Lung Po

The first photograph has no one standing in the frame.

In that photograph there is only water. A large stream of water moves across the frame, slow and steady, in no hurry at all. From another side, a smaller stream follows its own path, finds its way down, and touches the larger one. The two merge into one, and then they go on together.

The large stream is called the Red River. The small one is the Lũng Pô stream. The place where two streams of water meet is called a confluence.

Confluence sounds like a grown-up word, but its meaning is easy to grasp. Think of two people walking to school, each down a different lane. At the head of the street they meet, and from there they walk the same way together. Water does exactly that. Only, the two streams do not greet each other or stop to ask how things are. They simply blend, quietly. And after a while, no one can tell anymore which stream is which.

That meeting happens at a place called Lũng Pô. Lũng Pô lies in the commune of A Mú Sung, in Lào Cai province. The name belongs both to the land and to the small stream that flows into the Red River there. Land and water share one name, like two brothers.

But one thing makes this spot different from every other spot along the whole length of the river. Lũng Pô is where the Red River flows into the territory of Vietnam.

That sentence is short, so it is worth taking slowly. Before Lũng Pô, the river has not yet traveled on Vietnamese soil. From Lũng Pô onward, it does. That means the Red River's whole course through the country begins at exactly the spot where those two streams meet. Not in a big city. Not at a bridge full of traffic. At a stretch of water.

Now keep that same frame, keep that same angle, and take the second photograph.

In the second photograph, the water is just as it was. The large stream still moves on. The small stream still finds its way down. The two still meet at exactly that spot, not shifted left, not shifted right. Judged by the water alone, the two photographs are so alike they could be laid one on top of the other.

Only one new thing has appeared. In the frame now there is a border marker, standing still on the bank.

There is a number on that marker. It is marker number 92, standing right where the small stream meets the Red River. Along the land border there are a great many markers, one after another, each with its own number. This is only one of them. But the job it does here is all its own. It marks the place where the Red River begins to flow into Vietnam. And yet, for the river, this spot is like a very different number. It is zero.

Zero is a strange number.

When people count toys, they count one, two, three. In a game of hide and seek, they count one, two, three as well. Hardly anyone starts from zero. But look at a school ruler. The first mark on a ruler is not the mark for one. It is the mark for zero. Zero is the place where nothing has been measured yet. It is the place before any measuring happens, where the tip of the pencil goes down before it draws a straight line.

For the Red River, Lũng Pô is a zero mark just like that. The marker carries the number 92, because other markers come before it. But not a single step of the river's journey on Vietnamese soil has been counted yet. Every stretch of the Red River through the country is counted from here.

So the difference between the two photographs lies somewhere else.

The water has not changed. The meeting of the two streams has not changed. The change lies entirely on the human side. Between the first photograph and the second, people came all the way to this place. They measured with care, then set down a marker and wrote a number on it. From that moment, an ordinary stretch of water carried a meaning it could never have thought up for itself.

The river knows nothing about that. A river does not read numbers. It does not speed up as it nears the marker, and it does not slow down as it passes. It simply keeps doing what it has always done, which is to flow.

That is also what makes Lũng Pô special. No one built the scene here. There is no stage, no lights, no music. There is only a large stream, a small stream, and a confluence that people describe as a landscape very typical of this region. People come here to look at something true, not at something made to look pretty.

And now, try the thing that only memory can do. Lay the two photographs one on top of the other, and hold them up to the light.

The two frames match almost completely. The same large stream. The same small stream finding its way down. The same spot where water touches water. They differ in just one detail, and that detail stands still on the bank, quiet.

Anyone standing at Lũng Pô today is really standing in both photographs at once.

On one side is the beginning made by people. A marker, a number, a first point that has been marked so that everyone knows it. On the other side is the beginning made by the river. No marker, no number, no announcement from anyone. It simply happens.

The marker stands still and holds on to its number. The water holds on to nothing. Water touches water, blends with it, and goes on. And right behind it, at that very spot, a new stream of water has just begun to enter Vietnam.