Gánh chè khuya (Midnight Custard Vendor) - Thu An (1962)

Út Bạch Lan:

Ai ăn chè bột khoai, buồn tàu đậu xanh nước dừa, đường cát hông?

Who'll eat some taro flower custard, mung beans in coconut milk, ground sugar?

Út Trà Ôn:

Nghe tiếng rao trong đêm dài u buồn

Hearing the hawker's cry on a long sad night
Đêm từng đêm thầm vang bên phố nhỏ

Each night echoing down on the narrow lane
Nghe tiếng rao như một lời kêu than

Hearing that cry like a lamentation
Cho số kiếp phụ phàng

For an unfortunate fate

Út Bạch Lan:

Em đi bán chè thưng

I sell sugary custard
Nặng lo chữ hiếu cho tròn

Bear the weight of filial piety to the end
Và em lo thân sống

And I have to worry about about staying alive
Cho tròn nợ áo cơm

To pay off the debt of food and clothing

Câu 1:

First part:

Út Trà Ôn:

Lối : Hễ mỗi lần nghe tiếng rao vang từ đầu phố là lòng tôi như nhớ thương em gái lạ đã đi ... rồi

Each time I hear that cry at the top of the lane, my heart seems to remember her, a stranger who has ... gone
Cũng gánh gánh chè khuya qua lại đường này 

She also carried a load of custard to sell along this road
Em gái ấy ở trong cuối phố

She lived at the end of the lane
Với một mẹ già tuổi độ sáu mươi

With her old mother, aged around sixty
Tóc chưa xuống khỏi bờ vai 

Her hair hadn't yet reached her shoulders

Mà em đã gánh nặng rồi thương đau 

But she bore that heavy load, pained

Vì nuôi mẹ khổ nghèo nên em phải chịu nhọc nhằn lo cho tròn câu hiếu thảo

To take care of her poor, miserable mother she had to wear herself out to show piety to the end

Câu 2:

Part 2:

Tuổi mới mười lăm vo cơm chưa sạch cám

Turning 15 she washed rice still mixed with bran
Mà em đã biết nấu chè thưng và gánh bán cho khách qua đường

Yet she knew about to cook sweet porridge and carried it out to sell to customers on the street
Nhưng tội nghiệp thay, chữ a bê em chưa biết một vần

But it was real shame, of her ABC's she didn't know a word
Nhưng em siêng lắm chiều nào em cũng học với bà mẹ già

But she worked hard, every evening studying with her old mother
Chỉ đọc được vần xuôi 

Only reading a few syllables
Thấy thương em cố sức sống trong cảnh đói nghèo thất học

Seeing that she struggled in this situation of ignorance and want
Cho nên tôi mới bảo em mỗi ngày một buổi

I told her every day for a session
Đến nhà để tôi dạy dùm sau bữa cơm trưa 

Come over to my house and I'd help her after lunch

[Thơ]

[Poem]

Em đến học được chừng mười bữa

She came around to learn for around ten sessions
Bỗng nhiên em liên tiếp vắng ba hôm

Suddenly she was absent for three days in a row
Tôi đón hỏi em vào lúc nữa đêm

I greeted her in the middle of the night
Khi em gánh gánh chè khuya về xóm vắng

When she carried custard back home at midnight through the deserted neighborhood

Câu 4:

Part 4:

Lối: Nghe tôi hỏi em cúi đầu im lặng rồi ngẩng nhìn tôi qua ngấn lệ tuông ... trào

Hearing my question she lowered her head then looked up at me through a streams f overflowing tears
Em trả lời với tôi trong tiếng nói ngẹn ngào

She answered me with a voice choked with emotion
Em nói em nghèo lắm không tiền mua giấy mực

She said I'm very poor with no money for paper or ink
Thì làm gì trả công thầy dạy dỗ cho em

How can I pay you back for teaching me

[Thơ Vân Tiên]

[Vân Tiên poem]

Thầy ơi má đã dặn khuyên

Teacher, my mother advised me
Dốt đành chịu dốt đừng phiền người ta 

Ignorance, you should suffer it instead of troubling somebody else
Một con một mẹ đã già

You and your mother who is old
Đói nghèo chịu được ơn kia khó đền 

Hunger and want we can stand, don't take favors that would be hard to repay

Câu 5:

Part 5:

Không, chú dạy dỗ là mong em biết chữ

No, I've instructed you in the hope you would become literate
Chớ đâu phải được trả công bằng quà vật bạc tiền 

Not so that you would have to pay me back with gifts or money
Vì thương em nghèo có hiếu lại hiền 

Because I sympathized with you, a poor girl who's both dutiful and kind
Tôi nói chưa hết thì em đã khóc to hơn nữa

I hadn't finished speaking when she cried even louder
Và vội vàng quảy gánh chạy đi 

And hurriedly she turn around and left with her load
Đường vắng giữa khuya chỉ còn một mình tôi đưa mắt nhìn theo em khuất dần trong bóng tối

On the empty road at midnight, I was all alone following her with my eyes as she disappeared into the shadows
Với nỗi xót thương cho một kiếp sống não nùng

With a feeling of pain and pity for such a sorrowful fate

Câu 6:

Part 6:

Rồi kể từ đêm ấy tôi không còn trông thấy bóng em đâu

So from that evening I never saw her shadow again
Chừng hỏi thăm mới hay em bị đuổi nhà và đã ra đi ở mướn

Asking around I learned that she had been evicted and had to go out and work for hire
Để lấy tiền nuôi bịnh mẹ tại nhà thương

To get money to take care of her sick mother in the hospital
Nghe chuyện ấy lòng tôi nao nao buồn tủi

Hearing this my heart felt troubled and dejected
Thương cho cuộc đời những trẻ bơ vơ

Pitying the lives of helpful youth
Rồi đêm đêm đi về trên xóm cũ

So each night coming home to the old neighborhood
Tôi bồi hồi nhớ lại tiếng em rao

I feel restless remembering her street hawking
Như còn vương vấn nơi phố lạnh canh buồn 

Like it still haunts this lane, rattling on in sadness

"Em đi bán chè thưng

"I sell sugary custard
Nặng lo chữ hiếu cho tròn"

Bearing the weight of filial piety to the end"

Giờ em đi mất đâu còn

Now, who knows where you've gone
Nhưng tôi nhớ mãi tâm hồn thơ ngây 

But I always remember that innocent soul

In my opinion, vọng cổ is the greatest musical achievement of the Vietnamese people in the 20th century. It is attributed to Cao Văn Lầu (Sáu Lầu) but I think it is fair to say that it has been shaped by many hands. It is a song or theatrical aria used in cải lương built around a structure that has been realized ten of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ways. It similar to the blues in there being an audible, accepted structure as well as myriad ways of creating within that structure. 

Vọng cổ balances strictness and elasticity. Framing the lyrics presented above there is a formal structure. Elements can be added and sometimes subtracted from that structure. It can open with a recited poem, a song, or even in this case the sound of an itinerant vendor hawking her wares. Câu 3 / the Third Part is replaced by a poem. When vọng cổ is performed as an instrumental, the instruments just play Cầu 3. I haven't notated this, but the ends of some phrases have to come to a unison on a series of pitches. A moment of intensification comes during the "lối" (path) where the unaccompanied voice intones, usually at a higher more dramatic pitch level, some part of the thematic meaning within the song.

Út Trà Ôn is the master of this genre. He could recite the traffic code and make it sound beautiful. Here he is briefly joined by another star of the cải lương stage - Út Bạch Lan. Út is an endearment - it refers to the last born child in the family, the runt. Trà Ôn is a Mekong delta city.

The song is like a one act play or monologue. The narrator living in a dense urban setting flashes back to an event that made a strong impression on him. Teens scraping out a living to help support their family was and I would think still is a part of the fabric of Vietnamese life. It used to be ubiquitous to hear vendors hawking their wares on the streets of Vietnam's cities. In the mid-1990s it was still common to hear the singsong of these street vendor cries. Locals barely noticed (until they wanted a little soup, a desert or to sharpen their knives) but as a foreigner I found this practice absolutely charming.

Street vendor calls hawking their wares had been common in many parts of the world (including Europe) but modernization has done it in -- modernization the form of the motorbike. The noise and the speed of these vehicles changed the pulse of city life. It also meant that it wasn't a big deal to fetch what you wanted for yourself instead of waiting for the vendor to stop by. Plus, you can't hear the vendor any more. There are some now that use amplification or prerecorded messages - but where' the beauty in that?

Returning to our song -- the narrator both pities and admires this 15 year old girl. "Có hiếu lại hiền" - "Hiếu" means dutiful, especially in the context of respect and caring for parents. "Hiền" describes somebody gentle and kind. He understands her circumstances and is impressed with how hard she struggles to take care of her elderly, worn-out mother. Having to help out with their survival from an early age she never received an education.

Living in the world firmly tied to her mother, both for survival, support and instruction, has limited her actions and agency in the world. The narrator willingly gives of himself and undoubtedly experiences no hardship of his own in trying to aid the girl. Nevertheless, her mother has instilled a sense of honor, a moral code whereby they cannot accept anything of value without being able to repay it, in turn, with something of value.

It appears that after her refusal of the narrator's kindness, the mother's and daughter's circumstances take a turn for the worse.

"Gánh" literally describes a burden carried upon the shoulders -- long bamboo pole with balanced, fairly heavy objects balanced at both ends.

nguồn ảnh: báo Lâm Đồng

The teenage vendor has limited life experience. The lyrics note that she doesn't even yet know how properly wash rice before cooking it (perhaps because rice is a luxury). This gentle girl has been pushed into the world to fight for survival walking for miles every night calling out "Ai ăn chè bột khoai, buồn tàu đậu xanh nước dừa, đường cát hông?"

some Hà Nội street cries

We have to imagine a very thin girl carrying a very heavy load.  Chè is a word used to describe many kinds of deserts. Their content is mostly liquid, and liquid is heavy. At one point it's described as "chè thưng" illustrated below.

nguồn ảnh: Wikimedia Commons

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of online recipes for many variations on this dessert dish.

This piece was originally released on a 78 rpm recording in 1962.