Strains of vong co songs can reduce listeners to tears, evoking afresh the pathos of a broken heart or the missing of a loved one.

Vinh Phuoc An Buddhist Temple deeply influenced Lau’s beliefs during his childhood.

Many overseas Vietnamese experience deep nostalgia for their homeland, their parents and their grand parents whenever they listen to these tunes.

Vong co is a genre of music that sprung forth from one song – the lament of a man deeply in love with his wife suffering the pain of being separated from her.

The original song, Da Co Hoai Lang, was composed by Cao Van Lau ninety years ago in Bac Lieu Town, capital of the coastal province of the same name in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

Nine decades since, the song has seeped into the bloodstream of southerners and become the composition of the century for the region, if not the nation.

How the personal anguish of an unknown young man created a whole genre of music is a phenomenon that has intrigued scholars and musicians alike.

A visit to Lau’s home can help one get an inkling of what it was that made this song the wellspring for a new kind of music.

Together at last

Lau and his wife now rest in peace next to the field where he is said to have composed the song. The place has become a sacred spot for music pilgrims, including many overseas Vietnamese.

“They’ve come to pay tributes to my father who has touched a deep chord in their hearts,” said 86-year-old Cao Van Hoai, Lau’s last living son.

Hoai lives just a stone’s throw down the muddy trail from the graves of his parents that he and his children and grandchildren tend to every day.

“My grandfather managed a theatrical troupe and my grandmother acted in it,” Hoai said, recalling the story his father told him. His father was adept in the traditional five-note music at an early age, he added.

At seven, Lau was sent to a Buddhist pagoda where he was taught the Nho Chinese characters and Buddhist sutras. In fact, he led a life of a novice monk there.

“He was bright and learnt things easily,” Hoai said.

Today Vinh Phuoc An, the oldest pagoda in the province where Lau spent his childhood, still stands solitary and desolate in the middle of green fields and other luxuriant vegetation, just a short distance from the graves.

“The place was once notorious for snakes and tigers that scared people away,” said monk Thich Minh Tam, who has lived in the temple for more than fifty years.

The inside of the temple was quite gloomy with no opening to the outside world, affording the seclusion needed for the zen Buddhist monks to explore their inner worlds.

“He was somewhat introspective,” Tam said, speaking of Lau. “He was always reticent and pensive”

The main temple is connected with a wooden compartment upstairs that houses a pair of bronze bells. The stark blackened wood speaks of a bygone era.

“The bells sound quite melancholy,” he said, adding that they have been run once a day, at 3am. every morning for more than a hundred years and its sounds echo in the sea.

“They have served as a clock for local farmers and fishermen to begin a new work day,” Tam said. The sounds also inspired playwright Yen Lang to write the drama Dem Lanh Chua Hoang [A chilly night at a desolate temple].

When Lau stayed in the temple, every year it staged the Great Relief ritual to invite blessings for suffering souls in which the late abbot invited good musicians from across the Delta to perform ceremonial music.

“They were asked to adapt sutras into strains for monks to chant and systemise all the ceremonial music,” Tam said, noting that the temple became a magnet for the greatest musicians in the region, including Nhac Khi, who is recognised as the founder of southern music.

A close friend of the temple abbot, Khi was a frequent visitor who later became Lau’s teacher. Hoai said that Khi was the most well known musician of that the time.

“Although blind from birth, Khi was remarkably sensitive to musical notes and had an astonishing memory,” Hoai said, “He could replay songs on any instrument just the first time he heard them.”

Khi was so strict he had no disciple until he came to know about Lau, who was passionate about music and a big fan. He then imparted all his knowledge to Lau as his sole student.

The lessons were not easy for Lau, Hoai said. Khi was a tough taskmaster and did not hesitate to rap his student on the head for every off-key note his sharp ears spotted as Lau played the zither.

However, Lau was a determined student and withstood all the trials and tribulations until he completed his musical education at the age of 20 and was allowed to perform officially at temple ceremonies.

Unbreakable love

Cao Van Lau’s forced separation from his wife inspired him to compose Da Co Hoai Lang, the original song of the vong co.

Although their marriage was arranged, the couple was deeply in love with each other.

His wife was willing to sacrifice all to stay with her husband, even if it meant she had to toil heavily and tirelessly day and night on the field, at home and in the market as a daughter-in-law.

“I would be happy to toil to death rather than leave my husband,” she once told neighbours who pitied her so much they advised her to run away.

Nevertheless, she was forced to part with Lau by his mother for not giving birth to a child after three years of marriage. Bound by absolute filial piety, broken-hearted Lau had to let her go.

Every time he brought home the day’s catch of shrimp and crabs from the sea, he shed tears seeing his wife was no longer around to sort them, Hoai said.

One day, Lau was sitting all by himself in the middle of a quiet field with a zither, a pen and a notebook until the early hours of the morning, looking in the direction of his wife’s home.

His melancholy became his muse and as he gave vent to his feelings, he wrote down the lyrics that flowed. All of a sudden, the bell tolled at the Vinh Phuoc An Temple, deepening his sorrow. He soon completed Da Co Hoai Lang, which means upon hearing the drum from afar, a wife misses her husband so much.

Although it was branded an ‘unpatriotic song’ and banned by French colonialists for fear that the melancholy tune would prompt nostalgia and defection by soldiers, Lau’s disciples were so fond of the song they circulated it among everyone they knew.

“Its lyricism is unparalleled, which reaches deepest parts of human souls and sends shivers down their spines,” remarked Tran Phuoc Thuan, a folkorist who teaches at a provincial college, adding that the song fits the sentimental life of the Delta inhabitants.

“The best time to perform the song,” said Hoai, quoting his father, “is silent nights when its lyricism imbues the air and hearts.”

VNN/VNS