Bien Dong Park

A whistle sounds across the morning by the sea. It is only one short note, but the doves walking about nearby hear it, and together they beat their wings and fly toward the person holding the food. The sound of wings against wings is like a small round of applause, thick and soft. People walking past often stop. Children tug at their mothers' hands. Behind the birds, the waves keep rising and falling on the sand.

This is Bien Dong Park, at the start of Phạm Văn Đồng Street. The road runs straight from the Hàn River Bridge to Mỹ Khê beach. The park sits right beside Phạm Văn Đồng beach, in An Hải ward of Da Nang. Rows of coconut palms line the paths, and stone benches stand here and there. Looking northeast, you can see the dark green Sơn Trà peninsula, with a statue of Quán Thế Âm standing on its slope. Quán Thế Âm is the bodhisattva of compassion.

The keeper of the flock says the dove garden was founded in March 2009. At first, French doves were raised here, but they did not suit the climate, so the garden switched to a local breed. The flock grew from 400 birds to more than 1,200. Each time he blows the whistle, the whole flock flies back, and visitors come to watch. Couples like to have their wedding photos taken beside the birds.

The date was February 8, 2011, the sixth day of Tết Tân Mão, the Lunar New Year festival. Over 200 new doves were released into the park that day. Hundreds of students were there, and more than 100 visitors from a cruise ship docked at Da Nang stood watching too. People saw the new wings lift and join the older flock. The release was a way for everyone there to voice a hope for peace. The garden is called the Hòa Bình, or Peace, bird garden.

Inside the park stands a statue that the people of Da Nang call Mother Âu Cơ, a mountain princess of Vietnamese legend. The sculptor Lê Công Thành, a man closely tied to Da Nang, gave it to the city. The statue is white stone in simple masses. Two full round shapes cradle one large egg, set on a box-shaped base faced with black stone, about three meters on each side. The egg recalls the legend that Vietnamese people still tell, in which Mother Âu Cơ gave birth to a single sac of a hundred eggs.

The statue went up in a way all its own. Making it took 45 days. Then at midnight on June 30, 2007, the white blocks were set into their exact places. At 7:30 the next morning, the work was finished. When the sky grew light, the statue was already standing there, as if it had belonged to this beach for a very long time.

The name Bien Dong Park came later. Only on December 3, 2010, after a session of the city's People's Council, did the park receive that name. Since then, people remember it as a familiar spot on the beach, where the wind blows, the doves fly, and the mother statue stands in the sun.

But the park feels whole only when you reach the sand while it is still dark. At Mân Thái, another beach in Da Nang, the fish market has been open since two or three in the morning. Basket boats come back from a night at sea, loaded with shrimp, fish and squid, and pull up onto the sand. Fishermen haul in their nets as fast as they can to make the early market. From the park, people can also see fishing boats out on the water. Around five, on the shore, runners, people doing yoga, swimmers and stand-up paddlers begin their day.

Then the beach fills with people. In Da Nang, swimming early is a habit in many families. During one hot summer, a manager of the beaches along Võ Nguyên Giáp Street said that more than 10,000 people went into the water each day. Those beaches include Phạm Văn Đồng and Mỹ Khê. Residents usually swim and then head to work, around six in the morning, while tourists stay until about 7:30.

One elderly man, a former fisherman, was 91 years old at the time. He said he had retired but missed the sea, so every morning he went down to swim, and each time he stayed in the water for up to two hours. Another elder, aged 72, remembered swimming every day, rain or shine, and carrying a can of seawater home to bathe a grandchild. That habit is as lasting as the tide.

When the beach tourism season comes, the sand in front of the park also hosts an open-water swimming race that starts at five in the morning. The sea festivals around here buzz with tug-of-war on the sand, stick-pushing contests and spinning basket boats. On some nights, the sky over the water lights up with nearly 500 glowing kites.

When the festivals end, the park returns to its slow rhythm, and families stop by on weekends and holidays.

The whistle sounds, the doves fly back, and behind them the sea at Da Nang grows brighter, layer by layer.