In my memory, the communal house in Tho Ha ancient village is a sacred place, a meeting place for adults, where everyone has to bow their heads and join hands. Children are only allowed to play in the courtyard and the lake in front of the house. The Tho Ha ancient village communal house is located on the highest land of the village, surrounded by stone walls, the communal house yard has an ancient banyan tree dropping dense clusters of roots at the base,
They say that every tree has a soul. The tree that grows in the communal house carries the soul of immortality. Experience is correct. Every time I go back to my hometown, I come to look at the banyan tree and realize that the tree has not changed, still like a green watchtower guarding the door of the communal house.
Not long after that, I returned to the Tho Ha ancient village. The village head invited him to the house to drink tea and confided: “The expansion of the village road for cars is still part of the new rural construction plan. Many commune officials suggested that instead of removing the banyan tree, the lake would be filled in front of the communal house. I don’t think it’s good, in the past, the old family always cared about feng shui. The communal house must have trees and water. Trees and lakes are the family’s legacy. Economic development, expanding traffic in the construction of new countryside is important, but the protection of village culture is equally important. The village culture converges in the banyan tree, the lake, and the roof of the communal house.
I was completely surprised by the comment of the head of the Tho Ha ancient village who has not graduated from secondary school, the owner of a duck farm. He gave me a perspective on the problem of building a new countryside.
I once saw a village that was extremely rich, and so it didn’t look like a village anymore. A town consisting of luxurious buildings, high-walled gates, and self-contained houses. Village roads, spacious and spacious neighborhoods, cars coming to the house, but life in the village fluctuates constantly. The number of drug addicts has skyrocketed. The situation of gambling, fighting, divorce of husband and wife, children going to the dust is more and more. A heartbreaking wealth.
There is also a village that does not know whether it is rich or poor, but in the village there are only old people and children, besides the birdsong and the rooster crowing, the silence covers everything. When I asked, I found out that those who were still able to work had left the village to work far away. People who go to work abroad, people who work as workers in industrial parks or go to cities and provinces to earn a living. The fields are infertile and deserted. The old people huddled in the house, the children huddled in the billiards bar, the “feature” shop at the top of the village. The old man at the top of the village lamented: “The village is not the village “.
