The children stood under the tree, passionately looking up at the yellow fruits, feeling envious of the birds freely choosing the sweetest to nibble while silently praying, “Thị ơi, thị rụng bị bà…” (My dear, please fall), hoping the fruit would fall. To have that fruit is to have a precious toy, to cherish and sniff. Holding the fruit in my hand, feeling like wherever you go, the fragrance spreads…

It’s no wonder girls are in love with the Golden Apple. After asking their mother to hold scraps of wool to plait a basket to hold them, the scent bags of them are hung at the head of the bed or the corner of the desk so that the fragrance does not leave.

Suddenly recalling the poem by poet Vu Quan Phuong in the song “Nói với em”:

“… Nếu nhắm mắt nghe bà kể chuyện

Sẽ được nhìn thấy các bà tiên

Thấy chú bé đi hài bảy dặm

Quả thị thơm, cô Tấm rất hiền…”

In the book “Sương khói quê nhà” by writer Nguyen Nhat Anh, the opening essay titled “Cây trái tuổi thơ” (Fruits of Childhood) tells about an old woman’s streetside market basket on the outskirts of Saigon that touched him. childhood, touching the golden sunshine of Quang Nam – something he lost when he moved to Saigon to settle down and “only came back in melancholy dreams”.

The way Vietnamese people play with the scent of Golden Apple fruit is a typical example. In the folk fairy tale Tam Cam, the old woman selling water and the thimble tree is the conclusion of the ancients with this hobby. That the fruit is most valuable for its fragrance, not for its sweet or nutritious flesh, so “she lets her smell it, but she doesn’t eat it”.

Placing a plate of browned Golden Apple on a plate in the middle of the house will help the house always smell pleasant. The fruit is round, shiny yellow, and pleasing to the eye. The fragrant ripened fruits in the fall is easily associated with the perfect full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, so looking at it is like looking at the moon.

The unique feature of the scent hobby is timing. The aroma of the fruit comes from the ripening process of the fruit, which falls in the fall. Therefore, the fragrant scent signals the arrival of autumn, as poet Nguyen Hoang Son once wrote, “quả thị vàng đã dắt mùa thu vào phố” (The yellow fruits have brought autumn into the city).

Because of the momentous nature of that season, if you don’t know how to cherish it, you will miss out on a whole season of Golden Apple flavor. The fruit is like a girl,  fragrant, and beautiful.