Yêu Tiếng Anh - The church bells are first to greet the dawn as it
seeps into the darkness of a wet and chilly morning in the Central Highlands.
Hundreds of people respond to the call at a 5:15 mass in Dalat Cathedral and at
smaller churches or the chapels of crumbling monasteries in the surrounding
hills.
To the light of kerosene lamps and candles, Roman
Catholic worshipers bundled against the damp mountain air in an assortment of
old coats and scarves chant and pray their way through a once-foreign ritual
they have made Vietnamese. There are no missals or hymnals, and no organ on
weekdays.
In its churches, its flower gardens and its villas
set among pine trees, the old hill station of Dalat, more than any other place
accessible to a foreigner in Vietnam, seems untouched by half a century of
occupation and war.
At the Dalat Palace hotel, the manager, Thai Vien,
is smoothly formal in mended suit and vintage tie as he moves among his
clientele at table, shaking hands in the manner of a French host. Memory Books
of 3 Regimes
Mr. Vien, like Dalat, has known three regimes:
French colonialism (with its Japanese interregnum), the brief experiment known
as South Vietnam and then Hanoi's conquering socialist republic.
Mr. Vien keeps memory books -one of them an old, tan
leather-bound volume and two newer models with appropriately red plastic covers
-that record half a century of enthusiasms:
''Nous quittons Dalat avec regret,'' a Frenchman
wrote - ''We leave Dalat with regret.''
''An outstanding spot in a shrinking universe!''
said the American of the next epoch.
''I have been told there is only one Dalat,'' a
Malaysian Ambassador added in 1982. ''This is indeed true. There will never be
another.'' No Battles Fought Here A city of immutable pleasure is not a
description with which all the leaders of Dalat's 100,000 people feel
comfortable.
They tell a visitor that they have always shared the
country's struggles. But they acknowledge that there were no battles here, and
no crowds of American troops on rest-and-recreation sprees who might have
attracted saboteurs.
Would-be revolutionaries who joined the
Communist-backed student underground at Dalat University in the 1960's mostly
finished their studies and took their degrees. After the fall of South Vietnam
in 1975, they - along with their peers who had spent the war years training in
Cuba or elsewhere in the Soviet bloc -found jobs in the new order.
Dalat is a young city, especially by the measure of
Vietnamese history. It was built in the 1920's and 30's as a French colonial
summer capital that Vietnamese could enter only with permission. It was a
refuge of imperial France in the same way Simla and other hill stations in
India, Sri Lanka or Malaya were to the British in those malarial,
pre-air-conditioning days when empires could be beastly places.
Blind to the impending end of their Southeast Asian
world, homesick French administrators and settlers built leisure homes in Dalat
in the styles of their provincial origins.
''They had architects who worked in the Savoie,
Norman, Alsace, Basque and sometimes Belgian styles'' said Le Kim Ngu, a former
French-language teacher who is now deputy director of tourism.
The group-travel business is a new venture for
Dalat, which has known pleasure-seekers - Communist Party leaders now use its
imperial palaces - but is unaccustomed to hordes.
''We want to restore the villas, but need to do
research on their differing architectural origins,'' he said.
While a young city chronologically, Dalat is not a
youthful place. There is little entertainment and limited employment for the
young, residents say. Retired people seem most attracted by the tranquillity
and the healthy atmosphere of the town, once used as a French sanitorium.
Duong Quang Tin is an exception. Mr. Tin, who is 26
years old, cultivates a propsperous market garden on a rural hillside near the
Valley of Love, with its lake created by the former Saigon regime as part of a
water project. His vegetable, fruit and flower farm is a sideline; Mr. Tin is a
long-distance truck driver by vocation.
The few acres of land belonged to his parents, Mr.
Tin said, as he offered visitors generous tumblers of his own strawberry wine.
Like many people in Dalat, Mr. Tin says he found that private ownership and
entrepreneurship have continued unabated in the new Vietnam.
In fact, recent economic changes encourage more
''family economies'' like his. Mr. Tin, who once planned to emigrate to France
under the Orderly Departure Program, thinks he might change his mind and remain
on his beautiful hillside here if present trends continue.
Strawberries - but in jam, not wine - are also a
mainstay of the Buddhist nuns at the Linh Phong Pagoda, on a hilltop in Dalat
town.
There, peace has also reigned unbroken since the mid
1940's for their nuns' order which, uncharacteristically for Vietnam, is part
of in a religious minority in Dalat, where by official figures about 70 percent
of the people are Roman Catholic.
At the pagoda, surrounded by fruitful orchards,
gardens and groves of the mimosa trees that are a hallmark of Dalat, Hue Thanh,
a nun who is nearing 70, said that in any case, people in religious orders are
not the best sources of worldly information.
''We live by our own energies, making our cakes and
jam,'' she said. ''A nun's life everywhere is always the same.''
Photo of A bicycle and a horse cart, still the main
means of transportation (Times/Barbara Crossette); Map of Vietnam.
Center of Dalat city |
Thuy Ta Restauran - by Xuan Huong Lake |
Pine Forest under Sunshine in the Morning |
The Cathedral Basillica of Dalat, also known as Cock Church |
A small street |
Pedagogical College of Da Lat |
Chúc các bạn thành công nhé!
NHỚ BẤM LIKE BÊN TAY TRÁI MÀN HÌNH ĐỂ CHIA SẺ CHO BẠN BÈ NHÉ.
Have a good one!
Tommy Bảo - Yêu Tiếng Anh
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