Lung Cu Flagpole

The School Veterans Association, as someone said yesterday, is “shrinking” every year. The Association’s list is getting thinner and thinner, the “return to the source” trips in the past few years were less than a car full, but today, July 7, 2017, suddenly increased dramatically: a magnificent convoy of 2 cars. Why did everyone respond, happily, and leave so enthusiastically? At first, I thought it might be because Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Kim joined the Association this year. The presence of the beloved Party Secretary could increase the excitement and confidence of the Association. Having a teacher in the Board of Directors accompanying him is a guarantee for the organization and sympathy of the school’s leaders. The second reason, maybe because this year is a “Northern journey” to conquer a legendary peak: Lung Cu Flagpole on the border? The joy and enthusiasm of the Association can be synthesized from both reasons. However, the second reason is the underlying cause. The first cause is as a direct stimulus.

On the road (photo by Pham Cong Nhat)

Overcoming the pass (photo by Pham Cong Nhat)

The group had a plan from the beginning of last month:05:00 July 7:The car departs.Ha Giang… breakfast on the go.10:00:ArriveVi Xuyen Cemetery- Ha Giang, offering incense to commemorate the martyrs…continuing the journey to Yen Minh;07:008th:Go to Dong Van Stone Plateau through four districts: Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van, Meo Vac,. take pictures in the buckwheat flower fields... visit the palace of King Mong Vuong Chi Sinh... Continue to departLung Cu -Visit Lung Cu Flagpole.Afternoon: Back to Dong Van town;06:00July 9:check out… return to Hanoi.

Everyone hopes for a trip that is truly “properly conducted”. The first process that cannot be skipped is certainly the issue of “asking permission from the wife”. It could be just a gesture of pretending to invite the wife to go with him, then threatening danger, steep and steep passes, leaving the wife at home, quickly going on the road with the comrades, in order to have a few days of freedom on parole. It could also be a reason, promising to buy some gifts so that at 4am, the veteran couple can easily wave goodbye to each other.

Reviewing the first stage of the process, everyone realized that there were two wives accompanying the group. The group concluded that they were the two veterans who were most “afraid of their wives”. They were Associate Professor Vu Ngoc Loan, a sailor (who could not swim) of the familiar, famous unnumbered ships during the anti-American war. The second was Musician, teacher Pham Tuan Khoa, from the Vietnamese Language Department, a singer of the Liberation Army Art Troupe in the past… The association’s president Tran Van Hai whispered to a few people: I feel sorry for those two men, they cannot escape the roar of the sky wherever they go. But the association’s president’s whisper was overheard, so there were immediate objections: who knows, maybe those two were making a diversionary move, setting targets for other, quiet fronts? Getting on the bus, each person commented in a different way, buzzing and cheerful in the opening and departure atmosphere…

We set out for the source.

The two words “RETURN TO THE SOURCE” have long been used frequently in group tours. The meaning of the source here is expanded every day. How many “sources” does the country have, from Hung Temple, Pac Po cave, Viet Bac war zone to Hien Luong bridge…? Up to now, the word “return to the source” is used more easily and flexibly. “Source” has gradually expanded to revolutionary sites, cultural and historical relics, sparkling here and there on the national map. Like hundreds of streams and thousands of rivers flowing into the ocean. The source of domestic Vietnamese tourists today is not only the ancestral land, the ancient capital, the war zone, the battlefield… but also all the historical homelands, the places we love and cherish. This year’s source of our school’s Veterans’ group is Lung Cu Flagpole, the northernmost outpost of the Fatherland. Lung Cu source is understood in the sense: The Fatherland begins from there.

The Fatherland and us (photo by Pham Cong Nhat)

After only a few hours of passing through the highways, we came across the Lo River. During the rainy and flood days, the water of the Lo River was muddy and swirling violently. When writing the epic poem Lo River, musician Van Cao probably could not have guessed that this not-so-gentle river would have to bear witness to the war to defend the country for the second time. From 1984 to 1989, the eastern part of the Lo River was flooded with enemy corpses many times.

As planned, the first stop of the delegation was the Vi Xuyen martyrs cemetery. As if sympathizing with the delegation's choking feelings, it suddenly started to rain. We put on our coats, carried umbrellas, and walked in the rain, placing dozens of incense sticks at each grave. We knew that in just a few seconds the incense would go out, and a few minutes later, when we left, the cemetery would become cold and silent again. However, we still hoped that the 1,700 young men - the eternal owners of this cemetery would feel the warm scent and the light footsteps of our old soldiers. The people of Vi Xuyen and the soldiers of the Viet Bac military region took July 12 every year as the "Battle Anniversary". Because in 1984, that was the day of the bloody battle between many of our army units against the "massive attack" of the Chinese army. The Vi Xuyen front alone had 4,000 martyrs. This cemetery has only gathered less than half of the remains. The rest, where are you? In the rows of graves, we recognized many martyrs who died at the age of 40, 50. Perhaps they were officers, commanders at the battalion and regiment levels. You sacrificed with your young soldiers. If after the war against America, you had requested demobilization and transferred to another branch like us, you would have received your pension book and been in a group, visiting today!!! Stepping out of the cemetery, our hearts were heavy. We felt guilty towards the deceased. After the war against America, like many people, we fell into a delusion. Everyone believed that fighting America was the last war.

Dong Van Martyrs Cemetery (photo by Nguyen Van Thuy)

In the convoy of the Association returning to the source this year, there were still enough people representing each battlefield, each military branch, each period of the history of the war. Along with the soldiers of the Southeast front such as Vu Thanh Tung, the Lao battlefield such as Dinh Xuan Ly, Nguyen Chi Hoa, Duong Xuan Son, Ngo Van Hoan, the Quang Tri front such as Nguyen Huu Thu, Bui Duy Dan, Pham Thanh Hung, the Cambodian battlefield such as Bui Xuan Quang, Nguyen Long, the Northern border front such as Nguyen Thanh Binh, Pham Cong Nhat, Nguyen Vu Hao, Tran Xuan Hong, Nguyen Dinh Thanh, Pham Dinh Lan. The "young" veterans of the northern border told us and helped us understand more about the war against the Chinese invaders in 1979. The image of the invaders dying in the Ka Long River (secretly installed by the Lang Son power plant's self-defense workers with high voltage electricity in the water, waiting for our main force from the South to come to our aid) evoked the image of Dong Da hill of Thang Long chasing the Qing invaders in the past. Trinh Xuan Hong's story about chemical artillery shellsMade in Americafrom the Long Binh ammunition depot, making the bandits stand still, sit still, silent as stone statues… let us understand the hardships and fierceness of the war to stop the enemy. The intention of “giving Vietnam a lesson”, “taking Hanoi in 5 days” completely failed.

Dinh Xuan Ly, Tran Thuc Viet, the self-defense platoon leader Truong - Nguyen Van Thuy, who has worked in the cultural work in the highlands for many years, and the poet and veteran of the missile force Mai Lieu who accompanied the delegation, all remember the story of our soldiers guarding the post in 1984-1989. The story goes that: in Vi Xuyen, there was a period when hundreds of "forest men" with shoulder-length hair and stubble appeared. Few people know that they were our special forces soldiers who had to live in caves, deep in the forest, guarding the post for three or four years in a row. The story goes: There were days when Chinese soldiers occupied the post in the cave above, while our soldiers guarded the cave below. Any side that stuck their necks out of the cave entrance was shot dead immediately. After holding out and fighting for many years, the Chinese soldiers knew that their opponents below had their supply lines cut off, were hungry, and lacked protein, so they dropped canned meat into the cave below to give to the Vietnamese soldiers. With nothing to thank, our soldiers sat filing aluminum rings, tied them to the end of sticks and gave them back as gifts... The rambling story reminded us of the paradoxes of history, and reminded us of Nguyen Duy's poems:

 The irony of Friendship Pass

If only blood did not smear on the pass's surface

AQ. grabbed Chi Pheo's hair.

Let two poor soldiers lose

…At 10 a.m. on July 8, we were approaching the “meeting point”. In the car, many people stood up, looked out the window, and pointed. From afar, the Lung Cu flag was burning in our eyes like a red flame. When climbing to the top of the hill, to the foot of the flagpole, Secretary Nguyen Van Kim and Mr. Duong Xuan Son and Mr. Pham Dinh Lan were all in tears. The flag was sewn in a 60x90 scale, just 54 square meters, a very round symbol for the 54 ethnic groups of the entire Dai Viet community. At the peak of 1,700 meters above sea level, the flag fluttered in the wind of the border. The Hien Luong flag we used to sew with fabric weighed nearly twenty kilos, and was easily torn. We had to rely on the legendary hands of our mother Nguyen Thi Diem, who had stayed by the river for many years, to patch it up and hang it up again. In the years of the 21st century, our Lung Cu flag has become more durable and lighter because it is sewn from nylon fabric, but when we hear the sound of the flag, we still feel the heaviness of the sacred spirit of the country. The Lung Cu flagpole is not identical to the boundary marker. More than a kilometer away from the base of the flagpole, we still have nearly a hundred families in Lo Lo Chai village. The shape of our S-shaped country evokes the imagination of many foreign poets about "a slender fatherland, with a narrow waist and a conical hat on its head". The northernmost tip of the cone is the land of Lung Cu.

There are many hypotheses about the place name “Lung Cu”. Lung Cu is a phonetic variation of Long Co, which means the king’s drum. Legend has it that after driving the Qing army back to his country, King Quang Trung ordered a bronze drum to be placed at this border guard station, replacing the drum that had been there since the Ly Dynasty. The king ordered that the bronze drum must be beaten every hour to announce peace and sovereignty over the border. The name Long Co was formed from that. There is also a theory that Lung Cu comes from the root word Long Cu, which means where the dragon lives. The simplest explanation is in the language of the Lo Lo people: Lung Cu means corn valley. The first two explanations contain historical legend inspiration. We love the third explanation, an explanation that carries the desire for peace and harmony with nature. But perhaps because of the conflicts and border wars of the past decades, the first explanation is emerging as an orthodox concept, expressing a constant awareness of territorial sovereignty. That is why the foot of Lung Cu flagpole today has many majestic bronze drum reliefs attached.

We climbed to the top of the flagpole. At the foot of the flagpole were rows of green, bare hills. Less than a kilometer away, behind the green mountain foot, was China. How many martyrs’ remains did we still have there that we had not yet retrieved? Quang Dung’s poem silently echoed in our hearts: “Scattered across the border are graves from faraway lands / Their souls return to Sam Nua, not to the lowlands.”

On July 9, on the way back to Hanoi, our convoy was stuck in traffic because a pine tree suddenly uprooted and fell across the road, cutting the “Journey to the Source” convoy in half. The 14-seat car had probably gone a few dozen meters when the tree fell behind us. The people in the car did not know. We were sitting in the car behind, but the pine tree blocked our way, so we had to get out of the car, wait for the local drivers behind, call for help and find a way to fix it. Pham Cong Nhat and Vu Thanh Tung joined together to cut down the tree, prepare to hook up the winch, pull the tree up… The only road named “Happiness” that we traveled seemed longer. The border seemed to expand and expand, making us think of the word “border fence”.

We call the "fence area" the northern border of the Fatherland with the implication: this is the land that protects the capital and the center of the territory from afar. But thinking back, the word "border fence" has a deeper geopolitical meaning. Many European countries and the US president have advocated building a hard fence for the border, firmly dividing their territory. Vietnam cannot do it. Our border is too long, vast, and dangerous. Moreover, there is a folk saying "Love each other, fence it tightly". Our ancestors advocated that the Vietnam - China border should still be a fence of neighbors, neighbors, the border symbolizes a fence. But how can a fence stop robbers? Therefore, the best border against "bad neighbors" is one that we must build with the will and heart of the people.

King Le Thanh Tong once issued an edict, reminding border officials and envoys to China:"How can we arbitrarily abandon even one inch of our mountains and rivers?... If anyone dares to give even one inch of land left by King Thai To to the enemy, their crime will be punishable by death.". (Complete Annals of Dai Viet).

… We climbed to the top of Ma Pi Leng – a pass at an altitude of 1200 meters, winding back and forth for 20 km, the result of 2 million working days in 6 long years, from 1959 to 1965, at the cost of 15 youth volunteers who died from bandit attacks and fell while hanging all day to chisel each piece of rock. Ma Pi Leng in Mandarin meanshorse nose, evoking the image of a steep pass. A veteran in the group told us a story: One time he was on a business trip, at night, his UW lost its brakes and crashed into a rocky embankment on the side of the road, one wheel flew off and fell into the valley. Not long after, his agency went down to look for the wheel. After searching for a long time, they couldn’t find it, so they went to a Mong village to investigate. The villagers said that exactly a month before, at night, the elderly heard a roar from above but waited for a long time but didn’t hear any explosion. Maybe it was the flying wheel… Feeling sorry for the government car that lost its wheel, the villagers split up to look for it but couldn’t find it for two days. It wasn’t until the farming season, when the villagers burned the forest, that they saw the wheel sizzling in a rocky crevice…

Gate of the Mongol King's palace Vuong Chi Sinh (photo by Nguyen Van Thuy)

Conquering Quang Ba Heaven Gate (photo by Nguyen Van Thuy)

Ma Pi Leng Pass (Photo by Nguyen Van Thuy)

From the top of Ma Pi Leng covered in clouds, we could still see the Nho Que River flowing downstream from the north, looking down from above like a geological crack. By chance, someone at the end of the car heard the voice of Nguyen Van Thuy: “Every ten hours, upstream, we have to check the toxicity in the Nho Que River once. … Just over twenty kilometers from the border, China is building a nuclear power plant…”

The car still drove cautiously and diligently in the fog. We were moving away from the Lung Cu – Dong Van flagpole. Far from Dong Van, but our hearts were not at peace. The story on the car was still a painful story of worrying about losing land, losing forests, losing clean water sources. The Lung Cu flag was getting smaller behind us. But in our fitful sleep, nodding off on the car, we, the group of veterans of the School of Humanities, still saw the Lung Cu flag burning forever in our dreams. The flag fluttered in the wind like a flame, like boiling blood.

So on the way back to the capital, each of us has built in our own heart a national flag.