Actually, it was just a three-way intersection, the junction of Huynh Thuc Khang and Phuoc Hai streets (now Nguyen Trai Street). But slightly opposite was a dirt road coming out from Depot (the train maintenance area of Nha Trang station). This road was later widened and paved with concrete, as if trying to connect to Huynh Thuc Khang Street, making it look like a four-way intersection—a staggered one.
That was the development decades later. When I was 5 or 6 years old (around 1973–1974), Depot Road was still completely deserted, usually used by people taking a shortcut from May Nuoc hamlet, through Duong Garden, to Phuoc Hai, and then down to Xom Moi. My family lived in May Nuoc hamlet. When I was in first grade at Quoc Tuan School, I used to follow the older boys walking along this road to Phuoc Hai to play.
At that time, I saw the staggered nature not only in the streets but also in the lives inside and outside the Depot area. Inside my hamlet, most houses had tin roofs and wooden walls, with a poor market called Chom Hom, and a dirt road passing through a lush nursery full of trees, with some rustic banana bushes sticking out. Meanwhile, on the corner of Phuoc Hai and Huynh Thuc Khang streets, there were rows of spacious brick houses, brightly lit shops, and bustling traffic.
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| The railway section passing through the Depot area. |
Those 'two worlds' were separated by a barrier near the end of Depot Road. On the other side was the bustling street; on this side was the railway land, where old train carriages sat on tracks that seemed forgotten in a deserted garden. A few times a day, whenever a train was about to pass, the gatekeeper would lower the barrier. After the train chugged past with its whistle blowing, the barrier would be raised.
Then there were months, perhaps due to security conditions, when the gatekeeper kept the barrier down constantly, turning it into a checkpoint. Only adults were allowed through after explaining their reasons clearly, while children were forbidden to cross.
My classmate named Duoc, who lived nearby, and I often wandered near the barrier to play. After taking turns climbing up and down the idle train carriages until we were bored, we crept around trying to get to the street. Waiting for the gatekeeper to be busy with his own business or engrossed in conversation, we would slip out. A few successful attempts made us very excited. But one day, we 'fell into a trap.' The gatekeeper, pretending to ignore us, suddenly lunged forward and grabbed both of us just as we crawled through. After a few painful ear-pulls that brought tears to our eyes, ignoring our whimpering pleas, he kept us there, forcing us to declare our parents' names and send for an adult to bail us out before we could go home. To make matters worse, when we got home, we got another beating.
But the misery of life is that the more adults forbid things, the more children sneakily cross over. Because the other side of the barrier was the 'world' we dreamed of. That was where the Hung Dao cinema (now the provincial Social Insurance headquarters) was loudly advertising Hong Kong martial arts movies. At school, during recess, we would scramble to sneak a peek at the movie programs brought by the older boys.
After that unforgettable beating, Duoc and I stopped sneaking through. Instead, we waited for adults about to cross the barrier checkpoint and begged them to claim us as their nephews so we could follow. We went to the Hung Dao cinema to feast our eyes. Oh, how beautiful were the martial arts stances of the superstar actors, and the mesmerizing eyes of the beauties painted in exaggerated scale on the colorful, brilliant billboards. Even the movie titles written there in calligraphic fonts were so elegant. We walked back and forth, admiring the cinema and the shops around it to our heart's content before heading home. At that time, we didn't even have 5 cents to buy bread, let alone dream of a cinema ticket.
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| The road into the Depot area had to pass through a barrier. |
After many times sneaking out of the house to look at the cinema, one day, after a long business trip to Bao Loc, my father took the whole family to the movies. My two siblings and I (my eldest sister in 5th grade, my older brother in 3rd grade) got to wear our new clothes saved since Tet, and rode on two cyclos with our parents to the Hung Dao cinema. That was the first time I actually stepped inside my dreamed-of 'sanctuary.' Looking up at the ceiling inside the theater, which was as high as its own sky, I thought the giant screens in front were hung down from the heavens. And the soft leather seats that folded up and down with the person sitting, and automatically flipped up when standing, were truly 'magical.' Suddenly, the lights went out completely, and from behind, a beam of light projected onto the large screen that had just opened. I held my breath at the grand scene of a herd of warhorses galloping across the steppe as if charging out of the screen. Knights appeared, and the battle began. From that moment on, I knew that the cinema could take me to magical horizons with such advanced technology.
After 1975, my family returned to the countryside. The greatest joy for us kids was watching movies in the open yard, which seemed to happen only once every few months. The 'cinema' back then was the cooperative's yard, with the screen set up on a frame of four dry, polished bamboo poles by the mobile projection team. Adults sat on their sandals, while children sat flat on the ground, eyes glued to the screen, which was often bent by the wind, distorting the faces of the people in the movie. One night, after watching the famous Soviet mythical movie 'Ruslan and Ludmila,' I dreamed of soaring with the characters, and then saw myself sitting in the Hung Dao cinema of years ago. When I woke up, I found myself not only missing the old cinema but also feeling a wistful longing for the old street corner and the city lights.
Now, every time I pass the corner of Nguyen Trai and Huynh Thuc Khang streets, I slow down. Just like on this rainy autumn afternoon, at first I only stopped to buy a convenient raincoat, but then lingered a bit longer, as the past reeled back like a movie.
NGUYEN VINH XUONG
