Ceremony to offer the first rice to my ancestors

AN OFFERING TO THE ANCESTORS

Below is what was read out as part of the ceremony to offer up my first rice to my ancestors.

4 April 2026 (Lunar Calendar); 20 May 2026 Gregorian calendar

For five generations before me, my family cultivated this land.

This jungle , these waters, this soil nourished my mother, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, and all those who came before them.

Today, I stand here as the sixth generation to continue caring for, protecting, and honoring this ancestral land — nearly two hundred years after my great great great grandmother, Đặng Thị Hương, first came here from China to build a new life.

Today we gather not simply to share a meal,

but to remember, and to return —

to Mother Earth, Father Sky, and to our ancestors.

Before us is rice from the first harvest of my life.

A first harvest comes only once.

Though there may be many harvests after this, the first can never be repeated.

This first harvest is my return —

a return to love, to ancestry, to the earth, and to home.

Every grain of rice carries a story.

The story of leaving behind a former life — material comfort, ambition, greed, and the conveniences of a modern western life abroad.

It is the story of returning to ancestral land with a heart still searching.

And of learning once more how to listen —

to the earth, to water, to the seasons, and to those who came before me.

This rice is more than food.

It is memory.

It is regeneration.

It is a quiet bridge between past and future.

Today, I offer this meal first to my ancestors —

those whose names I know, and those whose names have been lost to time —

the people whose sacrifice, endurance, migration, suffering, and love made my life possible.

Today, I especially wish to address Cậu Út, who died in Cambodia.

It was you who called me home. And I listened to your call.

Back to this land, and to the path I now walk with all reverence and sincerity.

Thank you for protecting me.

For giving me the courage to continue,

and the clarity not to lose myself along the way.

Standing here today, holding rice from my own first harvest,

I understand now that this journey was never only about me.

It is a journey of restoring connection —

between land and people,

between bloodline and memory,

between the living and the ancestors. And inspiring others to do the same and in doing so, to heal. I am grateful for Nhân who has advised every step of the way as an agricultural expert in pesticide free farming; and Chú Hiệp who has helped me with his decades of experience farming rice and looking after our land in our absence. I am deeply thankful for all the supporters and witnesses those present here and those presence we feel today.

I also bow my head in gratitude to my father’s lineage —

humble rice farmers whose values, blessings, and way of life continue to live within me today.

And though this is not her ancestral homeland,

I also honor my husband’s aunt, Hà,

who drowned together with her little children while fleeing Vietnam.

Today, she is present here with our family in this house.

She reminds me of the bond between my husband and me —

a vow to continue protecting love, out marriage, and continue healing.

These rice fields hold memory.

Here remain the footprints of my Cậu Út herding buffalo as a boy,

the sorrow and despair my mother carried after the end of the war, the footsteps of my father walking this path to ask for my mother’s hand in marriage,

and the presence of my grandparents and generations before them.

I have felt my ancestors beside me in every step I have taken upon this land.

This field itself also carries memory.

It once bore the scars of a bomb crater, death destruction, and grief.

My uncle filled that crater in with his own hands — with sweat, tears, loneliness, and a heavy heart.

Today we eat this rice with reverence for the past.

Knowing this soil, this water, and this sunlight are older than we can ever truly understand.

Knowing we are only temporary caretakers of something sacred, and that we ourselves are only one continuation in a much longer story.

I understand now that I carry a responsibility to protect this land with reverence, devotion and joy.

I will continue to try to grow rice in harmony with nature — as my ancestors once did —

nourished by soil, rain, sunlight, and water, without pesticides.

I was once a lost daughter,

yet I am also the continuation of a story nearly two hundred years old and beyond.

And today, finally, I have come home.

With gratitude, reverence, and love,

I offer this meal to the ancestors, to Mother Earth and Father Sky, and to all those who came before us.