The Wrath Of The Rains
By Quynh Thu
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| A less flooded city during the rainy season is a blessing for hawkers |
What the rainy season in Saigon may signify
Ly tri ma xung / Ly nc tôi ung / Ly rung tôi cày /
Ly y bát cm / Ly rm un bp
(Ca dao Vit Nam)
I pray for the rain / So that I have drinking water / And the fields I plough
And my full bowl of rice / As well as the hay for the stove
(Vietnamese folk verse)
To an agricultural Vietnam, the rainy season is a blessing. Rains not only offer, directly or indirectly, food and drink but also other necessities for the daily life of farmhands.
That’s the vision often adopted by the Vietnamese farmer. Yet Saigonese are sure to have a different view to a certain extent.
On average, Vietnam’s seasons split themselves squarely into six months of sunlight and six months of rain. The rainy season seems to be more “moderate” in the north and the south of the country than in the central region. In HCM City, the wet season often starts in early May, and Saigonese rains extend till the end of November or mid-December.
A blessing for farmers, the rainy season is “off season” for some business sectors in this city. The construction industry, in particular house building, is a good example. The contingent of light truck drivers in the inner city also finds the rainy season a “leisure time” of the year. Chia, a truck driver in District 7 with more than four years in the trade, says that the orders for moving things around in the city drop significantly on rainy days. “As it rains almost everyday during the rainy season, what I earn in this season reduces significantly.”
When the rainy season begins marks the end of the “high season” of electrical cooling appliances. Air-conditioners, air-circulators and electrical fans no longer sell like hot cakes and their sale is “washed away” by raindrops.
Understandably, the rainy season in Saigon cuts part of the income of push-cart hawkers selling bottled water and fabric face masks. However, their income cut is offset by the “sale increase” of raincoats.
Towards the end of the rainy season comes the time for loving couples who want to enter the wedlock. In Saigon, the wedding season starts just before the rainy season comes to an end.
It is in the rainy season that many enterprises in this city enter the decisive phase of a race to the finish line of the entire business year. More often than not, the race becomes fiercer towards the end of the year. Many Saigonese, like Vietnamese in general, work throughout the hot and the rainy seasons only to find themselves spend lavishly during Calendar and Lunar New Year festivals.
Rains also make the streets in town cleaner and the air less dirty. Saigonese used to be delighted when after a heavy rain, the whole city seemed to have undergone a bath which stripped it of all the dirt. However, in recent years, torrential rains have often left the entire city flooded or mired in nightmarish traffic jams.
Those unusual rains are a harbinger that warns Saigonese of the detrimental effects of environmental pollution. Fast urbanization lacking adequate planning and reckless destruction of the environment have resulted in atrocious weather, hence unpredictable rains.
Vietnamese often say they pray for “ma thun gió hòa” (harmonious rains and winds, or good weather). Now, good weather is no longer in the hands of God. Rains in Saigon have proved that good weather depends largely on how human beings behave towards the environment.