Written by Gerard Claramunt
Hanoi and surroundings have been developing in Red River Delta – the biggest river in the north of Vietnam plays an important role in the history of inhabiting and developing of the country. Most of the rivers connect with the Red River before going to the sea, it makes the Red River becomes the main waterway to bring products from mountain provinces to the plains areas and return. Vietnam used to be a poor agricultural country, and the Red River is the main water source for the cultivating.
If you would like to experience the daily life in Hanoi, Fish Farm is one of the most exciting stops to visit. And the owner is Mr. Hung, who is living on the river bank nearby. Before doing this, he also had some small farms to plan floating rice and in his free time, he did fishing to earn some extra income. Then a few years ago, he found out that he was too old for the fishing and he decided to borrow a loan from the bank to build this fish farm.
Mr. Hung was born in 1960 on this river bank, his grandfather was a soldier in the French war, his father was a soldier in American war and he is like many other children who were born here, grew up with a picture of guardianships armed with heavy cannon to protect Long Bien bridge from US bombing.
He still remembers the last time, it was on the very last afternoon in 1972 when he was 12 years old, after the warning horn, people started pouring into the boongke and the US dropped so many bombs until midnight. So the family decided to spend the night inside the boongke, and the next morning when the bombing was over and people were starting to get out, they saw many soldiers stand on the bridge with a sight “Road Closed- Bridge Broken”, it means nobody can get on the bridge and the only way to get into the inner city was closed. They had to wait for several months to get the bridge repaired.
There are five fish cages and three of them feeding the big fishes, each cage contains about 300 fishes and each can weigh about 3kgs. He mainly feeds three kinds of fish: the Grass Carp, Carp, and Tilapia. Every day, he rides a boat to the mudflats to collect the grass for the fish and give them some instant food sometimes. His fish is enthusiastically received by the locals because it is organic and fresh and he doesn’t have to bring it to the market but people will come here to buy.
Besides the economy reason, the fish farm is also a meeting point for the elders who are living in this area. They love to come here to have tea, enjoy the fresh air on the peaceful river and sharing their daily stories.
