For Cockfighting Fans, the Game Goes On

Behind the time-honoured tradition of cockfighting lurks a deadly threat: avian flu. Tung Doan* of Vietnam News ventures to the border town of Bavet, Cambodia for a day of blood-drenched cockfighting in one of Southeast Asia’s most raucous arenas.

We boarded a bus in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City and a little over an hour later, arrived at the Moc Bai-Bavet border gate in the south-western province of Tay Ninh. To my surprise, cars from all around southern Viet Nam were flocking to the crossing into Cambodia.

“It’s not unusual during the weekend, when the Xuyen A (Trans-Asia cockfighting arena is open,” explained my companion Le Van Nhat.

“You must stick close to me otherwise you will be in trouble,” said Nhat, a resident of the Ben Cau border town, after we passed through Cambodian immigration.

Acting as professional gamblers, we dropped in on a chicken farm that supplies fighting cocks to the arena in Bavet.

Sitting in the midst of hundreds of chicken coops, the Vietnamese farm owner was holding a rooster with one hand and putting his fingers into the animal’s throat. He cleared the rooster’s sputum as skillfully as a doctor cared for a patient.

“I’ve been in this business for several years, and bird flu has never been a problem for me,” said Tran Quoc Thai. His roosters cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of U.S. dollars -- and they need a lot of care. “If we didn’t take care of them we might have gone bankrupt,” Thai said.

At a roadside cafe opposite the Xuyen A cockfighting arena, located around one kilometre from the border crossing, there was much conversation about the upcoming fights.

“It’s a bit far to travel to bet on matches, but we feel more comfortable than in Viet Nam,” a man from the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta city of Can Tho told us. The arena opened at 10:30 am and people from across South-east Asia began flocking toward its gates. On any given day, the crowd could include Vietnamese living abroad, shopowners and businessmen from south Viet Nam, residents of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh or even travellers from China.

Hundreds of motorbikes and cars were parked in neat rows outside the 500-sq.m arena. Close to the area where the cockfights are held were elegant, long-legged roosters caged in large coops.

The round arena was decorated with neon lights and full of plastic water buckets used for cleaning the fighting cocks.

On the earthen court, separated from the bleachers by a bamboo ring, men readied their cocks for battle, taking their weight and covering their spurs with strips of aluminium or steel.

Suddenly, two men brought their fighting roosters, one yellow and one purple, to the centre of the ring; the matches were about to begin.

As the roosters stalked each other, cries rose from the crowd. Many yelled wagers to bookkeepers.

After the darker-coloured rooster delivered several two-legged kicks, his opponent began to bleed. The crowd was getting louder, driving the roosters to fight more fiercely. Eventually, the referee stopped the bout and the owners came forward to collect their birds.

While embracing his beloved fowl, the owner of the yellow rooster put the animal’s torn crest into his mouth and sucked out some blood. A moment later, the crowd encouraged the pair to continue the fight. But the rooster, beaten, fell to the ground. For the second time, the owner tried to resuscitate his rooster, spitting out its blood and gulping down water in the process.

While this was happening, the crowd became more excited. Gamblers were high spirits against the backdrop of an arena covered in blood, feathers and dust.

After the match, gamblers gathered in a bar close to the arena to discuss their balance sheets. On their table were cups of wine and a plate of boiled chicken, an unlucky loser from earlier in the day.

A television set next to them was broadcasting news from Viet Nam about fresh bird flu outbreaks in Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces. “Don’t worry. Chickens with bird flu are kept at the gate by customs officers and border soldiers. Let’s drink and get back before the crossing closes,” one man said.

(*Tung Doan of Vietnam News did this article and photos under the Avian Flu Series of the Imaging Our Mekong programme, coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific and Probe Media Foundation Inc and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.)