Bird lovers gather every morning to show off the singing skills of their birds. It's an easy going affair with a lot of tea drinking and chattering.
Songbirds have been serenading in a corner of the district 10 sport club in Cao Thang street over the past few years. Today, tens of feathered crooners converge to compete for fun. Their owners carefully manipulate the wooden cages covered with fabric, in order to avoid stress to the bird during the motorbike ride. Then, they hang them on rows of wooden sticks.
Many bird lovers are keeping birds as a hobby. The district 10 sport club has become a hive of bird activities everyday in the morning. No doubt bird lovers have already gathered there with their pet birds in the past, but not so many were keen in competing their birds for songs, but rather on betting with bird fights. « I guess it started with cock fights here, Mr Viet says. Because these fights are illegal, birds are now in for challenging their songs and also for acquiring more variety of tunes from other birds. » Mr Viet is a businessman who comes every morning with his birds, one or two at a time, before he starts his day in his company. “I usually come here around 6am and stays for one or two hours. I meet with my friends, have a couple of tra da (ice tea) and cigarettes. But most of all, we talk about our birds!”, he says.
But sometimes, letting their birds fight and bleed seemed natural. “Sometimes, you just have to let them fight. The singing birds are male you know, so it is also in their nature to fight. It is good to improve their stamina and fierceness, so we let them do.” The cages are then put next to each other, doors open. One bird can jump in the other’s cage and the fight begins. So does the betting and the shouts.
Bettings
Even though it is now for singing contest, money is still part of the thrill. « Bettings are carried on in a casual way», Mr Viet says. The birds are judged upon the most varieties of song, stamina and play. They are judged by friends and sometimes with one or two outsiders to help select the best bird. Usually the more people who are in favour of one particular bird, that bird is declared the winner. The losers combine to pay for the winner’s of winners’ lunches and drinks. This would carry on week after week with a larger group each time.
Judging is no problem as there are precise points to look at: loudness, variety, stamina, posture. All these aspects vary according the bird species. Mostly, they are caught in the forests of the Vietnamese highlands, areas like Pleiku or Kontum. The Shamas are quite popular among bird lovers. They have longer built bodies and with longer tails and very fine display. The Bulbuls have longer and well shaped crests. On the other hand the White-eyes are longer in their body structures and they have bigger white-ringed eyes and their song drag on much longer and louder.
Training
Bird owners begin bringing in their birds for training. The logic of such gathering is that a concentration of caged songsters exposed in a limited area will cause their own birds to create another tune. Their birds have many chances of picking up different tune from others. Birds exposed in this way also gather stamina and acquire display.
Birds of the same specie also challenge in their songs.
Bird lovers have gathered much knowledge and are very well conversant with different species, and the considerable time spent and care given to their birds. In other words they treasure them much more than their own children. “At the beginning, my wife actually did not like this hobby. She said it took me too much time, time I should spend with her or with my children! That was a time when I had around twenty birds at home. Now I have only six so I spend less time on this”, Mr Viet admits.
It can take many years to breed a good singer. “It really depends on the bird you buy. If you start from scratch, you have to assess the potential of the bird. At first, their singing and posture can be bad but you have to see whether there is a way to improve it. Those I had at the beginning were not well built, but plumpy, songs and stamina were limited and postures not stylish at all”, Mr Viet says. “The present birds, that I have been raising for one or two years have all the following qualities: loudness, stamina, variety, posture and or physic, display and fierceness. Take for instance the Thrushes. They are bigger, stylish and with louder songs and plentiful of variety. But it is never over. It can take one or two years if you are lucky and if you show the bird enough care and… love! It takes actually a lifetime to raise the perfect singing bird!”
