The banks of the Mekong River, running through Chau Doc, a city in An Giang Province of Viet Nam, are dotted with houses covered by narrow shutters, with winding corridor and hanging pots.

But what makes these structures so different from other French-colonial-style homes found in Viet Nam is that they are floating on the river, known locally as Song Cuu Long (River of Nine Dragons).

The houses, with floats consisting of empty metal drums, hollow plastic pipes and bamboo poles, provide not only a place to live but also a distinctive livelihood for over 2,000 residents of the city which borders Cambodia.

Cat fish and other fish varieties are raised in suspended metal nets under the homes. They flourish in the natural river habitat.

Every morning the families remove several sections of their wooden floor, found in the home's entrance hall, opening a window to the fish farm.

The families create a fish feed by cooking small dead fish, cow bone powder and grain flour in a well-used wok. The warm, smelly, concoction is run through a mincing machine and drops into the mouths of the eager cat fish.

During the wet season, the flooding river provides enough oxygen for the fish, almost filling the suspended metal nets. When the river is flat and short of currents during the dry season, the families use a machine to add the all-important oxygen into their fish farm.

It usually takes nine months for a family to raise a fry to a fish weighing about one kilogram. Families usually harvest about 3 tons of cat fish in a year.

After being harvested, the fish are bundled onto boats and sold at the floating markets scattered along the river.

Down the river and numerous canals of the delta and across the oceans, most of the fish will finally appear on shelves of supermarkets in the United States as the major export product of the area.

The cat fish, about 5,000 Vietnamese dong (33 US cents) per kilogram, is also the main cash source for the families living in the floating homes. With income from the cat fish, the families usually have a better life than those on the land.

Floating near the banks, the houses have access to the electric wire net on the land. Television sets, refrigerators and telephones can easily be found in the houses.

Four or five floating houses stay close together. Connected by planks, they create a floating community on the river. Dogs stroll around and geese stumble throughout the community.

Without fear of the flooding Mekong River, the residents of the all-weather houses have found a way to live in harmony with the great river.

Originated high on the Tibetan Plateau with the name of Lancang River, the Mekong River winds 4,500 kilometres through China, between Myanmar and the Laos, through Laos, along the Lao-Thai border and through Cambodia and Viet Nam on its way to the South China Sea.

In the southernmost region of Viet Nam, it has created one of the world's largest deltas.

The Mekong Delta, irrigated by the sediment-rich river, has been known as Viet Nam's "rice basket" and is responsible for half of all the rice grown in the country. The sediment also provides food to maintain one of the world's most diverse fisheries.

For centuries, millions of Vietnamese have depended on the river for their way of life.

The article is supported by the IPS-Rockefeller media fellowship programme "Our Mekong: A Vision Amid Globalization."

( China Daily August 6, 2002)