Continuing to work at sleepless
nights.
Ngoc spent days at his farm and his wife has to bring
food for him.
Working days and nights, Ngoc turned a bare hill into an
8ha farm with many timber and orchard trees planted.
This buffalo helps Ngoc in farming work on
the 0.5ha rice field.
Ngoc
built this 400m2 fish pond on his sleepless nights.
|
Stories about a Vietnamese man who has been sleepless for over 35 years
have been widely published in the mass media. He is 65-year-old Thai Ngoc,
now living in Que Trung Commune, Nong Son District in the central province
of Quang Nam.
Spending sleepless
nights with curious cameramen
To prove, or disprove Thai
Ngoc's claim, camera crews from around the world have arrived at his
doorstep to document his every move, 24 hours a day. The filmmakers had to
trudge over to the remote district of Nong Son in Central Vietnam and would
stay 3 to 5 days.
At night, Ngoc lit up the
lamps and continued to do the farm work, i.e. harvesting rice, ploughing the
soil, growing potatoes, tending soya bean plants, etc. When the farming work
was over, he made baskets and other household utensils. Due to his
sleeplessness, Ngoc's productivity is actually double compared to a normal
person.
Surprisingly enough, Ngoc
has a normal daily diet and rarely gets sick. People who are curious about
his sleeplessness were not able to stay awake all the time while observing
him. Ngoc confided: "Before 1975 I discovered I wasn't sleeping and it never
crossed my mind if this condition had adverse affects on my health. To me,
sleeping or being awake is the same, and I can work during the daytime or at
night."
Needless to say, the film
crews covering him were totally exhausted after their filming. The
compensation paid to him for the filming was not much and Ngoc used it to
invest in his farms.
A few medical scientists
invited Ngoc to go abroad for some research and treatment, but Ngoc refused.
"If I got sick due to sleeplessness and could not be cured at home, then I
would accept such invitations. But I am quite okay, feeling healthy and
working without becoming tired. Thanks to this phenomenon, I have been able
to convert an 8ha bare forest into a green productive area," Ngoc said.
Forests tended with
a human love
Ngoc has divided his farms
into different plots and on each plot he grows much needed trees, such as
the acacia which is used for making paper, trees to be used for making wood
products, such as Do bau (Aquilaria Agallechea), Cho (Parashorea
stellata Kury), Sao den (Hopea odorata Roxb), etc. His effort
resulted in afforesting the land and protecting rare and valuable trees
which are near extinction in Vietnam. Ngoc also built fish ponds during his
sleepless nights. He said that on the cloudless, moonlit nights he can work
without a lamp as compared to cloudy nights when a kerosene lamp is needed.
"I am so sad when there is
no work to do at night," Ngoc confided. "I just lay down to rest my back and
just bide my time smoking and drinking tea until sunrise.” Ngoc added that
he has another farm, about 4km away from his house at the foot of Duong Lui
Mountain, where he also grows timber.
Not far from his house
lives a couple well into their 80's and for the past 30 years Ngoc has made
regular visits to their home, watching over them and assisting with the farm
work. Thanks to Ngoc's sleepless nights, not only his farms, but also this
couple's fields have been protected from damage caused by wild boars.
Ngoc is one of a very few
people in the world with this sleepless disorder. For almost half of his
lifetime, Ngoc has been awake and it isn't known how long this can continue.
One certain thing that has been acknowledged by many people, i.e., Ngoc has
spent his sleepless time doing useful work for his community and
co-villagers.
Ngoc's wife tends to chores
around the house and their four children have all grown up and lead normal
lives.
Ngoc said:
"People from television corporations who came to document me thought
that I am sleepless due to some mental illness. They brought me to the
psychiatrist hospital in Da Nang for medical checks-up. The doctors said
I had no signs of the mental disease. Some were still doubtful of the
doctors' results, so they tried to test my memory. They marked things
like a knife, a glass, a banana, etc. each with a number, and showed
them to me to see for a while, then hided them away from my sight. Then,
they asked me the number tag on each thing. To their surprise, I could
tell them the correct thing and its number as well. Finally they
believed that I had no impact from sleeplessness and filmed me.
A television
crew from Thailand, after filming me, paid me 30 million VND and asked
for their exclusive filming for 18 months. I refused their request. I
never think of trading my sleeplessness! Some others offered me an
overseas trip which I denied. What will I do abroad on my sleepless
nights? Otherwise, at home, I can do useful things for my farms, help my
co-villagers, and guard against wild beasts destroying the fields and
catching animals and poultry." |
By Vu Cong Dien
|
