in general, and phượng vĩ in particular, I can’t blame school principals for not taking risks when it comes to the safety of their students, and I can’t blame trees for trying and failing to withstand the tests of time. Again, I find myself at a loss for a satisfying conclusion to this phượng vĩ soliloquy, because of how uncertain everything is. Perhaps this, not teen nostalgia, is the true meaning behind nỗi buồn hoa phượng.

The Ugly Truth of the Life and Impending Demise of the Hoàn Kiếm Turtle

2023-03-18T12:00:00+07:00

Everyone knows the mythological story of the Hoàn Kiếm turtle.

In the 15^th century, Lê Lợi received a golden sword from the turtle god, Kim Quy, so he could vanquish occupying Chinese forces and later returned it to the lake. The tale demands no further attention — it's mentioned on placards surrounding Hồ Gươm, referenced in tourism material and alluded to by keychains, figurines and other tchotchkes depicting blades balanced on turtlebacks. The legend is, of course, associated with a real creature, however, and if one drags it from the murky myths swirling around it, they’ll discover some ugly truths.

Let’s start with what species the creature exactly is. On June 2, 1967, a local fisherman was tasked with safely netting a turtle that had emerged from the lake so it could be understood. He bashed its skull in with a crowbar, instead. When the reptile died from its injuries, its 200-kilogram body was preserved and kept in the lake’s island-situated temple and now looms in the background of countless photos of people dressed up for weekend joy jaunts. The massive turtle was recognized as a representative of a large softshell turtle species found in swamps, lakes and rivers in northern Vietnam. In the early 1990s, biologist Hà Đình Đức introduced it in several unpublished scientific papers and newspapers articles, using different names before finally settling on Rafetus leloii, in homage to the legend surrounding it. Of course, locals never used this scientific name, preferring to refer to the individual in Hồ Gươm as Cụ Rùa, which often led to the incorrect assumption that it was male.

Yangtze giant softshell turtle. Photo via Asian Species Action Partnership.

Few things are sexier than a scientific nomenclature debate, and that is precisely what went down as the Hoàn Kiếm turtle attracted more attention, domestically and internationally, in the 21^st century. There were only two or three species known in Vietnam at the time and scientists around the world concerned with its fate began to wonder if it was truly a unique species or was instead a Rafetus swinhoei, or Yangtze giant softshell turtle, known in southern China and teetering on the brink of extinction. Đức and some of his colleagues remained firm in their assertions that it was a unique species based on some questionable observational details. They argued that the Vietnamese individuals should therefore not be considered viable for breeding programs with their Chinese counterparts. More recent genetic tests contributed to a general consensus that the world’s three officially recorded, living individuals as of 2023 — one each in China’s Suzhou Zoo, Vietnam’s Xuân Khanh Lake and Đồng Mô Lake — are all Rafetus swinhoei.

But let’s now put aside the matter of names after acknowledging how absurd it is that the world’s largest freshwater turtle that dwells exclusively in Asia is named after Robert Swinhoe, a British naturalist who aided colonial forces in their oppression of China during the Opium War. Unlike the depictions of the legend, anyone who has seen photos of the Hoàn Kiếm turtle must admit that it’s a repugnant reptile: flaccid appendages tipped with off-kilter claws, beady eyes and a fat, wrinkly neck leading to a head that resembles a deflated party balloon resting shriveled on the floor three days after a birthday celebration no one attended, not even the birthday boy's own mother. When soaked in formaldehyde, pumped with resin and stored in a display case it would make for a regal footstool, but seen in its natural environment, it’s frankly rather grotesque.

One could rightly expect that the Hoàn Kiếm turtle would fall victim to the “Bambi syndrome” wherein humans only care about preservation efforts focused on animals deemed “cute” (think pandas, elephants and snow leopards). However, the endangered reptile has actually received significant private and public funding aimed at its conservation including a recent VND1 billion donated by the Danko Group to the Asian Turtle Program (ATP) and conservation groups are ramping up their collaborative efforts. It has also garnered unprecedented press attention for a reptile. A lengthy New York Times write-up of the 2016 death of the turtle in Hoàn Kiếm described it as “a mythic symbol of Vietnamese independence and longevity” and it “would be difficult to overstate Cu Rua’s spiritual and cultural significance.” No doubt much of its domestic prestige is connected to Vietnam’s four mythic gods, only one of which has an actual, living corollary.

Even with the attention and funding, conservations have their work cut out for them when it comes to Swinhoe’s softshell turtle. It is certainly possible that a few more individuals exist in remote bodies of water and there is genuine belief amongst scientists that a second one may be lurking in Đồng Mô Lake near Hanoi where a female was caught in 2020. Even if true, that would bring the known number in the wild to three. And up until now all captive breeding programs have proven to be utter failures, with China’s only captive female dying in 2019 while under anesthesia for the artificial insemination procedure. It seems like a lost cause.

One could rightly expect that the Hoàn Kiếm turtle would fall victim to the “Bambi syndrome” wherein humans only care about preservation efforts focused on animals deemed “cute.”

Our story now takes a familiar turn to human’s failed stewardship of the natural world. Elder members of communities outside Hanoi remember times when they would routinely see Swinhoe’s softshell turtle in the wild, although by the 1960s, they were already being hunted as much sought-after meat and later hydroelectric projects drastically altered the environments they thrived in. Finally given official protection in Vietnam in 2013, it seems to be too little too late, considering not long before that “if one was caught, its meat was shared with the whole family, relatives and the neighborhood,” a woman explained to the press, adding that “its eggs were also collected and soaked in salt, as local people believed turtle salted egg helped cure diarrhea.”

So, stripping away the myth and metaphorical value of the turtle and what are we left with? A nondescript creature doomed for extinction thanks to humanity’s greed, violence and ignorance. In light of this reality, I’ve heard an interesting proposal to honor the legacy of the Hoàn Kiếm turtle. Whenever venturing to Hanoi, slip a dead cat into the lake’s filthy waters for its memory. With nods to one of the final recorded viewings of it when it can be seen scarfing down a submerged cat carcass in front of scores of captivated onlookers, it's a crude act symbolically befitting the way we’ve treated them, but one that at least takes into account what they would actually have enjoyed. And maybe it's time we consider what they would like, for once.

Thanh Long: How Dragon Fruit Proves Beauty Is Only Skin-Deep

2023-01-04T10:00:00+07:00

Of all my accomplishments in life, my greatest may be the creation of The Banana Line. This is a ranking tool, based on the belief that if all fruits were lined up from worst to best, taking into account taste, availability, price, consistency, portability, ease of consumption, versatility, etc., the banana would represent the exact middle; the precise median. The dragon fruit (thanh long) falls well, well below the banana line.

Editor's note: This article includes the writer's personal opinions and does not reflect Saigoneer's view. We're deeply sorry about Paul's incendiary food takes.

Growing up in America, I didn’t encounter dragon fruit until my early 20s when I traveled to Southeast Asia for the first time. The bright pink orb with graceful, flame-like tendrils appeared to be straight out of a video game. When split, the searingly white flesh festooned with black seeds would surely serve as some sort of real-life power-up, potion or immunity elixir, right?

Wrong! Dragon fruits are aggressively bland with a flavor that can be accurately likened to walking the wrong way on an escalator in an empty shopping mall. They offer a non-existent aroma and their taste is akin to a lullaby whispered beneath a jet engine, so considering its stunning appearance, dragon fruit may be the most disappointing fruit to ever grace a market stall.

Dragon fruits are aggressively bland with a flavor that can be accurately likened to walking the wrong way on an escalator in an empty shopping mall.

To the surprise of many here, myself included, dragon fruit is not native to Vietnam. It instead originated in South or Central America where it is called pitaya. The French brought it to their colonies at some point, perhaps as ornamental plants for the homes of kings or the wealthy. The fruit’s resemblance to a dragon’s scaly, fiery skin resulted in both its English and Vietnamese names with the latter involving the Sino-Vietnamese term for dragon. And since it was introduced widely to English-speaking countries relatively recently, crafty marketers concocted the story that before a dragon is vanquished, it spits out a final ball of flames in which the dragon fruit is contained.

Despite its actual origin, dragon fruit, a species of cactus, seems designed to thrive in Vietnam’s southern provinces thanks to its propensity to grow in hot, moderately dry climates. Bình Thuận, in particular, grows approximately three-quarters of the nation’s dragon fruit, though one will notice it elsewhere, particularly if flying into Saigon at night when the eerie pink lights of dragon fruit farms resemble an extraterrestrial outpost. The waxy, tangling vines rely on nocturnal pollinators such as bats, moths and bees; they feed in dragon fruit flowers which bloom at night. If maintained carefully, they can produce numerous harvests per year. They are easy to cultivate as pieces of broken stems can grow into new plants, so in the right conditions, they grow so well that they escape their designated areas and become weeds.

Dragon fruit is not native to Vietnam. It instead originated in South or Central America where it is called pitaya.

As Vietnam’s economy improved in the 1980s, farmers and co-ops began to pay more attention to the fruit, experimenting with cultivation and fertilizing methods. In the early 1990s, one researcher claims that a single kilogram cost VND80,000, enough to buy a bicycle back then. Times have changed, however, and a kilogram of dragon fruit is routinely one of the cheapest fruits available in markets and grocery stores in the country.

In recent years, witnessing the great domestic and foreign demand for dragon fruit, coupled with the ease of cultivation, farmers throughout the country have begun producing it. On a recent trip to Hà Giang, for example, I was startled to see it on roadside vendor stalls and growing wildly amongst the stone walls of a H'Mông village. Locals explained to me that it was introduced into the area about 10 years ago. And while readily available in stores throughout the country, the somewhat sweeter red-flesh variety is cultivated primarily in southern regions, though it makes up only 10% of Vietnam's dragon fruit output. Researchers are also investing more in the yellow-flesh variety which is more common to producers in South and Central America.

Vietnam is now the world’s top dragon fruit producer with more than 1.4 million tons brought to market each year. From 15 to 20% of fruits remain here while the rest are sent abroad as an increasingly important part of Vietnam’s ambitious fruit export plans. And as Vietnam works to establish better name recognition for agricultural products, ranging from coffee to shrimp to rice, to increase value, the dragon fruit represents an important case study for how foreign markets can be made to associate Vietnam with safe and high-quality goods.

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

Vietnam is now the world’s top dragon fruit producer with more than 1.4 million tons brought to market each year.

Vietnam exports the fruit to more than forty nations with an emphasis on diversifying their markets, but China consumes approximately 70% of dragon fruit leaving Vietnam's borders. A friend from Bình Thuận Province explained to me the dragon fruit farms near her home hire laborers to bend back the "petals" on the fruit every day so that they grow in a way that Chinese shoppers consider an aesthetically pleasing homage to dragons. She also notes that dragon fruit farmers don’t actually eat from their own harvests because they know about the extensive use of chemicals and pesticides required to grow them.

The heavy reliance on Chinese markets had a catastrophic impact on the dragon fruit industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. As many will remember, when China shut down its borders, tons of crops began to rot in fields, warehouses and shipping containers. Citizens began buying as much dragon fruit as they could consume, and local bakeries and restaurants pitched in as well, with hundreds of pounds of the fruit replacing water in various recipes. When I look back on the whole COVID-19 period, perhaps I will most remember KFC chicken placed between two fluorescent pink buns. Practically all the nearly-neon bánh mì, hamburger buns and rolls have long since disappeared from menus, but for a moment it was a feel-good story reflecting creative and resolute communities. But don’t give dragon fruit any credit here, the fact that it could be added to so many different foods without changing the taste at all underscores what a worthless fruit it is in the first place.

In 2011, America heralded dragon fruit as “A fruit with a future,” as it began to appear in drinks and supplements as a “superfruit,” as well as on promotions for high-end cocktails with pricy celebrity endorsements. Recent discussions with family back in the US reveal that it is still seen as a “trendy fruit” that makes unnecessary appearances in beverages ranging from health smoothies and teas to overpriced mixed drinks. But unlike in Vietnam, where I would say its low price is somewhat in-line with its value, people in America are splashing out upwards of US$10 for a single dragon fruit. Madness!

Farmers around the world are rushing to take advantage of dragon fruit’s cachet and high prices. For example, it is grown in places like Kenya where, until 2010, all dragon fruit would have been imported. The attractive profits that the fruit would bring have enticed farmers to scoff laws on importing non-native species without permission and illegally bring in dragon fruit seeds for local cultivation. Such expansion, however, comes at a cost. Already volatile harvests and market prices can result in over-production. For example, this year, America is experiencing a dragon fruit surplus combined with inflation amongst growers who are now watching their investments rot in unsold piles on roadsides.

Photos by Alberto Prieto.

Farmers around the world are rushing to take advantage of dragon fruit’s cachet and high prices.

But back to the banana line. Surely my placing it as a low-tier fruit will offend some, but let me assure you that I’ve given dragon fruit many opportunities to change my mind. I even purchased one to eat while writing this article and for the past year, out of a contrarian urge to get the least value for my client-funded visits, I’ve heaped dragon fruit on my plate at every expensive buffet I’ve attended. Dragon fruit has not risen a single notch on the line.

Yes, dragon fruit is thirst-quenching, but so is a glass of water. And sure, it has a few decent stories to tell and exemplifies some interesting modern-day trends; the pink bread is a decent anecdote too. But what fruit doesn’t have those traits — after all, that's the philosophy behind this entire series, isn't it? At the end of the day, I want my fruit to have a taste that grabs me by the taste buds and brass-knuckles my brain in its pleasure sensors, not one akin to a guest whose party attendance you only learn about when photos surface a few days later and you see them lurking in the background behind a potted plant. I’d forgive dragon fruit for its blandness and deem it no different from mãng cầu, đu đủ or khế, if it didn’t look so damn magical. Because of that, dragon fruit is unique in that it makes a better pattern for a nightclub mood board, a design theme for a football team's alternate jersey, or a rare item to be scoured for in a video game than it does a tasty snack. That’s worth something, but not enough to place it above the banana line.

Khỉ Vàng: The Shit-Stirrer, Snack Thief, and Petty Criminal of Vietnam's Forests

2022-11-01T11:00:00+07:00

I’m not a fucking idiot — That’s what I thought while looking at the sign hung from the door of my hotel room in Đà Nẵng.

The sign reads:

Here on Son Tra Peninsula, a natural reserve area, you may encounter some of our friendly neighbourhood residents - Monkeys. However, we suggest caution:

Please keep your windows and doors closed.
Please keep your distance from the monkeys.
Please do not feed the monkeys.
Please do not leave your personal belongings outside unattended.

I understand the importance of not interacting with local wildlife and not acclimating the animals to human food and proximity. But it seems I’m not as responsible as I thought.

While sipping my morning coffee on my room’s balcony, marveling at the sea stretching out beneath tatters of clouds like torn cushion cotton, I heard two resonant thumps behind me, followed by frenzied scurrying. Bolder than I’d expected them to behave, two monkeys had leaped down from an overhanging tree and sprinted right behind my back into my room where they bounded atop my bed. Without breaking eye contact they proceeded to eat an entire plate of complimentary desserts. When finished, one lounged on the pillows while the other retreated deeper into the room and emerged with a canister of potato chips that she proceeded to eat on a balcony overhang out of reach but in sight of me. Uninterested in trying to chase the remaining monkey out of the confined space, I had to scramble down, half-naked, from the villa roof and seek assistance. When I returned to the room with a hotel staff member, the only sign of the monkey invasion was a cascade of rainbow-colored macaroon crumbs and smeared cheesecake frosting on the comforter.

Photos by monkeyhaven via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m a slow learner, and this was not my last run-in with monkeys here in Vietnam. On a visit to Cần Giờ, a monkey snatched my friend’s bag right off her shoulders. Unfortunately, it contained the only set of keys to her motorbike. The rapscallion primate scurried to the edge of the forest, sat down and stared at us. I once again over-estimated my intelligence and thought I could outsmart the monkey by tossing a bag of snacks which would prompt it to drop the precious bag to pick up the chips. No. It simply walked over to the chips while still holding the backpack. It thus had both chips and prized bag. Thankfully, an altruistic man who seemed to have experience with the monkey scofflaws arrived wielding a giant stick which he used to compel it to drop the bag (the chips, alas, were never recovered).

In both instances, the specific monkey were likely rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), one of the world’s most widespread and onerous primates. They tend to live in large groups of 30–50 individuals ruled by strict material lines. They are opportunistic feeders, typically eating fruits, nuts, leaves and insects, depending on what is available in their environments. Found across South and Southeast Asia, they are indigenous to northern Vietnam and the Central Highlands, but colonies have adapted to other areas throughout the country including in Cần Giờ, Cát Tiên National Park and Rều Island off the coast of Hạ Long City as well as established stable populations in the Americas. In Vietnamese, they are commonly referred to as khỉ vàng, not because of the color of their hair, which is a rather drab brown and sand hue, but because of their value when caught and kept captive.

Photos by Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons

When you picture a monkey being used for research science, it is very likely a khỉ vàng.

When you picture a monkey being used for research science, it is very likely a khỉ vàng. They are the world’s preferred non-human primate for study thanks to their ease of captive care and the fact that they share 93% of their genes with humans. They’ve been instrumental in developing and producing vaccines for diseases such as polio, hepatitis A, rabies and drugs used against COVD-19 and AIDS here and abroad. In Vietnam, they are also occasionally kept as pets in private homes, businesses and even circus attractions that were thankfully shuttered in recent years because of intrinsic abuse. Their conservation status is listed as “of least concern,” and while research is incomplete, they are not in a precarious position like many other primate species in Vietnam.

I’m hardly the only one to have had run-ins with a rabble-rousing khỉ vàng here. Local media is littered with reports of the monkeys ransacking homes, attacking innocent people and generally causing havoc. And almost everyone I know has some story about monkey molestation that contributes to the consensus that khỉ vàng are menaces. They are particularly pest-like at tourism sites around the country where natural or once-natural areas butt up against attractions. Humans are far too helpful in teaching them that human food is both delicious and easily obtained from trash bags, unlocked homes, vehicles and even hands. In some instances, one could possibly defend the monkeys' behavior by reminding people that they are encroaching on their home territory, but in southern Vietnam where they have been introduced, they are non-native interlopers. If any animal deserves to be deemed an unrepentant asshole, its khỉ vàng.

Unlike many other native plants and animals such as thạch sùng, đom đóm and lêkima, khỉ vàng don’t often appear in Vietnamese myths, literature or contemporary culture (I sincerely doubt anyone will ever propose a Miss Vietnam costume modeled after those mangy mongrels, for example). I’m willing to guess their absence from pop culture is due to the fact that no one who has encountered a khỉ vàng wants to be reminded of them when listening to their favorite songs or looking at their favorite paintings.

Photos by Barry Lewis via Getty Images, Psychology Wiki, Britannica.

Rhesus macaques are aggressive, cruel, calculating and perpetually stressed out.

Rhesus macaques are aggressive, cruel, calculating and perpetually stressed out. Their rigid hierarchies rely on and promote transactional relationships and order maintained through threats of violence. Success, in the form of survival and passing on their genes, necessitates duplicity and abuse. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of macaques isn’t their behavior, however, but how closely it mirrors human’s. Xenophobia, gluttony, thievery, the use of deception to get ahead, preying on the most vulnerable on the social ladder and a penchant for colonizing new lands at the expense of native species; khỉ vàng embody the worst elements of mankind.

Perhaps, this isn’t so surprising considering we share a not-so-distant ancestor and have spent significant effort as societies to establish religions, customs and traditions to keep our khỉ vàng-esque instincts in check. Yet, I question anyone who witnesses the villainous mayhem found in any khỉ vàng community and doesn’t then recoil at the people they are surrounded by as well as the person they know lurks within.

But thankfully, humans and khỉ vàng differ in several profound ways. Researchers have made shocking claims regarding the inability of khỉ vàng to express if not experience joy. Moreover, their societal arrangements have discouraged the formation of complex communication that supports much more than threats or submissions. They cannot tell stories, for example. But humans can, so please allow me to share one:

After those two khỉ vàng ransacked my room, I fell into a sour mood. I was angry at the natural order of the world and dismayed by the conniving urges of our next-of-kin and, by extension, the treachery all humans are tempted by. That night, as I sat in my room atop a thankfully changed bedspread, I heard a rustle in the trees. I peeked out my window expecting to see another pack of marauding khỉ vàng the likes of which I had encountered numerous times throughout the day. But instead of the scrawny, scab and wound-speckled monkeys, I was gifted with a family of graceful red-shanked douc (voọc chà vá chân nâu). An entire family of the endangered leaf-nibblers proceeded to perch peacefully a few meters from my balcony.

Their calm demeanor, deep and seemingly ruminative gazes and zen-like presence stands at stark contrast to the khỉ vàng in nearly every way. They moved slowly pulled at branches without so much as a grunt or yell, let alone the unceasing screeches one hears from a group of khỉ vàng. They showed no interest in my room and only occasionally looked in my direction to assess if I was a threat. A mother douc held a child against her chest as she wove through the leaves and not once did I see her steal the little one’s food as is widely reported to happen amongst the dastardly khỉ vàng. And when they were done feeding and ready to roost for the night, they silently moved up the mountain, the trees rustling in their wake and gradually growing silent like a temple bell struck to invite prayer.

If humans often behave like khỉ vàng, we also certainly have the ability to behave like red-shanked douc, do we not?

Photo via Người đưa tin.

The Prehistoric Permanence of Cá Sấu, Vietnam's Farmed Predator

2022-08-18T08:00:00+07:00

I’ve always hated cá sấu. Not because they’ve threatened my safety or had any real impact on my life whatsoever, but simply because they survived. When a meteor cratered into Earth 66 million years ago and sent sun-engulfing clouds of sizzling rock into the sky, alongside ferocious tidal waves and incessant firestorms, the planet lost some of my most beloved creatures.

Gone were the eight-ton ankylosaurs with spiked cannon balls at the tip of their tails; the triceratops sprinting like runaway freight trains with spears attached to their faces; pterosaurs swooping across the sky with all the grace and terror of Renaissance depictions of Satan’s winged servants; and the plesiosaurs, those savage amalgamations of snakes, dragons and fish. They all went extinct while crocodiles floated on through the millennia like errant logs. The reptiles then outlasted mastodon and sabertooth tigers, sloth bears and glyptodons. Why did such awe-inducing dinosaurs, marine reptiles and ice-age mammals go extinct, while crocodiles — those comparatively slow, dumb, graceless brutes — survive? Life is not fair.

While their earliest ancestors appeared on the planet over 200 million years ago, around 95 million years ago the modern crocodile, Crocodylidae, arose amidst less-recognizable ancient relatives that included ones that walked on two legs, some that had flippers like seals, and a few that even subsisted on nothing but plants. Scientists have theorized that cá sấu’s reliance on external temperatures (i.e. being cold-blooded) gave them a metabolic advantage during the sustained periods of ecological chaos that decimated food chains and claimed other creatures including the dinosaurs. An incredibly robust immune system and versatile feeding methods further allowed them to outlive other animals that succumbed to starvation or competition.

Around 95 million years ago, the modern crocodile arose.

It’s impossible to ascertain exactly how many types of cá sấu have existed, but there are currently 23 species spread across every continent except for Antarctica. Two types are native to Vietnam: saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) and their distant cousins, the Siamese crocodiles (Crocodylus siamensis). Morphologically indistinguishable, in Vietnamese, they are both casually referred to as cá sấu with the Chinese word 兽 (shou) meaning "beast" at the core of their name alluding to the violent dispositions that placed them atop the food chains in their respective ecosystems.

Cá sấu’s scaley head surfaces from the murky pools of myth and history alike. They undoubtedly influenced depictions of dragons including giao long and thuồng luồng with appearances on ancient artifacts including Đông Sơn drums. A 17^th-century Chinese scholar wrote a book based on materials obtained during the Ming occupation of Vietnam (1407–1427) that included the observation that: “A crocodile can produce some several tens of eggs. When they hatch, those which descend into the water become crocodiles while those which ascend onto the shore become peculiar snakes and worms.” While cá sấu do indeed lay between 30 and 70 eggs, they of course do not magically transform into other animals. It is interesting to note the parallels between that belief and Vietnam’s origin myth of Lạc Long Quân-Âu Cơ.

Allusions to real-life cá sấu also appear in fables, folktales and proverbs wherein they are often used metaphorically to describe greedy, unscrupulous individuals. Stories of crocodile-filled waters or especially murderous individuals were common in the southwest region and helped provided the names for geographical features and areas throughout the region. Ông Vàm Đầu Sấu Pagoda in Cần Thơ even honors one that was reported to sing to passersby on a nearby river and hints at an underexplored examination of their role in worship practices. And while less prevalent in northern Vietnam, a popular story tells of an instance when a 13^th-century ruler ordered a poem be composed and thrown into the Re River to ride the depths of menacing cá sấu.

While mythical accounts make no distinction, Vietnam’s saltwater crocodiles (cá sấu nước mặn) and Siamese crocodiles (cá sấu Xiêm) have different habitats and evolutionary paths.

While the mythical accounts make no distinction, Vietnam’s saltwater crocodiles (cá sấu nước mặn) and Siamese crocodiles (cá sấu Xiêm) have different habitats and evolutionary paths. The former, also known as cá sấu hoa cà, is the largest living crocodile on earth, growing up to 6 meters and weighing in excess of 1,000 kilograms during lifespans that can surpass 70 years. Able to survive varying salt levels in their environments, in Vietnam, they once thrived in the Mekong Delta, mangrove swamps surrounding present-day Saigon, forests extending to Tonlé Sap lake in Cambodia and even on Phú Quốc Island. Historical records indicate that at one point they even made it to the Red River Delta in the north where the Trần Dynasty emperors displayed them as exotic pets.

By the beginning of the 20^th century, cá sấu nước mặn numbers within Vietnam were dwindling as towns and cities expanded and agricultural and transportation development changed natural landscapes. Because they posed threats to humans and livestock alike, their hunting seemed inevitable especially because their skin was used for fabrics and the flesh was regularly eaten. Human-cá sấu nước mặn conflict was widespread into the 1920s, but as of the turn of the 21^st century, they were certainly extinct in the wilds of Vietnam, though they continue to live in other parts of Southeast Asia as well as South Asia and Northern Australia.

In contrast, cá sấu Xiêm are far rarer in the wild with fewer than 1,000 individuals living outside captivity. Occupying freshwater lakes, rivers and marshes, unlike their saltwater relatives, these medium-sized crocodiles can only be found within Southeast Asia. Hunting for skin and meat and habitat loss led to them being nearly completely extinct by the 1990s. However, rigorous conservation efforts are underway to save what is considered one of the least-studied, most-vulnerable crocodile species.

Notably, if cá sấu are going to survive for centuries to come, conservation efforts will likely need to rely on an unlikely ally: the very farms that decimated their populations.

Notably, if cá sấu are going to survive for centuries to come, conservation efforts will likely need to rely on an unlikely ally: the very farms that decimated their populations. In March 2022, conservationists released 25 cá sấu Xiêm donated from commercial farms into Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom National park. The individuals had descended from the wild populations that laid the foundations for thriving captive populations in Cambodia as well as Vietnam and Thailand. As of 2017, around 600,000 crocodiles were being raised in Vietnam by more than 1,000 households in 25 cities, mostly in southern Vietnam so their skins can be made into valuable belts, wallets, purses and watch bands sold primarily abroad.

After at least seven years without a wild specimen being observed, Vietnam again has wild cá sấu Xiêm thanks to reintroduction programs. In 2000, 60 cá sấu Xiêm were released into Bàu Sấu, the nation’s second-largest wetlands located in Cát Tiên National Park. Saigon’s Hoa Cà crocodile farm donated some of the individuals, but before they could be released they had to be genetically tested to confirm they were 100% cá sấu Xiêm, as farmers typically cross-breed them with saltwater and Cuban crocodiles (cá sấu Cuba) to improve leather quality. Protected by rangers and assisted by education programs, the population has more than quadrupled in size.

I’m pessimistic when it comes to humanity’s ability to preserve the planet, so while these developments might seem heartwarming, I have little faith that these reintroduced cá sấu communities will endure amidst continued human population growth and associated increases in pollution and deforestation. In the coming decades, wild tigers, polar bears, sea turtles and gorillas will likely all go extinct with meagre groups hanging on in zoos and private facilities. But given our species’ propensity for showy fashion, it’s reasonable to assume large numbers of genetically diverse cá sấu will flourish in industrial farms. It’s possible that after humans go extinct, as seems all but inevitable given the levels of responsibility we’ve displayed during our species’ blip of existence, the incarcerated cá sấu could re-populate a moderately empty earth. If you ask me what creature will live longer on planet Earth, humans or crocodiles, the smart bet is certainly on cá sấu. Knowing that makes me hate them a little less.

Graphic by Hannah Hoàng, Phan Nhi and Hương Đỗ.

Gõ Nước: An Endangered Tree That Offers Hope for Conservation Efforts

2022-07-20T12:32:42+07:00

Is it true that the more names something has, the more beloved it is? Consider all the nicknames you have for your best friends, or the myriad of terms people have invented for deities. If one can assess value by tallying up all the terms that define it, surely Intsia bijuga is a cherished species of tree.

Borneo teak, kwila, vesi, Johnston river teak, ipil, ifit, merbau, scrub mahogany and Moluccan ironwood are just a few of the names given to Intsia bijuga, a member of the Fabaceae flowering tree family. In Vietnamese, the tree is known as gõ nước or bần ôi. With a native range that sweeps across Southeast Asia and Oceania, as well as Madagascar, gõ nước has seemingly as many uses as it does names.

Anyone that has spent time in online plant-identification groups knows that one of the first questions people ask is if they can eat the fruit and whether it tastes good. For gõ nước, the answer is no, and the fruit may indeed be poisonous. But while not delicious nor particularly nutritious, in times of famine, people do soak the seeds for several days before eating and consuming them.

Intsia bijuga has greater value for humans than consumption, however. The bark has been relied upon for traditional medical treatments in different cultures, including Vietnam, to treat rheumatism, dysentery, diarrhea and urinary issues. It was even considered sacred in Fiji, and bowls were made with its wood to serve the island’s traditional beverage, yogona.

Intsia bijuga’s most notable contribution is as a prized source of lumber for a variety of construction projects due to its strength, durability and moderate water resistance.

In Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, it is used to make bridges, railway cars, houses and furniture, in addition to home goods such as utensils, walking sticks and ornamental carvings. Numerous seafaring cultures have relied on it to construct masts, hulls and oars in addition to canoes. Notably, the wood is prized as a luxury material for flooring, furniture and musical instruments. Gold flecks that occur naturally in the reddish timber make it particularly popular amongst Chinese consumers, who have increased export demand across the region.

However, this demand is outstripping worldwide supply, and gõ nước is classified as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List. If illegal logging continues at current rates without increased conservation efforts, Greenpeace worries the species may be lost within the next 35 years. And if gõ nước vanished, it would have a ripple effect across ecosystems of potentially unknown gravity. Its roots protect the soil along waterways alongside mangroves and safeguard against erosion and wind damage; it serves as a source of nitrogen fixation which improves soil quality; and the trees are good shelters for nesting birds as well as a food source for pollinators.

Fun Fact

Intsia bijuga has been relied upon for traditional medical treatments in different cultures, including Vietnam, for treating rheumatism, dysentery, diarrhea and urinary issues.

From sao la to the Cát Bà langur, Saigoneer’s Natural Selection series often features plant and animal species on the verge of extinction, and our takeaway is frequently “we'd better appreciate them while they are still here.” It is thus a surprise to learn that conservation efforts in Vietnam are expanding to ensure that Intsia bijuga not only survives, but thrives in the decades to come.

MangLub is a social enterprise group that plants mangroves in the Mekong Delta to prevent soil erosion and guard against the damaging effects of storms. Two years ago, they noticed a single wild gõ nước tree which made them curious about the species in the greater region. They discovered that there are less than 100 growing in Trà Vinh, and they had completely disappeared from nearby coastal provinces such as Long An, Tiền Giang, Bến Tre, Sóc Trăng and Bạc Liêu. MangLub was eager to see if they could do something while there was still time.

Not only would the planting efforts coincide with their other work and improve the overall health of mangrove ecosystems, benefiting humans, plants and animals alike, but it could serve as an inspirational model for local children to teach them about the importance and potential of conservation. They hoped their modest start would be noticed by other groups and governments and gain momentum.

In April of 2021, MangLub inked the paperwork to officially launch their Intsia bijuga conservation efforts with the establishment of a nursery in Trà Vinh’s Long Vĩnh Commune under the sponsorship of SK Innovation. It then took a month to gather seeds with the help of provincial forestry experts. The government also helped when, a year later, the seedlings were ready to be planted under the sponsorship of GEMALINK by keeping them at their station where they could be safeguarded. And this year, they are expanding their partnerships to include work with the United Way and a foundation in France while continuing planting programs with the assistance of SK Innovation. MangLub is also exploring different varieties of trees to plant, such as Rhizophora apiculata.

Educating the public is a critical part of MangLub's efforts, which includes ecotours that invite participants to experience planting and tending trees

Educating the public is a critical part of MangLub’s efforts, as exemplified by programs such as their Mangrove Planting Experience (MPE), an ecotour of sorts that invites participants to experience the planting and tending of trees. Older members of the local community are pleasantly surprised to see the return of a species that some of them hadn’t seen since their childhoods. If MangLub and their partners are successful, the tree may again be used in traditional medicines that replace or supplement hospitals and drug stores.

The thrills of learning about new plants and animals nowadays is often accompanied by acknowledging the sobering reality that many of earth’s fascinating organisms are in decline. But gõ nước offers a glimmer of hope. Not only are efforts being made to bring it back into areas it has nearly vanished from, but such activities may help inspire people to work as better stewards for all sorts of plants, animals and ecosystems.

Đom Đóm: Why the Light Is Going Out for Fireflies in Vietnam

2022-06-23T11:00:00+07:00

Much like their brief existence on Earth, once-common fireflies are quickly disappearing from Vietnam’s natural and oral histories.

When I was a wee schoolchild, rather than a biology textbook or a field trip, fate (and the education ministry) decided that my first lesson about fireflies should come in the form of a reading exercise.

Endearingly titled “Anh Đom Đóm” or “Mr. Firefly,” the excerpt was taken from a poem by famous children’s literature author Võ Quảng, whose allegorical writing assures us that Mr. Firefly is not just a mere creature, but a metaphor for dignifying virtues that the young should learn, like “diligence” and “perseverance.”

“Mr. Firefly” bore no enunciation or comprehension challenge for my class of 42 third-graders, but it presented a fatal flaw in our upbringing — by that point, few of us had seen or even knew of the titular animal. The working assumption was that our parents should have taught us, but they most likely never had a chance to see an actual firefly either. Our brave new world has ushered in an age of advanced, high-efficiency bulbs, and with them, the eclipse of nature’s glowing insects.

A keeper of country life and childhood discourse

Long before the poem and this oblivious generation came about, fireflies roamed freely across Vietnam and starred as a recurring character in the country’s premodern cultural canvas.

Their presence is most notably attached to fictional accounts of feudal-era scholars such as Mạc Đĩnh Chi, Nguyễn Hiền, Bùi Xương Trạch, and Nguyễn Huy Tốn. Although these figures lived hundreds of years apart, a shared narrative constituted their “origin story” — underprivileged children who substituted expensive fuel-based lamps with fireflies trapped in egg shells to study at night. Such resourcefulness earned them a place in the kingdom’s royal court and inspired reverence throughout history.

By the mid-20^th century, the electric bulb made its debut in Vietnam, but few could afford the innovation. Industrialization was just beginning and farming was the predominant means of sustenance, with the countryside still filled with endless woods, grassy plains and fields.

Photo courtesy by Thông Nguyễn.

Memories of this time are preserved by nostalgic elderly people in stories about their epic childhoods — days where fun meant one could spring along unpaved paths chasing swarms of fireflies, catching the unlucky few, and storing them in ink jars or glass containers for a miniature light show.

Did you know?

The eggs, larvae and pupas of some firefly species also possess bioluminescent properties.

But more than just playful distractions for children, fireflies offered a more profound meaning for adults in the past. Amidst war and poverty, people saw flickering fireflies as offering an enchanting sense of comfort and happiness — a stark contrast to heavy farmwork, dark underground tunnels and the terror of a looming enemy. And perhaps most importantly, fireflies were the harbingers of agrarian rebirth. As the first summer showers fell, the insects took flight and signified that the planting season had arrived. A farmer’s proverb reflects this idea: “Bao giờ đom đóm bay ra, hoa gạo rụng xuống thì tra hạt vừng,” meaning that “When the fireflies fly, and the red silk cotton falls, besow the seeds of sesame.”

Lacking modern scientific knowledge, people resorted to supernatural beliefs to explain the insects’ illuminating ability: they must have been the souls of the departed, particularly those that perished due to war and famine, remaining on Earth to light the way for those who stayed. This is perhaps part of the reason why the insects enjoyed a respected reputation with cameos in legends that further elevated their status. But human curiosity gave way to microscopics, which revealed neither noble nor divine cause of the illumination. The truth is a tad less poetic.

An evolutionary purpose

For fireflies, the ability to glow in the dark serves a primary evolutionary purpose equivalent to posting a shirtless selfie on dating apps. Fireflies exhibit sexual dimorphism, wherein the males have wings while females do not. Thus, females will situate themselves somewhere high to watch males compete for their attention. Males that can spark longer show they have more stamina, which suggests good genes, and are thus more likely to attract a mate. Should the female “superlike” the male, she will emit a similar light signal to inform him that she is a match.

Through science, we have also come to fully understand the mechanism of this process: fireflies emit light through the final segment of their abdomen. Inside their stomach lining are rows of luminescent cells governed by neurons and tubes known as tracheoles. And in the innermost layer, a reflective cell layer functions as a mirror to redirect the light outward.

Did you know?

One would need approximately 833,000 fireflies to attain the average brightness of an LED bulb (about 500 lumens).

Breaking it down further, luminescent cells contain two types of substances, luciferin and the oxidative enzyme luciferase. In the right conditions, they form a series of chemical reactions that produce light. Fireflies control this entire chemical reaction by adding or subtracting oxygen from their abdominal chamber, which, when performed synchronously by a swarm, creates the fairy-tale-like glimmering scene that generations of people adored.

Having deciphered the cause for the ability fireflies have had for millions of years, humans sought to put it to our use. Out of its many applications, luciferase extracted from fireflies is most prominent in the medicinal field, where it’s used to monitor hydrogen peroxide levels in experimental organisms, and in the food industry for the detection of contaminated food cells.

Why the light is going out for fireflies

A sad (and common to the point of repetitive) paradox is that by the time we've begun to understand an animal’s true nature and harness it, we are driving it to extinction. Poor little fireflies are no exception. Research and statistical reports show that the world firefly population is on the decline and heading toward extinction due to, surprise surprise, humans. Light pollution from urban expansion is disrupting the insect’s circadian rhythms and mating rituals, while pesticides are killing larvae nested underground. And doubling down on the destruction, fireflies' natural habitats, such as mangroves, are shrinking due to land development.

Evidence of this biological damage is clear in Vietnam, where the process is accelerating. In the 19^th century, scientists discovered nearly 30 species of fireflies indigenous to Vietnam, but by the time the most recent statistics were published in 2021, the confirmed count fell to fewer than six. And even without statistics, one can detect the gradual loss of fireflies through anecdotal observation. When was the last time you saw a firefly where you live? Most likely, you haven't. That is because the species that once roamed freely countrywide now only exists in holdouts like national parks such as Cúc Phương and Cát Tiên, and remote areas.

I contacted Dr. Phan Quốc Toàn, a leading Vietnamese entomologist from Duy Tân University, in the hope of finding a spark at the end of the tunnel. But the expert’s blunt answer only confirmed the creature’s eventual dimming, and there is not a single person in Vietnam that can stop it from happening:

Photo courtesy by Thông Nguyễn.

“In Vietnam, there is barely research on fireflies, let alone conservation programs for this species.”

And so, just a few zodiac cycles late, a class of third-graders and so many more like me missed the golden age of fireflies and forewent a childhood that would have been more magical with them. It seems that fireflies and electric bulbs have swapped roles for good, for they have become a precious commodity.

If you ever find yourself one of the privileged few that get to witness fireflies again, catch your breath, but refrain from catching them, since there’s a chance it might be one of the last specimens you are encountering. Instead, entertain the alternative, where you just admire the creatures from afar and sympathize with how similar both their and your existence are: here for a moment, and then gone in a flash in a dark, empty universe. Much like the wise words of author Nguyễn Xuân Khánh, who once wrote: "Men are not so different from fireflies. No one lights them, but somehow the fireflies are still lit. It means that men have an innate light in them. In the dark night, the fireflies try their best to glow on their own. The light is very small, very weak. But it is light regardless."

Natural Selection - Saigoneer

Hoa Bưởi's Fleeting but Fragrant Season Teaches Us to Find Beauty in Impermanence

A poetic scent

An elegant urban decoration

On loving the harbinger of time

Cầy Mực, the Fluffy Bearcat Whose Pee Really Smells Like Popcorn

Their pee smells like buttered popcorn.

Fun Fact

They are somewhat loafing, almost clumsy creature.

Humans may not pay much attention to cầy mực, but strangler figs (Ficus altissima) certainly do.

Đuông Dừa, the Mekong Delta's Unique Squishy Snack and Enemy of Coconut Trees

Culinary celebration is only wholesome when we can ensure that the balances of nature are respected, and a dish, no matter how popular, can’t be a delicacy if it threatens the livelihood of the people who create it.

A Folk Symbol and Cash Animal, King Cobras Just Really Want to Be Left Alone

Hoa Sữa, Poetic Icon of Autumn in Hanoi or Nasal Health Enemy No. 1?

A familiar flower

Since when has hoa sữa taken root in Vietnam?

Hoa sữa and an indictment: guilty or not?

Preserving the fragrance of the Hanoian autumn

A Case for the Sweet-and-Sour Tamarind as Saigon's Official Municipal Tree

From Africa to Saigon

Like lêkima, phượng vỹ, and even dragon fruit, tamarind is not native to the country, but it’s been a crucial part of our daily lives for so long that it’s hard to imagine a Vietnam without it.

From the nursery to the mean streets of Saigon

Me as a reminder of Saigon's downtown charms

Is Dã Tràng Vietnam's Cutest Sand Artist or a Folk Symbol of Fruitless Pursuits?

The little artists of the coastlines

Dã tràng as portrayed in folklore

While dã tràng might hail from the humblest of origins, the tiny sand crab has an entire fable dedicated to its origin in Vietnamese folk culture.

Sisyphus and Dã Tràng, two faces of the same tragedy

One Nation's Beloved Cá Lóc Is Another Nation's Horror Movie

Not the cá lóc you think it is

A fish fit for celebrations and sustainability

Sấu Ushers in a Hanoian Summer of Sweet-and-Sour Nostalgia

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

A mainstay on Hanoi streets

“Just merely flowers days agoOnce gushing with passionate smellIt only takes a budding of doubtfor the fruits to be born for real.”— ‘The young sấu up high’ (Quả sấu non trên cao), Xuân Diệu

The soul of Hanoi’s snack scene

10 Species of Lesser-Known Fruits to Get to Know Vietnam's Biodiversity

Trái cỏ are wild, untamed trees and bushes that exist in unexplored patches of the jungle or homestead backyards, bearing fruits purely for the survival of their species and not for the insatiable appetite of fruit-loving humans.

1. Lêkima | Pouteria lucuma

2. Trứng cá | Muntingia calabura

3. Xay | Dialium cochinchinense

4. Bình bát | Annona glabra

5. Trâm | Syzygium cumini

6. Ô môi | Cassia grandis L.f.

7. Tầm bóp | Physalis peruviana

8. Nhót | Elaeagnus latifolia

9. Chùm ruột | Phyllanthus acidus

10. Thị | Diospyros decandra

Trái Thị: The Fruit of Heavenly Smell and Infernal Taste

Trái thị, the golden apple of Vietnam.

What trái thị lacks in appearance, it makes up for in divine aroma.

Did you know?

Thị ơi thị à, thị rơi bị bà, bà để bà thơm chứ bà không ăn.

Trái thị is the fruit that smells like heaven and tastes like hell.

The asterisk is called dấu hoa thị, or the thị flower symbol.

Because I didn’t buy a piece of merchandise, I bought a memory.

Crickets Are More Than Just Chirpy Reminders of Our Childhood

The most overt association people have with crickets in Vietnam is Tô Hoài’s Dế Mèn Phiêu Lưu Ký, a beloved tale and holder of the distinction of “Vietnam’s most translated story.”

An Ode to Lục Bình, Vietnam's Invasive, Destructive, Beautiful Aquatic Jerk

In love and war

A plant that needs no passport

Modern Vietnam’s enemy number one?

Not only does the weed entangle propellers, it harbors enemies. By flummoxing water flow, it provides ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, while killing the many fish and amphibians that would normally eat the insects.

Is that a silver lining or a piece of tin foil?

In Vietnam, lục bình has recently provided surprising benefits for economically disadvantaged communities, and may provide insights into how humans will interact with the natural world.

The Rise and Fall of Phượng Vĩ, the Summer Icon of Our Teenage Dreams

How phượng vĩ infiltrated our schools

Generations of Vietnamese have grown up with phượng flowers, so it has earned a deep-rooted reputation as the symbol of summer, school years, and teenage dreams.

The cultural significance of phượng vĩ

The tipping point

The Ugly Truth of the Life and Impending Demise of the Hoàn Kiếm Turtle

One could rightly expect that the Hoàn Kiếm turtle would fall victim to the “Bambi syndrome” wherein humans only care about preservation efforts focused on animals deemed “cute.”

Thanh Long: How Dragon Fruit Proves Beauty Is Only Skin-Deep

Dragon fruits are aggressively bland with a flavor that can be accurately likened to walking the wrong way on an escalator in an empty shopping mall.

Dragon fruit is not native to Vietnam. It instead originated in South or Central America where it is called pitaya.

Vietnam is now the world’s top dragon fruit producer with more than 1.4 million tons brought to market each year.

Farmers around the world are rushing to take advantage of dragon fruit’s cachet and high prices.

Khỉ Vàng: The Shit-Stirrer, Snack Thief, and Petty Criminal of Vietnam's Forests

When you picture a monkey being used for research science, it is very likely a khỉ vàng.

Rhesus macaques are aggressive, cruel, calculating and perpetually stressed out.

“Just merely flowers days ago
Once gushing with passionate smell
It only takes a budding of doubt
for the fruits to be born for real.”
— ‘The young sấu up high’ (Quả sấu non trên cao), Xuân Diệu