Half a century of reconstructing My Son: Special 'experts' in the temple tower area

To reconstruct the intact form of the heritage complex, over the past decades, teams of the world's leading scientists and architects have come to My Son Sanctuary to work with the Vietnamese people.

Mr. Ngo Van Loc - the restorer of the ancient tower - had to carefully measure each brick and align it with a ruler.

Only able to assemble... a few dozen bricks per day

However, there would be no Mu Son today without the help of the local people living around the heritage. Not only is the team of workers responsible for most of the manual labor, many people have gone from amateurs to professionals, been hired to work and have dedicated their whole lives to My Son.

Visiting My Son today, we can see many architectural works that have been painstakingly restored for many years. With special skill and meticulousness, the bricks through the hands of the craftsmen have been placed on the foundation of the thousand-year-old relic. The rain and wind of the mountains and forests combined with the length of time will help all blend together to create architectural works with historical depth.

Head of the Conservation Department - My Son Museum Nguyen Van Tho said that the special contribution to the existence and restoration of My Son today is the manual labor force. They are mostly local residents living near the temple tower area, when implementing conservation projects, the best people and those with a heart for My Son are selected and invited to work.

Mr. Tho also said: "No matter how many good experts, the world's top experts in My Son, without the workers to execute the ideas, to polish each brick, nothing can be done." Time has weathered and deformed the temple towers, but fate has connected the community of residents around My Son through many generations so that each person's heart always aches for the temple towers.

In the middle of summer, even though it is covered by the forest canopy, My Son valley is still as hot as a furnace. A team of 117 masons are divided in the narrow space surrounding the towers that are being restored under the supervision of Indian experts to grind each brick. Looking at the way these masons work, anyone who does not understand the special nature of the work they are doing will easily get impatient because the working speed is too slow.

Standing there struggling for nearly 15 minutes but still unable to arrange the bricks to match the previous layer, Mr. Ngo Van Loc (45 years old, Bang Son village, Thu Bon commune, Da Nang city) was sweating all over his shirt, holding a brick in his left hand, and using a ruler to measure each centimeter to grind each brick grain with his right hand. Mr. Loc laughed out loud when we asked him how many bricks a worker like him could build each day.

"If you want to do a quick renovation, you have to... take it slow. Sometimes, the bricks are placed and you think they are square and balanced with the layer below, but the next day, the expert comes to check and asks to peel them off and re-grind them, which is very normal. We don't calculate by volume, but by time and meticulousness," said Mr. Loc.

Mr. Loc is one of 117 restoration workers, all residents around the My Son temple complex, selected to collaborate in rebuilding the temple complex. Their work begins early in the morning. At noon, they eat right in the valley, rest their heads on rocks, and put their hats on their faces to sleep, and in the afternoon they start their shift.

Unlike outside, these workers work on a restoration project, which usually takes place after the Lunar New Year and ends before the persistent jungle rains that come in late July until the end of the year.

Send my youth back to My Son

The My Son Cultural Heritage Management Board said that due to the nature of a ruined relic, as early as 1981, when the cooperation project between the Vietnamese and Polish governments to lay the first bricks to restore My Son after the war, a team of local workers was established.

At that time, there were up to 40 workers on the construction site, doing all kinds of work under the guidance of experts such as making brick molds, mixing mortar, cleaning the site, taking care of the camp...

In the following years, when the cooperation project with other countries continued to be implemented in My Son, this labor force was still connected to work. With a special bond, they were not only workers but also considered as a semi-official working team in the field of restoration.

Deputy Director of the My Son Cultural Heritage Management Board Nguyen Cong Khiet said that in order to "retain" these special workers, every holiday or important occasion, the unit invites them to sit together to share with each other. More than just a job to earn a living, the workers consider themselves a part of the heritage, and they are ready whenever there is a call.

Moved by the enthusiasm and dedication of these local residents, in his official petitions to his superiors, Mr. Khiet also sought to propose a separate mechanism worthy of paying appropriate rewards.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Tho, among the workers restoring My Son from the past until now, there are people who have followed the journey for over 20 years.

Mr. Vo Kim Nam (56 years old), head of the excavation restoration team, said he started working in My Son in 2003. At that time, the Italian project to restore Tower G required a large number of skilled workers, so he was selected to work.

Before entering the construction site, he, like everyone else, had to pass a basic screening process, one of the highest requirements of which was to love heritage and have patience and honesty.

"Just imagine standing in the middle of a construction site every day stacking bricks on top of each other. The work is not hard but requires absolute precision and is done entirely by hand. How meticulous do you have to be?

Bricks brought for restoration must be washed clean, smoothed down to remove any unevenness, then adhesive must be used to place them on and test to see if they are balanced. If they are not balanced, they must be ground and dipped in water until they are smooth enough. Not all of the tower blocks are square, there are places where the bricks must be cut in a sawtooth shape and smoothed to fit together, a more laborious task than any other construction project we have ever been through" - Mr. Nam said.

Not only himself, Mr. Nam said that his wife and some brothers are also working in different positions in the sanctuary. All of them are laborers, receiving daily wages. Although their income is sometimes high and sometimes low, it is enough to support the family and is stable over the years.

Also working as restoration workers during the same period as Mr. Nam were Mr. Nguyen Chin (65 years old), Mr. Nguyen Van Bay (56 years old)... They were all locals, living around the villages around the My Son temple complex like Mr. Nam. When the restoration projects were implemented, they were on the list of skilled workers who were trained and invited to work in My Son.

Special Contribution Team for My Son

My Son is being restored, rebuilding temples and towers from ruins - Photo: BD

Mr. Nguyen Cong Khiet affirmed that the My Son restoration team are the ones who have made special contributions to the reconstruction of the temple towers. By participating in the relic, these people are part of the heritage, having a special connection with the management agencies to form a network to preserve the heritage from the core zone to the buffer zone.

Not only restoring the relic, local people also contributed many perspectives, providing extremely valuable information leading to excavations or forest protection patrols. With this special kindness, the My Son Cultural Heritage Management Board always prioritizes creating livelihoods for local people, recruiting people to work long-term.

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