Bạc Liêu (Mekong Delta - part 3)

A street food stall in Bạc Liêu town
There is a "food street" (phố ẩm thực) near my
hotel in the center of Bạc Liêu town where the
locals sell noodles, sweet soups and various dishes.

26 and 27 September 2009 - We spent a night in Bạc Liêu town after visiting the southernmost point of Vietnam. In this blog, I don't have beautiful photos of landscape or temples. I will write about two men in Bạc Liêu province, who were very famous during the first half of the 20th century. What I write here is more familiar to Vietnamese, so I will try to explain what I know with my limited English vocabulary. I hope you understand a little bit about the culture of another region of Vietnam. There are some overseas Vietnamese, who used to live in southern Vietnam and now are reading my blog, can explain this better than I do.
Back in the first half of the 20th century when the French still ruled Vietnam and the Vietnamese King was living in Huế city in central Vietnam (until 1945), the south of Vietnam was divided into 6 provinces. The first man I mention is "Công tử Bạc Liêu" (photo No. 9).

At the house of "Công tử Bạc Liêu"
Statues of parents of "Công tử Bạc Liêu"
 (son of rich landlord in Bạc Liêu) on the altar.

It was the name that people at that time called a wealthy landlord's son in Bạc Liêu. His real name was Trần Trinh Huy and in 1930s he was very famous for the way he had spent money in gambling, dancing, buying luxurious things, burning money for making a bowl of sweet soup in order to compete with another rich man for getting attention of a beautiful girl in the region etc. There were only two men in Vietnam at that time who owned helicopters, they were King Bảo Đại (the last King of Vietnam) and "Công tử Bạc Liêu". However, in Vietnam, we have a saying "No family is rich for 3 generations". After he died in 1973, the family became poor as his children had to sell their house and assets for paying the debts. One of his children is now 62 years old and he works as a motorbike driver in Sài Gòn. This is a very low income job in Vietnam.