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interpreting the void as SamV
For traditionalists in Sa Chau Village, there are only two occupations that hold any real importance – fishing and making fish sauce.
With southern fish sauce makers in Phan Thiet and Phu Quoc falling over each other to trademark their brands, few people have heard of a little northern village that has been producing its own special brew for nearly 200 years.
Just over 100km southeast of Ha Noi in Nam Dinh Province, the coastal village of Sa Chau still uses the time-honoured methods handed down for generations. However, the hard labour and stigma attached to the production of fish sauce is eroding younger generations' enthusiasm for the work, and this tiny cottage industry is in danger of disappearing.
Trinh The Hoan, 58, owns the second largest fish sauce factory in the village. He says the process of making fish sauce has changed little over the centuries.
"To make Sa Chau fish sauce we use fresh not frozen fish. We go out fishing along the coast in slow boats with sails shaped like bat wings. From the boats the catch is carried to fermentation jars by bamboo baskets, not the plastic or metallic ones," he says.
Mai Van To, 60, is another stalwart of the trade and has about 200 jars each containing 130 litres of fish sauce. He can make an average 10,000 litres of sauce a year but says his biggest problem is selling it.
"No other village does this job as hard as the people in Sa Chau," To says.
"From a basket of fish it takes us one year to produce a litre of fish sauce and another year to sell it. That is the traditional processing method of making fish sauce in Sa Chau Village and we absolutely must not alter it."
To said a jar of fish sauce was recently unearthed 30 years after a newly wed girl buried it in a corner of her house. Now an old woman, the jar was discovered after her house was demolished to make way for a new one. When opened, the sauce was a thick, golden colour and carried a distinctive aroma.
Villagers are meticulous about the processing methods. Every tonne of fish is preserved with 18kg of salt which has been stored for at least a year. The salted fish are fermented in large jars for six months before being moved to bamboo baskets covered with a coarse fabric and pressed for the fish sauce.
The sauce is not boiled down as in other villages but exposed to sunlight for another six months. The laborious process does not stop there, it is then buried in the earth for at least one year before its makers will accept it as up to standard.
As one villager puts it, only Sa Chau fish sauce improves with aging. "The longer it is preserved the more delicious it becomes," he says. "Its colour turns from dark blue to a deep gold and the protein level shoots up to 20 per cent. It is a pure sauce mixed only with night dew and sunlight."
In the past people from Ha Noi would travel to the village just to obtain this special fish sauce. Many overseas Vietnamese would buy it to take back as a gift for friends and relatives. However, the number of people prepared to make the trip has been in steady decline recently.
Few people in Ha Noi would know the name Sa Chau these days. Discarded fish sauce jars litter the village's alleys, a stark reminder of the number of families that have left the trade.
Nguyen Viet Kieu, the head of Giao Thuy Fisheries Service, says the district-level People's Committee is calling for investment to rejuvenate the industry in Sa Chau but is having trouble finding investors.
Unlike producers from Cat Ba, Phan Thiet and Phu Quoc, villagers have not protected their product with trademarks. A combination of market forces and a refusal to use new production techniques has been blamed for the fading success of Sa Chau fish sauce.
The decline has been quick. The 10 families still engaged in the trade on a large-scale pales in comparison to the 400-odd makers working the craft more than 20 years ago. Another 20 families produce only enough for themselves.
It is not just the long hours and low profits that prove difficult. Despite their charm the young women of the village often find it hard to marry boys from other villages.
One woman who married within the village and is now over 30 says "fish sauce village girls must get married with fish sauce making boys.
"Many people do not like this job – even those in the village vie with each other in giving it up," she says, in part blaming the overwhelming smell of the sauce.
"For us it is aromatic because we are used to it, but for strangers it is ill-smelling. Not a few quiver on entering our village."
In southern Viet Nam, makers not only enjoy sunny weather all year round, but use chemicals to shorten the fermentation time, cutting production to two months instead of two years.
Hoan says many people can't take the long hours. "Making fish sauce is like being condemned to hard labour. We wake up at midnight to mix the salted fish with night dew for its fragrance and sweetness. When it is stormy our whole family dons helmets and raincoats to protect the hundreds of fish sauce jars from the elements."
Profits are low. A tonne of fish eventually gives up 200 litres of sauce but this will bring in only VND500,000.
Hoan has considered using chemicals to speed up the fermentation of the salted fish. In 1999 he went to Phan Thiet and Cai Duoi Vam in Ca Mau Province with another producer to look at new techniques. However, neither was convinced by what they saw and have stuck with the old methods.
"We almost die after a fish-sauce making cycle," says Hoan. "We cling to the trade just out of our deep love for it." — VNS
(originally at VNN)