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Little boy Phuong was meticulously digging phenh at Ha Thanh river bank under the scorching heat of the midday. |
The midday sunlight radiates overhead, casting no shadow. Looking down from Ha Thanh Bridge, I find diminutive figures against the vast river sandbank. They were meticulously digging for each of small phenh – an elongated mussel-like specialty - from the muddy sand. Livelihood of the poor is still full of hardship with the low and high tides.
The savory phenh
Phenh is a typical specialty in the summer time. The local people usually dig it twice a month, at middle and the end of the month. The phenh diggers wait for the low tides to dig the bivalve mollusc at the exposed river bank. Their work lasts from midday until twilight.
The experienced diggers slight the male phenh because its body is very small. Only the “connoisseurs” of phenh do distinguish the males which tend to be smaller and flatter. Ms. Pham Thi Canh from Cell 6, Dong Da Ward, Quy Nhon City revealed her experiences that the molluscs likely give birth to offspring at thick muddy areas along the river edge. When the offspring grow up, they move to higher and drier lands. Phenh at the edge are more crowded but smaller and immature. At the higher lands where neap tides are low and the ground with plenty of clay blocks and pebbles is dry enough to walk without being sunk into the mud, there are clams and small edible snails-favorite food of phenh- in abundance. So, phenh at the rich food areas are usually at size of the big toe. “No place has better phenh than Thi Nai Lagoon and Ha Thanh river banks. The phenh here are fat and palatable”, said proudly Ms. Canh about the specialty of her land by the lagoon.
Tools of the phenh diggers are very simple, including big size spoons as shovels, panniers, plastic bags or baskets for keeping the mussels. After digging, they sift the phenh from sand. The big phenh are served as seafood dishes while smaller can be used as food for shrimps or ducks. “The phenh now are smaller and fewer in number than before. In the past, they used to hustle together in layers. All were at the big toe size. Anyhow, price of the phenh is still high now because the number of the shrimp and duck raisers increases. The small phenh which were thrown-away some years ago can be sold”, said Chin, a local resident living in Dong Da ward.
Besides phenh, there are other types of highly nutritious mussels such as mytilus, arcas, shellfishes, etc. At low tidal time, during a short period from midday to twilight, the tide is on the ebb, the gifts of nature appear. At other times, the local people have to plunge hard into the water for them.
Sweat job indeed
It’s already past 2 p.m. The sunlight was still scorching. Ha Thanh riverbed was dry of water, exposing a vast area of very black mud. Rising south wind brings with it a typical smell of the river. The river banks under Ha Thanh Bridge used to be extremely polluted. After the new bridge had put into service, river flows were unblocked and the sandbank there became cleaner.
The phenh diggers shoveled the big spoons into the soil at a half-span in depth, scrupulously digging up each of the mussels and putting them into the nearby baskets or the plastic bags. The vast area under their feet was turned over. Those who wanted catch phenh by the river edge had to dig deep into the muddy layers with a shovel hoe. Their task was, thus, more exhausting. Others wanted to catch the molluscs from the river bed. They went in pairs. One person shoveled the muddy sand with phenh, the other sieved to separate them from the sand. They worked from low tide to high tide and sometimes earned a hundred thousand Vietnamese dong (approximately 5.3 USD)/day. Although they gained more, they faced more hardships and risks. After soaking themselves the whole day under the river, they would feel extremely weary in hands and legs. Leg bleeding caused by oyster, pieces of iron or glass cutting was common to them.
In those summer days, at the river banks near Ha Thanh 2 Bridge, more than 20 diggers -most of them were women – was patiently digging each scoop of the muddy sand, picking up each of the mussel. Careful diggers wore gloves while others digged with bare hands. Their clothes are all soaked with the muddy water. To the poor laborers, the phenh digging was not their main jobs but preferred way to increase their incomes. “I am a salt worker. This year, price of salt falls down so stunningly that I manage to earn the living somehow. I together with some neighboring women call for each other to dig phenh as way to improve our incomes”, said Vo Thi Hien, 36, from Nhon Binh Ward.
Among the diggers I met that afternoon, little boy Nguyen Duc Phuong from Nhon Binh Ward was probably the youngest. The 12-year-old boy was the third in a family with 3 children. His father was a fisherman. His mother was a salt worker. He had followed his older sister, who was a 7th grader, to the river bank for the phenh digging since 12 p.m. His small hands moved quickly and cleverly with the shovel. Under the heating sunlight of the early summer, his diminutive stature seemingly shrank more. Phuong sat down on the ground, talking with me without stopping his digging and looking up to me. He told me that he worked for 5 uninterrupted hours, catching nearly 5kg of the mussels every day. With the price of 8,000-10,000 VND/kg (5-10 cents/kg) now, he could earn more than 40,000 VND (about 2 USD). He gave his mother part of the sum of money to cover daily food cost of the family. He saved the rest for his studying expenses in the coming school year.
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Leaving the river bank full of the sunlight and salty-smell wind, I couldn’t stop thinking about story of the little schoolboy. Phuong said he had been excellent student every year. He tried to work hard, earning money to pursue his schooling so that he would become a prime minister in the future as in his wishing.
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