Bat ca. Netting Uncle Dung netting his pond.

5^th Nov – Up pretty sharpish and the plan is to go to the market to buy food for tonight, auntie Thay and Uncle Binh are coming later, BUT I went out onto the veranda and had a brew and was summoned to the pond over the road that belongs to Uncle Dung. Today, he will bac ca, net the pond. Sounds like something worth watching so I wandered over and was called into the table in the shade, nestled by the ruou still, which is just behind the pig sty, which are flushed into the pond that is being netted. In this hive of potential activity, I was poured the welcome glass of tea, it comes in a shot glass, the glasses don’t get washed between uses and they get lots of use, but it didn’t kill me last time we were here. I never really thought about it at the time. I must be going native. There is quite a crowd gathering, as usual. It is a great custom here to sit and watch anything that is going on, there’s lots of chat, lots of tea drunk and a good laugh. There are shed loads of cigarettes smoked too. It is a good atmosphere, lots of laughing and comings and goings.

There are 3 lads in the pond heaving the net around. I haven’t worked out how the fish don’t swim underneath it. I reckon that is a question for uncle Dung over a coffee sometime. The net is dragged all the way around the outside of the pond, mostly by a lad in a car tyre inner tube. I thought he used it because he wasn’t such a good swimmer, but it is a great floatation device. For work on the net, he has 2 hands free and doesn’t have to tread water, very clever. He has a sun hat on and at one point was swimming along in the middle of the pond with a fag in his mouth. That definitely made me smile. The lads turn up with the net and a compressor and then acquire poles used to support the net from the surrounding trees. They require a bigger, sturdy pole, so Duong Ba disappears home, about 20 metres away, reappears with his machete and wanders off around the pond to find a likely tree, get one and hacks of a huge branch, trims it and drags it back for the lads. He is always a willing helper, he’s about 58 and there’s not an ounce of fat on him. He’s a little bit ruou crazy, which drives his missus and sons daft, but if something needs doing, there’s no doubt he is a good first port of call.

I am not sure why the lads have the compressor. It has a long tube attached and one of the lads in the water carries it all the time. It looks as though he sometimes uses it to scare the fish back into the net and sometimes like he uses it to breath underwater, he often has it in his mouth. That is another question for another cup of coffee with uncle Dung.

As the net is dragged around the outside of the pond and gets back to the start, it is slowly drawn in and so the fish start topping big time. Poles and string are added to help draw it in. Meanwhile the 2 lorries have turned up to transport the fish. Uncle Dung reckons about 1000 Kg and he netted it about 9 months ago, so not a bad return. He does feed the fish between times too.

The 2 wagons have some tarpaulins thrown out the back. For the nets to be wrapped in, I thought. It shows how stupid I am. There is a water pump too, which I thought would be to fill the barrels to transport the fish. It shows how stupid I am.

The tarpaulins are spread out in the back of the wagons and are about 3 ply. The water is then pumped into them, so the wagons have a fish pond in the back and the fish are thrown in to them. Ca yo, up to about 5Kg, they look like a little freshwater shark and ca hung in the other, they are a beautiful looking pink fish similar to a gourami, but now feelers and up to about 500 grams. I can tell you from the tea we ate later that ca yo is my favourite of the 2. It is more chunkier meat, a bit like tuna, but not so dry. The ca hung is smaller, more compressed meat, along the lines of trout, but both are lovely. I suppose it depends on how they are cooked too. Dung is a good cook, she rarely throws together a bad meal. She was taught by her mother-in-law from her first marriage, she was then up cooking her breakfast at 4.30 most days. Often, a daughter-in-law can be treated like a servant. They usually move in with their husband, alongside his parents.

Back to the Bat Ca. Whilst the wagons fill up, the lads sort the fish out, as they have been collected into a small area of the net now. The smaller ones are thrown back and the ones of another species are thrown back too, unless someone claims them. Uncle Dung is a very generous man, he must have given away at least 100Kg of fish. His siblings just come along and help themselves and it seems customary to give all the local people a few too. One man tried to leave without any and Uncle Dung called him back to give him some, but he refused in the end. Binh came over and grabbed a few large fish for his little pond, to be caught and eaten later. I saw them topping in the pone and didn’t know he had done this. I didn’t know either, that they stopped topping because a lady came along and fished his pond, taking her catch home with her. Nu saw her, but didn’t stop her. I think it is an accepted fact that if the pond isn’t specifically for growing fish or walled in, then the fish within are fair game.. I bet they were tasty.

The lads doing the work had a quick sluice with a hose pipe from the pig farmer and sat down for their dinner and a few smokes, Well deserved too. Half an hour, maximum and they were back in the pond crowding the fish into a smaller area. The crowd which had dwindled dramatically after the initial activity soon reappeared, as this is the gizit time, for free. The lads hand out the fish into plastic baskets and the ca hung and ca yo are separated and weighed, around 30 Kg per basket, then thrown in the back of the relevant truck. The lads wear gloves, perhaps it is easier to grab the fish with these, they just natter away as they pull the fish out of the net, not looking at what they are doing, which is pretty clever. The only time that I handled a ca yo, it spiked me, they have some sharp tangs on their gill outlets. It drew blood, but I had the last laugh, we ate it for tea.

I had done a double stint of watching and chatting and drinking tea and generally doing nothing, so I meandered off home, com and ngu time, eat and nap, the customary dinner time activities. I almost didn’t make it though, we had to go past a table of blokes getting stuck in to some food especially prepared from the fish and for eating with ruou. I got the invite to sit and drink as always, but I used my fluent Vietnamese to tell them Dung had bought some hu tieu for me. I got a collective stare that said “What the bloody hell is he talking about. Better let him go, he could be hard work.” That actually isn’t the truth, the invitation was reiterated several times, but I smiled and kept walking with a “khong cam on”, thank you but no thanks. The ruou tends to get a bit too much, but it doesn’t stop them staggering over to their motos and heading for home. I think driving a moto is 2^nd nature to them, like walking. Anyway, it was hu tieu and a nap.