We’re cruising around in the famous and infamous Mekong Delta. Fifty years ago, this was a place where few people wanted to be. Today, it’s a laid-back network of rivers, canals, and rice fields. It’s one of the most fertile places in the world, and home to 20 million people. Yesterday we visited the quiet little town of Tan Chau, just across the border from Cambodia. Now we’ve moved eastward, further into the delta toward the South China Sea. Our next stop is the hustling, bustling city of Sa Dec.
But First You have to Get There
To get there, as has become our new routine, we boarded a smaller boat to take us into town. We’re tourists. We’re on a river cruise. Big companies need to have insurance policies. So we have to wear life jackets when we get on the smaller boats. I get that it’s for our own good to wear life jackets. But I bet we’re the only ones for a hundred miles in any direction who are wearing them.
That’s what I had been thinking until we got out into the main waterway. Yikes! Boats that were way bigger than ours were going every which way. The water was choppy from all the boat traffic. This must be the equivalent of Main Street in Sa Dec. Tan Chau was like a sleepy little country town. Sa Dec, so far, is a beehive of activity.
We disembarked and started walking toward the center of town. After a short walk, we came to place described to us as being “the Marguerite Duras house.” It looked like no house I’d ever seen. It’s a combination of French and Chinese architecture dating back to the early 20th century.
The “Marguerite Duras” House
The facade of the house is an over-the-top conflagration of French and Chinese motifs. It’s as if they’re trying to outdo each other. No space is left without some type of ornamentation.
Both French and Chinese influences carry through to the interior, which is more subdued than the exterior, but still over-the-top. Beautifully lacquered gold-trimmed carvings of flowers, birds, and dragons look down upon magnificent pieces of French antique furniture. (No one had to tell ME not to touch anything!)
So Marguerite Duras must have lived like a queen in the “Marguerite Duras house,” eh? Well, that turns out not to be the case. She never actually lived here. But there is a connection…
The Rest of the Story…
Marguerite Duras did live in Sa Dec circa 1930. She was the teenage daughter of French parents who were just getting by. When she was fifteen years old, she fell for a 27-year-old Chinese gentleman who was quite well-to-do. He fell for her, too. One would imagine that such an affair must have turned a few heads, given the time and place.
The two lovers eventually went their separate ways. Marguerite relocated to France and became a writer and film producer. In 1984, she wrote a novel titled, “L’Amant,” (The Lover), based to some extent on that teenage love affair with the older Chinese gentleman in Sa Dec. The book was highly acclaimed, and in 1992, the movie, “The Lover,” was released. It was a big hit in the West and also in Vietnam. I haven’t seen it myself, but apparently, it’s a wee bit on the racy side.
But what about the house? The house was the Chinese gentleman’s house, or at least it was his family’s house – and it still is. His name was Huynh Thuy Le. It’s his name that should be on the house, eh? And in fact, it is. It’s only referred to as the “Marguerite Duras house” for the benefit of us westerners.
The Market
We left the house on foot and in just a few minutes, we reached a large open-air market. There were no walls, but there was a roof high overhead providing shade for what must have been hundreds of vendors.
We took a walk through the market, gawking at the abundance of fruit and vegetables on display. Our guide told us that most people who live around here come to this market every day. They buy food to prepare that day’s or the next day’s meal.
While they’re here, he said, they catch up on the latest gossip and keep up to date with what’s happening in the neighborhood. If Mrs. Nguyen buys certain herbs in the morning, by mid-afternoon everyone in town will know (or assume) that Mrs. Nguyen is pregnant, has a kid with a toothache, or whatever, depending on which herbs she bought. It’s all happening at the market.
We moved from the produce section to check out the seafood. Nothing dead here. Just about everything for sale was swimming or sloshing around. I mean, who wants to buy a dead fish? If a fish is already dead, how can you know how long it’s been dead? Maybe it’s from last week. Not here. Everything here is fresh fresh fresh! And “fresh” here usually means “alive.”
The meat section is coming up next. Whoa. I can see it from here. Let’s save the meat section for next time.
To be continued…
