Bamboo is closely linked to Vietnamese daily life. When we’re young, we fall asleep in the swing of a bamboo cradle. When we’re old and dying, we lie in a coffin lowered into the grave with bamboo ropes. French journalist Jean Claude Pomonti, a specialist in Southeast Asian issues, has often humorously referred to our civilization as the “bamboo civilization” in his columns for the newspaper “Le Monde”, because bamboo is an important part of our culture. Thanks to scientific research, we know that 39,000 years ago, bamboo was the main resource used by human groups in Southeast Asia, but due to the extremely unfavourable preservation conditions for organic materials, this use was no longer visible several thousand years later. In 1948, the famous geographer Pierre Gourou spoke of a “plant civilization” for Indochina, and more specifically for Vietnam.
It is a plant with multiple uses in Vietnam. Thanks to this plant, everything is possible in this country where nothing is easy and where we do not let ourselves be put off or stopped by obstacles. First, in our history, bamboo is evoked in the myth of the giant child of the village of Gióng. This man grew enormously in a few weeks to chase away the armies coming from the North (the Shang) and on his iron horse breathing fire, he succeeded in pulling out bamboo forests to defeat his enemies. Then in the 13th century, a resounding victory was led by the generalissimo Trần Hưng Đạo against the Mongol hordes of Kublai Khan on the Bạch Đằng River with junks and boats made of wood and bamboo. The victory of Dien Bien Phủ was also achieved in 1954 against the French expeditionary force through the massive and clever use of bamboo poles and bamboo-trimmed bicycles in supplying the front with food and ammunition and i clever use of bamboo poles and bamboo-trimmed bicycles in supplying the front with food a around the fortified camp of Dien Bien Phủ, which thus facilitated intensive artillery bombardment, day and night.
Through history, we can see that there is a long-standing deep attachment of the Vietnamese people to this bamboo. It is this plant that the Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Duy tries to humanize and describe for the noble qualities in his poem entitled « Tre Việt Nam (Vietnamese bamboo) » from which some verses are extracted below:
Bão bùng thân bọc lấy thân
Tay ôm, tay níu tre gần nhau thêm.
Thương nhau, tre chẳng ở riêng
Luỹ thành từ đó mà nên hỡi người.
During the storm, the bamboos protect their bodies.
Arms clasped together, they try to get closer to each other.
Filled with affection, they cannot live apart.
Thus, the bamboo fortress is born.
In food, bamboo shoots are used in the preparation of many dishes. They are necessarily cooked or canned in order to remove the natural toxins they contain. There are many proverbs and popular songs alluding to childhood by evoking bamboo shoots. We say măng sữa (bamboo shoot to breastfeed) or tuổi măng sữa (tender age) to refer to childhood. We usually say: Măng không uốn thì tre uốn sao được. (If we do not straighten the shoot, how can we straighten the bamboo?). The bamboo shoot reminds us of the notion of the passage of time. We must not let lost time slip away because bamboo grows for a time and man has only one age. We must enjoy time before it passes and old age catches up with us. This is what we find in Vietnamese folk songs and sayings:
Măng mọc có lứa người ta có thì.
There’s a season for bamboo shoots, just as there is a time for people. Or
Khi đi trúc chưa mọc măng
Ngày về trúc đã cao bằng ngọn tre.
The bamboo hadn’t yet sprouted when I left.
It had already reached the top of the bamboo when I returned.
Or
Tre già măng mọc
When the bamboo grows old, the shoots begin to emerge.
This expression somehow reflects our hope for youth and future generations.
In the past, the Vietnamese used this hollow bamboo, so strong and so light, to build partitions and hedges several meters high to protect their village from enemies and bandits. This material is found everywhere in the house, from the framework, walls, partitions to the floors. Everything is made with this hollow wood (furniture, beds, tables, various accessories, etc.), even a drinking cup. Torn into strips, it is used as ropes and strings. Bamboo filaments are used to make baskets of all kinds to facilitate transport on land (baskets) or on water (round baskets). It is also used to make conical hats to shelter from the rain and the sun. Thanks to this plant, we know how to create everyday tools (buckets for drawing water, pipes for smokers, water pipes, etc.).
It is also used as food for animals and even for villagers. They eat the most tender bamboo shoots like asparagus. The roots of this hollow wood are even dug up and dried in the sun for weeks on end. As Tet approaches, it is used as firewood to bake sticky rice cakes or to protect against the cold, especially in winter in northern and central Vietnam. Bamboo thus becomes something « sacred, » intimate and specific to the village. It is thanks to these hedges made from this plant that the village regains not only its tranquility and privacy, but also its traditions and customs. Bamboo thus becomes the protector of the villagers. This is why a Vietnamese proverb says that
The king’s authority stops before the village’s bamboo hedges. (Phép vua thua lệ làng)
It is also only in villages today that we find this incomparable plant that makes life easier for villagers. Bamboo and the village are so closely linked that they are often compared to a person linked to his shadow. This is why we find this evocation in several Vietnamese poems. This impression, every Vietnamese will probably have it when passing through his native village through the following four verses:
Thì bao nhiêu cảnh mơ màng
Hiện ra khi thoàng cỗng làng tre xanh.
As we indulge in dreaming, we see the entrance to the village and the bamboo appear from afar.
Dừng bước nơi đây lòng ngỗn ngang
Ngùi trông về Bắc nhớ tre làng
When we stop here, we feel helpless
When we remember our homeland with emotion, we are reminded to see the village bamboo again.
To find the bamboo is to find the village. That’s why bamboo has become the representative symbol of Vietnam.
