Chapter 12 — Floating Market Without Water

Mrs. Sau planted two bamboo poles into the river bed, marking a ten meter long channel.

“Measure here,” she said. “No more measuring in the meeting room.”

The cooperative invited a physics teacher, two irrigation students and an environmental officer to measure the flow together. Not having enough modern machines, they used colored floats, stopwatches, sample bottles and a board to record numbers. The factory was invited to send witnesses. Duy came, but did not bring the technical team.

“I was just observing,” he said.

“Observers also have to sign,” Ms. Sau replied.

An set up a camera on the shore and recorded the names of each participant. Ti placed the camera on a small tripod and took pictures of the same angle every five minutes. Khai stood at the head of the stream, reading pressure from the M-07 meter.

The first test used a leaf buoy. The buoy got stuck in mud before going two meters. The second test used a plastic bottle with sand, but the bottle was flipped. One student laughed and said the water refused to cooperate with the exercise.

Mrs. Sau said to do it again.

“Difficult flows don't mean we should be allowed to measure through loudspeakers.”

The third time, they used a small ball to tie the string. The ball drifted slowly downstream and was pulled horizontally into the mud. Line direction does not match current map.

Khai looked at his watch. “The male branch is smoking.”

Duy said: "It could be due to the bottom terrain."

“The bottom doesn't suck,” Khai replied.

Duy kept quiet.

At 2:17 a.m., M-07 pressure suddenly decreased. I clicked the camera at the right time. The water around the pile swelled, then a stream of mud ran through the trench. The students took samples immediately at three points.

An officer asked who controlled the valve.

No one answered.

An turned the phone towards everyone. She didn't zoom in on the face, just recorded the silence. The absence of an answer is also a fact.

Duy called. He said the factory did not have an order to open M-07. After the call, his face became more tense.

“Maybe the valve is leaking,” he said.

Khai holds the pressure board. “The leak does not create an eight-minute cycle.”

“Are you sure?”

“I used to operate.”

“You once signed the acceptance wrongly.”

Khai was speechless. Duy just said something An had not announced publicly before the crowd.

Mrs. Sau stepped forward. "If you want to blame, show the records. Don't use one person's fault to erase the fault of the whole system."

Duy did not reply.

The measurement lasted until the afternoon. Preliminary results show that the southern branch receives more than just water; It pulls flow from the market stream toward the secondary sedimentation tank every time the plant pressure changes. The speed is not great, but enough to make the channel dry up when the water level is low.

A student draws the diagram on the board. The south branch goes under the temporary residential area and then around to the land behind the factory. If the settling tank is filled, the sludge flow has no place to stop.

“Need to check the tank,” An said.

Duy objected. “The tank belongs to the technical area.”

“It's under public land.”

“Part of the land has been allocated to the project.”

Ms. Sau gave the support contract. “Which part to hand over?”

Duy pointed to the appendix, then stopped. The appendix does not have a boundary map.

“You don't know?” she asked.

“I have to check.”

“So don't forbid others to check before you.”

Late in the afternoon, people brought water sample bottles and lined them up on the table. No one calls it sewage sludge. They recorded the smell, color, time and location. An's mother put labels on the bottles near the porridge boat, even though she did not understand the test.

“At least if anyone asks later, I know which bottle I got from where,” she said.

An looked at her mother. This time she did not avoid the paperwork.

Let's look at the photo again. One frame shows Duy standing next to Khai when the pressure is reduced. Duy's glasses reflected a person behind him, holding a walkie-talkie. Ti zoomed in and recognized Vinh.

“Vinh is reporting Who?" An asked.

Khai said: "You can tell the time."

“Who needs time?”

Khai looked toward the upstream bank, where the factory roofs were lit up.

At the end of the measurement session, the group made a record. Duy signed with the note "source of sludge has not been confirmed". Khai signed and clearly stated the pressure schedule suitable for mechanical operation. Ms. Sau signed as a community representative.

An asked her if she was afraid to sign.

“Yes. But fear is not the reason for vacillation.”

That night, a person threw a stone through the cooperative's window. No one was injured. On the piece of paper stuck in the door frame is the following line:

“Don't measure what has already been purchased.”

An divided the measuring group into three groups, not allowing one person to float and record numbers at the same time. The group of students is at the beginning of the channel, Ms. Sau is in the middle, the environmental officer is at the branch door. Duy stood outside, but was asked to sign each time he witnessed it.

The first time, the buoy was pulled horizontally. The second time, the buoy got stuck on a tree root. The third time, a boat passed by, causing waves to erase the mark. No one gives up. They replaced the buoy with a piece of painted wood, then used a string to measure the distance.

Khai said the flow changes according to underground pressure. An asked him to write down the specific time, not "when the water changes". He wrote 2:09, 2:17, 2:25.

Ti captures the same landmark each time. He set the camera low, so the horizon wouldn't change. One student said he acted like a professional surveyor. Ti replied:

“I just don't want the next one to be different from the last one.”

Preliminary results show that the water flow changes direction before the foam appears. That means the pressure changes before one sees the mud. If they only sampled after the foam, they would have missed the open source moment.

An asked Duy if there was continuous pressure data. Duy said yes, but the factory machine records every fifteen minutes, while Ti's photo records every minute.

“Fifteen minutes is enough to skip one flush,” An said.

“Or enough to avoid interference.”

“Noise is also something you need to know.”

Environmental officers take data from both sides. He said he would require factories to submit raw data, not just summary charts.

Mrs. Sau opened the cooperative book and read the boat schedule. On days when the factory was cleaned, the market was advised to anchor in the east, but there was no reason. The person recording the calendar is Mrs. Hanh.

“I just copied the time they sent it,” Ms. Hanh said.

“Who are they?”

"Factory."

“Do you have a signature?”

"Are not."

An notes that this is an unconfirmed calendar, but it coincides with the pressure cycle.

One resident asked if measuring the flow would make the water cleaner. The officer said no. That person asked why do we need to measure? An replied that it didn't clean it, but it helped me know where to fix it.

The measurement lasted until noon. The sun cracked the mud and the smell of spoiled fish rose from the boat. An's mother distributed water to the group, but it wasn't enough. Ms. Sau called a tanker truck for support, this time asking the factory not to set any conditions.

Duy agreed in writing.

I saw a factory car standing on the shore, the engine started but it didn't get in. He took a photo, then wrote down the license plate number. A moment later the car disappeared, leaving no tire tracks because it was parked on concrete.

Khai uses a pressure board to draw a curve. Every time the needle drops, the float goes back to the south branch. He said it cannot be called a natural stream.

“But it's not enough to call it illegal operation,” An said.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say: the current mechanism does not allow us to differentiate.”

Khai wrote that sentence in the minutes.

In the afternoon, the group created a temporary diagram with colored tape. Blue for the market channel, yellow for the south branch, red for the mud point. Ti took photos from above by standing on the warehouse roof, then created a photo collage.

When looking at the photo, An saw a straight line in the mud, parallel to the south branch, not on the old map. Could be an auxiliary pipe or drain.

Mr. Nam looked at the photo and said that previously there was a rescue channel that was filled in when the embankment was built. If so, it explains why mud appears under residential areas.

Ms. Sau requested that this finding be included in the minutes, even though it had not been checked.

Duy signed with unconfirmed notes.

At night, stones were thrown at the cooperative's windows. A piece of paper stuck under the frame reads:

“Don't measure what has already been purchased.”

Mrs. Hanh was scared and asked to quit her job. Ms. Sau said no one could force her to continue, but she also did not want her to disappear from the records.

An asked Ti if he wanted to rest. He said:

"If you quit, the photo will still be there. But people will say the photo will appear on its own."

An looked at him and said that tomorrow morning they would measure again from the beginning, with more witnesses.

An asked who the stone thrower could be. Ms. Hanh said she didn't know, but the paper used the same ink as the old seal in the office. No one was quick to suspect her.

They replaced the door glass with temporary plastic panels, clearly stating the repair cost. Ms. Sau said protecting records cannot depend on one door. Each important paper copy is photocopied and placed in three places.

The group measured again the next morning. The results are not exactly the same as before because the water level changes, but the south branch still attracts current when the pressure increases. One student said he needed more data for many days.

An asked if the factory would agree to publicly record data every ten minutes. Duy said he would suggest. Ms. Sau replied that the proposal must have a deadline to respond.

Duy committed for three days.

Create a time table on the wharf wall, using green for measured results, yellow for expected, and red for points to be checked. People started adding their own pump hours and water bubbles.

No one says that measuring current is the job of a small group anymore. It becomes a work of looking together.

By noon, the time table was filled with different lines of text. A woman selling fruit noted when the water changed color. The boatman recorded the sound of the engine starting on the south bank. One child wrote that there was bubbles floating next to pin number three, even though he didn't know what the bubbles meant. An did not delete any lines. She just marked the unverified notes and scheduled a time to compare them.

Khai suggested placing a mechanical clock at the beginning of the wharf, one that does not require batteries. Each time a measurement begins, the market operator takes a photo of both the meter and the water pile in the same frame. I tried it three times, then pasted the sample photo on the board. The method is clumsy but easy to understand; Everyone knows where to look, and no one has to wait for someone with a title to detect something unusual.

Duy brought an operating schedule that covered up information that the factory considered technical secrets. Ms. Sau requested to clearly state the covered part and the reason for covering it. Duy was slightly angry, asking like that was like forcing the factory to tie its own hands. Ms. Sau replied that a handcuff is still visible, but if the data is hidden, people do not know where they are being kept.

The measurement ended when the wind changed. The numbers have not given them a culprit, but given them a new habit: before concluding, we must look at the same water.