My Childhood - Part I

I was born in a small village in the northern province of Thai Binh. The place was famous for textile nationwide. My childhood was full of happy memories. I always think that no other places on earth can bring me such wonderful memories. Now that all memories come back to me at the same time and I just do not know where to start.

As a child, I was afraid of winter for it was too cold, though I wore so many warm clothes, my jaw still vibrated. I remember every afternoon, I and some other friends searched for pine corns, made clay stove to burn them for heating, we also collected dry straws, leaves and logs to build a fire, then, searching for some tomatoes for baking. It was so delicious to enjoy baked tomatoes in deadly cold open weather.

My family did not have any buffalo, but I liked riding it or requested for sharing it with other child, not paying any attention to the dirt on its body. Sometimes I slept deeply on its back, too. In the afternoon, we used to play grass fighting or fly kites in the green field. We often made kites ourselves in many shapes such as boat, moon, butterfly, fish, etc. My brother and I often made the biggest one. It was interesting to fly kites.

My hobby at that time was fishing, too. We went fishing in a river nearby, or in the ponds. My family did have a pond, but normally no fish at all. Therefore, I had to fish in natural ponds; still natural ponds do not have many fish. So we often fished from the neighbors’. Sometimes the neighbors discovered and came to confiscate the fishing rods.