10- Hoa Hao Buddhist Preaching Hall

 In the village, as my mother recalls, from the early morning, the markets were opened for buyers and sellers. On the river the boats came and went incessantly, carrying all kinds of passengers: children to their schools and adults to their work. The hospitals and other workplaces and fields were all busy. The activities in these places lasted throughout the day, until the late afternoon. Now, the atmosphere got back to its usual quietness with a bit of secrecy. After dinner, when the sun went down to the surface of the river, everyone started the process of worship by burning incense in front of their houses, at the Heaven's Altars, and by listening to the teachings echoing from preaching halls.

By that time, Hoa Hao Village had three official preaching halls. One was behind the market place My Luong, another was by the cross-street of Tan Le, and the third was by the cross-street of Lo Su. Near Dinh market was a large ancient pagoda built a hundred years before, where Buddhist worship was strictly formal and solemn. On the first lunar days and the full moon days, the Hoa An Tu pagoda was full of Buddhist believers come to pay homage to the Buddha's images and attend religious ceremonies.

Like other places along the riverside, Dinh market had a ferry-landing to carry passengers to the other side for their trading business in other markets, such as Thuan Giang market, My Hoi Dong market (Xeo Bun) by the corner Nang Et in the village, and Moi market in the adjacent villages Kien An and Ong Chuong.

If we needed to go to Nang Gu (Chau Doc province), the departure point would be Dinh market, where we took a boat to go around the bank of Ong Chu Bo to reach the dock at Cat Dam. To cross the large river, we took a big ferry that could carry many cars, going from Cat Dam to Nang Gu. Strong tugboats towed this ferry.

From this ferry-landing Nang Gu, passengers could take buses to go to Long Xuyen and Chau Doc provinces, then go up to Saigon very conveniently.

Going in the opposite direction, from Saigon down to Hoa Hao Village, the bus would go through Long Xuyen to reach Nang Gu. From there, the passengers would take the ferry to get to the ferry-landing at Cai Dam, then the cycle-rickshaw on  Hung Nhon road to reach My Luong market.  Then at the right turn we could see the Ancestral Temple, the house of Duc Ong. If we did not want to travel by road with several transfers, we could travel by boat; every day there were many boats scheduled from Hoa Hao village to Long Xuyen province and vice versa.