No matter how the wind blows, which direction, which season, will this delta ever lack fish and shrimp?

No matter how the wind blows, which direction, which season, this delta will never lack fish and shrimp. That is a paraphrase of an old song, but now… it depends. Although the natural ecosystem is gradually becoming poorer, there is no longer the lullaby style of singing “How many times the crows have spoken to the kites. 

Ong Chuong Islet has a lot of fish and shrimp. But there are still fields and ditches full of fish and shrimp. If we know how to preserve and live in harmony with nature to enjoy the blessings of heaven.

Not far away, around the city Vinh Long I still have some places with pretty amazing environmental ecosystems. 

Right in the city, wild gardens with mixed trees, although not large in area, but as long as they are well protected, without poachers, all kinds of birds and storks live very close to humans.

Afternoon wandering around the village, a few traps on rainy days, some drifting water, a few nets, fishing, unbelievable, all kinds of… bait to nibble on rainy weekends. 

A sumptuous feast with the typical Western countryside flavor without having to set foot in the market. It is more than food, it is joy, happiness, enjoyment, harmony with nature, peaceful, not noisy and crowded, and while watching the scenery, you are moved by the miraculous revival of the ecological environment around you.

Only a small area around the canals, nestled in the middle of vegetable fields that are regularly watered with fertilizers and pesticides; but if we know how to preserve them, there will still be a place for crabs, fish, etc. to live. Vegetables grow abundantly among the weeds, looking at them is so pitiful, just a little wave of the hand and the whole basket of vegetables will be gone.

 Crab hotpot with pure flavor of the Western rice fields.

But with the same bait, the same trap, the same net, the same hook around the same plots of land, why is it that the person who casts the bait is… a small one, the person who soaks the net is rotten but doesn’t catch any fish. Folklore says “that guy kills fish!”.

In fact, these are the skills and experiences passed down from generation to generation by the people who live in harmony with nature, listening to every change of the wind, every rhythm of the water, the river, the changing colors of the river, looking at each water pulse (mà) to know if it is an eel or a loach, looking at the "mà" in the ditch around the chive fields to know where there are mussels stuck in the mud. Looking at the color of the water, you know there must be an eel nesting there. Which creek has crabs crawling, fish going...

So, once I went to Cu Lao Dung district (Soc Trang), sitting with the elderly chatting about this island, there were young men carrying fishing rods across the road. 

An old man laughed loudly and called out: "You guys go home soon. If you guys go fishing, you can put some fish on my back to grill."

Thinking and also earnestly hoping that if the whole delta region knows how to return to living close to and friendly with nature, which today many people say means "following nature", the environment will quickly revive. 

During the breeding season, the freshwater fish do not eat fish eggs, do not use small nets to catch baby fish, do not destroy the environment, then dry grass and aquatic vegetation serve as breeding grounds and food for shrimp, fish, and crabs. In a few moments, we will return to the time when shrimp and fish were abundant. 

Like the stories of U Minh that Uncle Ba Phi often tells, many people find them humorous and think they are just lies. They are all true stories from life.

Copper snails around the garden, copperware is so healthy and delicious.

Like every afternoon, I went around to check the traps, more than ten crabs, some eels, tiny tilapia, snakehead fish... were released back into the ditch. 

Some people pound crabs, some people bustle around picking water spinach and water mimosa, some people reach over the fence to pick some young squash, wash them briefly, leave the skin on, and put them in a pot of sweet water without adding sugar.

The wind blew loudly, the smoke from the hot pot rose up, smelling of crabs, the sweet aroma of wild vegetables... the twilight sky, which according to some poets is called "the sad afternoon", expressing the lonely mood of a person living far away from home suddenly missing his homeland. 

I remember the sadness of the great poet Thôi Hiệu of the Tang Dynasty (China) in the famous poem "Hoang Hac Lau": "Where is this hometown at sunset? The calm waves on the river make people sad."

Now I look at the crab hotpot, it's also steaming like "yen ba giang thuong", sitting in the middle of the countryside feels strange, suddenly I feel sad and miss the countryside.