Once upon a time in a small village, there lived a couple with their little child.
Then war broke out. The man had to leave. The war went on and on …
The child grew up and never stopped asking his mother where his father was. One evening, to comfort her son, she showed him his own shadow that the petrol lamp projected on the wall, and told him : “Look, here he is, your father.” And so while the mother was patching up clothes, the child played with his shadow, his “father”. Every day the little boy waited impatiently for the evening when his mother was going to light the lamp. He adored his father who was always ready to play with him and faithfully repeated every one of his gestures. It amused him a lot. They got on perfectly well together.

When finally the war was over, the husband came back, happy and impatient to see his family again. When he arrived in his village, he heard that his wife was working in the fields. The little boy in front of him had to be his son. He asked him : “Do you recognize me ? I am your father,” wanting to take the child he loved so much in his arms. But the little one replied : “You are not my father. My father comes every evening when my mother lights the petrol lamp, and I play with him.” Jealous and unhappy, the man turned around and left the village. When the mother came home from the fields, she heard that her husband had come and left immediately, and was never to discover why.

So every day, with her child in her arms, she went to the mountains, up onto a rock, and looked into the distance, waiting for her husband. But he never came back. And she turned into stone.

This natural real human-sized sculpture still dominates the mountain pass called Me bôñg con (“Mother Holding her Child in her Arms”) linking north and south Vietnam.

Vietnamese tale, told by NINH Thi Den & NGUYEN Thi Uyên