A short trip in the countryside

It had been almost two years since I went around the rice fields in the the countryside and visited my old villager friends. So, late one morning, we planned for a long bike ride to see rice fields in a nearby village. My memories of these rice fields were full of green young rice crops after the rainy season. But this is dry season when most harvest would have been finished and all the rice already sold to the rice mill owners. Many people were complaining to me that the price of rice was cheaper than a packet of processed noodle! These farmers couldn’t form a local cooperative to negotiate a better price. They tend to have a strong sense of individualism making it difficult to have a smoothly working cooperative.

I wanted to checkout the old villager who used to work in the bamboo groves near my place. He was getting on with his age so I should visit him more often. This old man was quite a character full of ideology and principles. When he was young, he was recruited as a team leader of local volunteers to fight against communist insurgents in the countryside. This was over sixty years ago when there were pockets of communist insurgents around the countryside, with the support of the north Vietnamese regime and Chinese Communist Party. The successful international political stunt by the globalist had changed the world as China decided to open up to capitalism. That led to the demise of communists’ movements in our country.

The Amnesty legislation made it possible for all communist insurgents to come back to live normal life without any impunity. I used to know some of these intellectual class of elites who later became advisers to the Prime Minister who had to escape Dubai with ill gotten gains. Recently, the retired head of the intelligence service criticised the misguided policy of total pardon of those previous communists’ crimes. The globalist had a very well thought out plan for fifty years later!

This elderly man, who used to be the head of the village, was a straight talker and hated corrupted politicians especially local ones. In contrast, I was astonished by the passivity of most villagers in accepting their fate. They had no courage to protest or speak the truth. The education system had made people into passive robots willing to obey all authoritative commands without any questions. So, I got on very well with this old man as we always had stories about political corruption for discussion. He also refused to be coerced into taking the jabs; he was threatened by local officials that he would not get his pension. About ten percent of villagers refused to be fully vaxxed; more people have started to drop dead including this man’s son-in-law after he was forced to get the second jab. Many people were coerced by their employers and their superiors in local authorities to be fully vaxxed.

He allowed me to take photos of the area for a small coffee shop with local fast food. He told me that his daughter would retire from her teaching job in a few years so they were thinking of building a small business for the whole family. His two nephews didn’t manage to complete their college certificates, so they couldn’t get decent jobs in local companies. The eldest nephew was helping with the building project. They did manage to get small pieces of teak wood at very cheap price for their project. I could see hundreds of pieces of teak wood on the ground. These must have weighted about three tons! They told me they had to transport these on a pickup trucks for three days!

They had bought some wooden tables and chairs for the cafe. The fish pond at the back had been emptied and the fish had been transported to another market for sale. The old man told me his new design of the fish pond with two small bridges so visitors could walk around taking selfies. They even rented the land next door to plant three kinds of yellow flowers including sunflowers. The idea was to attract customers by having a nice garden and fish pond for taking selfies! I could see that they were spending the insurance money from the dead of his son-in-law on the building project. I wished their optimism of a rosy economic atmosphere would become true next year. Had I known about their plan earlier, I would have told them to invest in gold bullion and Bitcoin.

I noticed a giant lemon tree which I had never seen before. The size of each lemon was as big as a grapefruit. He said I could have two cuttings from this giant lemon tree! The other tall tree in the yard turned out to be forest olive tree! The size of the olive was much bigger than ordinary olives we could buy in the market. I had to decline another offer of more cuttings as this tree would be too big among my regular fruit trees. A small puppy was following the old man and took regular sniff at me; he could probably smell my orange cats. This was the only puppy left alive since two puppies were crushed by passing cars. At last he allowed me to touch him so I asked to take some photos. These was precious time for me for I could never know what would happen in the near future. I just wished I could warn some people more explicitly so they could make some plans, just in case.

Then, we went to tour the rice fields at the back of the village. It would be nice to have a nice bicycle to explore the whole area slowly one day. Most of the rice fields had been harvested while some fields were prepared for off-season planting by using water pumped from the river. There were more new houses built by some foreigners with local Thai wives among the rice fields. You could tell straight away these were not owned by local villagers. The design features of expats’ houses just reflected their cultural backgrounds. My gardener, the driver, was very surprised by my correct guesses.

Typical poor villagers would have old tin roofs on their barns and cattle sheds. Thatcher roofs could still be seen in this area though modern zinc roofs have become more affordable and popular. I could never understand why some people chose blue as the colour of their roofs. Sometimes people just haven’t learned from the old tradition of house positioning and design. Even Chinese Feng-Shui advised against using water element on the roof. I have yet to see families whose houses’ roof in blue colour without financial problems. I had to frankly tell my local friends to repaint the roof of their house. But they believed the local (fake) astrologer; they later had financial troubles alright!

I wanted to check out the land bought by an investor who planted several expensive trees dug up from the forest to be planted on his land. You could buy two cars by using the money spent on these trees. It’s illegal, of course, but tea money could make many things possible though it took a bit more time! Unfortunately, some nice old trees didn’t survived the dry season last year.

Those were grand old trees with so much powerful vibes. Two years ago, after they were just planted, I had the chance of walking around these trees and communicating with them. I was very sad to see them in such poor conditions. The caretaker just passed away the several days ago. The story told about his habitual drunkard habit of beating up his cattle and bulls. Finally, one bull got fed up and pushed him away with his head. He was accidentally injured by the bull’s horn and fell backward to his death. He did sell us some charcoals over a year ago. Now I had to think about making my own charcoals! Perhaps this could become my hobby which could make some pocket money.

I liked the quiet and wild atmosphere around the dirt roads. Most people still live with the land with respect and gratitude, though they still maintained a rough wild edge of independent spirit. They mostly avoided confrontation and had great reference for people with authoritative positions. This could be an adverse legacy from feudalism and the new capitalistic culture of respecting people with lots of money. I could still remember as a child going around big restaurants with my father; I could see how rich people in big expensive cars were treated as VIPs. Rich and powerful politicians were really bad examples: showing off their domination with large entourage and people bowing their heads while opening the cars’ doors for them. This cow-towing behaviour was very off putting to me and I refused to be in that position, so I often got into troubles with higher authorities later on in my career. They expected subordinates to serve them like a servant.

We went around on the motorbike for over an hour around the rice fields. I just hoped that things would change very slowly in this area. The land is very rich and water is plentiful; the weather is very nice and hot most time of the year but the winter season is getting colder. Sometimes I wish I could persuade all my friends to move here and live on the land. But city people who get used to easy gratifications would find this lifestyle very difficult to handle. So, more expats have been moving here to build their houses and enjoy the nice surroundings. I was very lucky to be led here years ago, by my dreams and other signs given in my dreams. I still try to be quiet from time to time, so that I could hear the silent voices which often tell me what to do and give me warnings about the future. Mother Earth has been very kind and generous to me; and I am forever grateful and I would continue to do good karma as a symbol of respect for Her.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#wednesdaywalk hosted by @tattoodjay