The Ke Mo people mainly plant apricots. The apricots forests are vast and eye-catching with yellow apricots, white apricots, pink apricots under the lush blue sky and looming, hidden houses which make this land a fairy-tale beauty. In Chinese, apricot fruit is also ‘mai’, so it is also called Co Mai. In Nom, it is Mo – Ke Mo. Each type of apricot in the Co Mai region is attached to a village name such as Hoang Mai (golden apricots, also known as Mo Ruou because it specializes in making apricot wine, chrysanthemum wine), Hong Mai (pink apricots – currently known as Bach Mai street), Bach Mai (white apricots, also known as Mo Thit because the village specializes in meat sales), Tuong Mai (also known as Mo Com because this village specializes in cooking rice and sells to traders from the south to Thang Long), Tan Mai, Mai Dong (Mo Dau – working as tofu, pig raising, also known as Mo Tao because the village grows a lot of apples) etc.
Ke Mo people have taken advantage of their homeland’s products to make many drinks such as sugared dry apricot, apricot juice for drink, especially chrysanthemum wine and apricot wine – Hoang Mai, Kim Cuc are soaked and brewed from yellow apricot and yellow chrysanthemum to Hoang Hoa wine. Ke Mo’s product is famous and well-known in the country. Nguyen Trai in the book ‘Du Dia chi’ wrote that: Hoang Mai cooks wine to offer to the king.
The wine of Mo village is well-known and famous in the region, becoming the phrase “Wine of Mo village / chess of Mo Trach village” or “Wine of Mo village / poems of Ke Lu village” etc.
“Em là con gái Kẻ Mơ,
Em đi bán rượu tình cờ gặp anh
Rượu ngon chẳng quản be sành,
Áo rách khéo vá hơn lành vụng may”.
In the book ‘Dai Nam nhat thong chi’, it is written: “The communes of Thuy Chuong, Cuong Vong, Binh Vong all cook wine, only Hoang Mai wine is the best”.
Unfortunately, nowadays, Ke Mo’s famous craft of making chrysanthemum and apricot wine has been lost.
In the book ‘Dai Nam nhat thong chi’, Tuong Mai Village – Mo Com is very famous for its sticky rice. There is Apricot tofu in the villages of Tuong Mai and Mai Dong, a soft white tofu dish in the family meal of the Hanoians. Sticky rice is of sticky corn, glutinous rice, green beans, and sauteed spring onion bulb with lard, also known as corn sticky rice. There is a saying in Mo region: Hành giòn đậu ngậy ngon lành/ Tương Mai nức tiếng Kinh thành xôi ngô. (Delicious crispy onions, bean curd / Tuong Mai is famous of maize sticky rice in the imperial city).
Ke Mo area is rich, crowded and populated, so a famous market is formed, which is Mo market – in Bach Mai village. Vu Dinh Hoe, in his memoirs, wrote about Mo market in the early twentieth century as follows: “Anyone who had to go to the Tet market to shop for ceremonies would come to Mo market to find satisfactory something not only pigs, chickens, shrimp paste to peach blossoms, apricot flowers, incense sticks, round incense, etc. Mo Market in the past, remains, has become a trading center. In the past, Mo market held a meeting 6 times a month. Nowadays, it is held all year round, but keeping its old custom. On the day of the main meeting, a lot of goods are poured into the market and there are many more people coming to the market to buy and sell.
According to researchers, about 4,000 years ago, the ancient Vietnamese people returned to this land to live and make a business, they found production tools, stone jewelry of the ancient Vietnamese who were buried by the Red River and Kim Nguu River. At Ma Ve mound located between the two villages of Hoang Mai and Tuong Mai, the tombs of the Dong Han period are also found. It is evident to see how the Ke Mo land existed and developed is. Today, Ke Mo has become the inner city, which is the streets and wards of Hai Ba Trung and Hoang Mai districts. The Ke Mo people still retain many traditional cultural and craft beauty, especially Ke Mo who still retains many cultural heritages such as: Mai Dong communal house and temple worshiping Tam Trinh, the general, and teachers and teacher of wrestling profession. Every year, Mai Dong village festival and wrestling are still held, attracting a large number of visitors and wrestlers from all over the country to attend the tournament. Vu Bang, in ‘Thương nhớ mười hai’, wrote good writings about this festival and its wrestling festival.
Ke Mo has a beautiful Tuong Mai pagoda and a pretty Tuong Mai communal house, worshiping Tran Khat Chan. Hoang Mai village has a communal house to worship General Tran Huong, also known as Tran Hang. The village also has the famous Nga My pagoda, the inscription also records that this pagoda was built by Ly Dao Thanh from the Ly dynasty. There are also Lu Temple, Linh Nam communal house, ancient and pretty Hung Ky pagoda, etc.
Ke Mo is also proud of being a study land. During the Mac dynasty, Tuong Mai had two doctorates. In the Huong examinations of the Nguyen dynasty from 1837 to 1906, Hoang Mai had 9 people with bachelor’s degrees. Particularly in the examination in 1879, Nguyen family in Dong village had 3 people with bachelor’s degrees.
The building of historical value of Mr. Hoang Van Thu in Tuong Mai
Ke Mo is also proud of being a revolutionary land. In the earlier days, Ke Mo people together with generals held flags to fight the enemy, the names such as Tam Trinh, Tran Khat Chan, Tran Hang, currently Hoang Van Thu, were martyrs, wounded soldiers for the sake of the people for their country to fight, sacrifice. They are the pride of the people here. As the ancient land of the ancient Thang Long, Ke Mo is also the inspiration for many poems. Nguyen Binh with immortal love poems also inspired by this land:
Thôn Đoài ngồi nhớ thôn Đông
Một người chín nhớ mười mong một người.
(‘Tương tư’)
Quynh Anh