Ốc - They Carry Their Homes

I took a walk in the rain at the outskirts of town tonight, on roads that made me wonder, what was I thinking when I decided to take this walk? Through ankle-deep, murky curb runoff, over bridges with crowded oncoming scooters and no pedestrian walkway, across a tollbooth as uniformed guards with blinding flashlights harassed hapless truckdrivers. Tired of my taxing trek, I found a bus stop and waited for a bus, on the corner of a moonlit grassy field that once was natural flooded swamp, but has been drained to support commercial development. When the rains come, animals, which once called the swamp home, emerge under the cover of darkness. They hop and creep and crawl and splash, just like they used to before the land was drained.

From the bus stop, I saw three men skulking about in the vines and tall swampgrass. With dim flashlights, they probed the damp vegetation, and intermittently reached out to pluck something the size of a stone from the lush greenery. I snuck in to get a closer look at the bags, saw the form of a conical spiral pile, and realized that the plastic-sandaled men were hunting for snails. I gestured to a guy with a distended bag, smiled, and pointed at the bag with an open palm. He said ốc, ốc, ốc, ốc, rapidly as if he had just stubbed his toe. I think I made him nervous.

I pantomimed eating by drawing my five fingertips toward my mouth as if taking a bite of food. He nodded, which seemed to affirm my guess that he and his companions were gathering edible snails. I could be wrong, since he didn't say the word for yes, that's correct. But I'm pretty sure he was going to eat them. Or perhaps he was going to sell them to one of the numerous late-evening sidewalk cafes that specialize in snails, clams, and fertilized duck eggs, all served with bottles of beer. Finding enough snails to make a meal, or to sell for a decent profit, is a lot of work. Losing ground to development must make it even harder. It seems that the animals weren't the only ones that were left high and dry when the swamps were drained.

The word for snail is ốc. This is confirmed by several people. Interestingly, the word ốc according to Google seems to mean "house," probably because the little guys appear to carry their houses around on their backs. I thought I'd double check with Lữ, but she's not convinced that ốc means house. Whether Google is right or not, snails certainly do carry their homes on their backs.

Either way, it was interesting to see people foraging for dinner in an urban greenspace, just a few feet from bustling trucks and honking scooters at a busy intersection. I don't think I'll have the same luck if I try to forage for dinner in Central Park. And, what would I eat, anyway?