The Legend of Betel and Areca Nut

Once upon a time, in a village, there were two brothers in a studious family named Tan and Lang. Being twins, their appearance and face were exactly the same, even their peers often confused them. Their father was a Cao mandarin under the Hung King. Their family lived together very happily, peacefully and was famous for harmony, known throughout the region.

The two brothers had not yet reached adulthood when their parents unfortunately passed away. The two brothers had loved each other very much, but now that they had encountered adversity, they were inseparable. Before their father passed away, he entrusted his two children to a teacher named Liu. The two brothers were intelligent and studied hard, so the teacher respected and cared for them very much. Teacher Liu had a daughter the same age as the two brothers named Cao. The girl was very fond of the two brothers, but because they looked so much alike, she could not tell them apart.

To distinguish the two brothers, one day, the girl named Liu came up with a little trick. While they were hungry, she served them only a bowl of porridge with a pair of chopsticks. Standing behind the crack in the wall, she saw the two brothers give each other porridge. Then the older brother spoke up to give his portion of rice to the younger brother, and only then could the girl distinguish the two brothers. From then on, the daughter of the teacher named Liu also had feelings for her older brother, Tan. The two often met and gradually fell in love with each other. The teacher named Liu also knew about the story, and upon hearing it, he expressed his desire to marry his daughter. The teacher named Liu was happy to marry his daughter to Tan. After the wedding, Tan and his wife moved to a new house, with Lang living together.

Since he got married, Tan didn’t care about me like before. Lang thought he was “so in love with his wife that he forgot about me” and felt depressed and upset.

One day Lang and Tan went to the fields together and returned home late at night. Lang came home first, causing Tan’s wife to mistakenly hug him. At that moment, Tan entered the house and saw what had happened, feeling jealous of his younger sister, indifferent, and spoke harshly to Lang. Lang was both angry and ashamed, and embarrassed by both his brother and sister-in-law. Because he was so ashamed of what had just happened, Lang left home at dawn, feeling both angry at being misunderstood and embarrassed by his brother and sister-in-law. After several days of traveling, Lang came to the bank of a large river with strong currents. Lang refused to return, crouched on the bank, covering his face and crying. He cried and cried, so much that the birds that came to find food late at night could still hear his sobs. The next morning, Lang was so sad that he turned to stone.

After a long time, Tan still did not see her return. He felt that he had spoken harshly to her. He knew that she had left because she was angry with him. He regretted it. Tan determined to go find her, both to apologize and to settle the misunderstanding. After looking for a day and not seeing her, he thought she must have come home early, so he returned home. The next day, still not seeing her, Tan panicked and left his wife at home, and set out to look for her. He came to the riverbank and saw that she had turned into stone. The birds saw Tan and immediately sang mournfully like Lang’s cry. Tan heard the birds singing, missing her, and stood next to the stone, crying until she died and turned into a tree growing straight up to the sky, next to the stone.

Tan’s wife waited for a long time but did not see her husband return, so she also left home to look for him. She saw a tree growing next to a rock with a bird singing sadly. She also arrived and saw the shape of the tree and the rock together like Tan and Lang’s brothers. It made her miss her husband again, regretting the misunderstanding she had caused. She sat next to the tree and cried until she had no more tears left and died, turning into a vine that wrapped around the other tree.

Waiting for a long time without seeing the three people return, the teacher and his wife asked everyone to split up and search. They did not find anyone, but they heard the sound of birds chirping as if replacing the cries of the three people in front of the strange rock and two trees. They also seemed to know what had happened. The villagers decided to build a temple to worship the three young people by the river. People in the area called it the temple of “harmonious brothers, loyal husband and wife”.

One year, there was a severe drought, only two trees growing next to the rock in front of the temple were still green. Everyone thought it was a miracle. One day, King Hung passed by that area. When passing by the temple, he was surprised and asked: “Which god is worshiped in this temple? I have never seen these types of trees before?”. Lac Tuong called some old men from the surrounding area to ask. The more Hung Vuong listened, the more he could not help but be moved. The king lifted the leaves, climbed up, looked everywhere, and ordered someone to climb the tree to pick the fruit and taste it. The astringency was not strange. But when chewed with the leaves of the vine, a strange taste came to the tip of the tongue: it was both sweet and aromatic.

Suddenly, a mandarin cried out: “Oh my God! Blood!”. It turned out that the fruit and leaves of those two plants, when spit on the rock, turned bright red like blood. The king ordered all three to be chewed together, and suddenly he felt hot as if he had drunk alcohol, his lips were bright red, and his face was rosy and beautiful. The king said:

• How sacred! It’s them! Their love is so passionate and red.

From then on, King Hung ordered that everywhere they had to breed more of those two types of trees, and required that when boys and girls got married, they had to find three things: betel, areca and lime for everyone to chew and spit out a bit to remember their love that would never fade. From then on, the Vietnamese people had the custom of chewing betel.

To this day, betel and areca nuts are still indispensable in Vietnamese engagements, weddings, and marriages.