By Jack BeresfordShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA man was cleaning the covers on his couch when he made an unexpected discovery that stopped him in his tracks.
There are few pieces of furniture more important to a home than a good couch. For some, the couch is a safe space and somewhere we spend countless hours enjoying doing pretty much nothing.
Around 50 percent of people say they spend seven or more hours a week on the couch, according to a poll of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by furniture company Joybird.
Tautari Sanders' couch has always been a place of comfort for him and his partner. “We love the couch,” Sanders, from New Zealand, told Newsweek. “We purchased it from a friend who was moving abroad 10 years ago.”
However, Sanders recently discovered there was a little more to this beloved piece of furniture than they first thought. It all started when the couple decided to have the cover to the couch cleaned.
That was when they came across a message written on the inner cushion.
...“We thought that was kind of strange,” Sanders said. “We were worried it was going to be a cry for help from someone in poor working conditions.”
Sanders knew that the couch had been manufactured in Vietnam but couldn’t read Vietnamese, so turned to social media for help, sharing a snapshot of the message to Reddit under the handle u/ItsTheGaijin.
“We were getting mixed translations from translator apps so we decided to post it to Reddit as we know it's a great place to source information from a large number of people globally,” he said.
Soon enough, Sanders was provided with a translation that changed everything about how he had initially viewed the words written inside his couch.
It turned out the message wasn’t some desperate plea for help, but rather a poem most likely composed by someone who had been working on the furniture.
The translated version reads:
That river still flows for thousand lives
Because in adversity, I had to leave you
I still miss you when you're far away
I miss your eyes and your smile
One Redditor elaborated further, explaining the words were part of a popular type of Vietnamese poem that is called a “lục bát,” which literally translated as “six-eight” and refers to the number of words on each line.
“This is actually a popular type of Vietnamese poem with rules and rhythm that is hard to translate,” they said. “The sixth word of the six-line should rhyme with the sixth of the eight-line, and the eighth/last word of the eight-line should rhyme with the 6th/last word of the next six-line.”
The nature of the poem itself led this particular Redditor to believe it had most likely been written by a man and thought it does not follow the rules of the “lục bát” perfectly, they could sense the “sincerity” behind it.
Sanders was both delighted and relieved to discover the true meaning of the words they found.
“We were relieved to find out it was some lovely poetry,” he said.
The mystery still remains as to why they chose to write the poem in such an unusual place.
“We have no idea why they have written such a personalized, heartfelt message on something that would ultimately end up not ever being seen,” Sanders said. “Maybe practicing some poetry before sending it to his or her lover? Perhaps we will never know.”
They did receive one more clue though. A name written in Vietnamese was also found on another part of the couch cover. It may be a long shot, but Sanders hasn’t given up hope of somehow finding out who that person is. “We would love to find the person who wrote it,” he said.
For now though, he and his partner are just happy to be back enjoying their newly cleaned couch.
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