I got on the plane, but haven't flown yet", at nearly 3 pm on February 12, Ms. Dao Thi Thinh texted me with a photo of her and her child.
The photo is taken simply, recording the happy smiles of the mother and daughter when they were on a trade union flight to return to their hometown.
Although she had been on a plane before, this time, her feeling was very different. This time, she took the plane back to be with her mother - who is nearly 80 years old this year - in the small house that has been with her throughout her childhood, during the most sacred time of the year - Tet.
More than 2 hours later, when the trade union flight landed, a group of Lao Dong Newspaper reporters arrived and took her and her child back to their hometown of Hung Yen. The conversation on the bus helped us somewhat imagine the touching story of a female worker who had not returned to her hometown for Tet for 27 years.
In 1999, due to difficult life in her hometown, Ms. Dao Thi Thinh left Hung Yen to Dong Nai to earn a living. She applied to work as a worker at TKG Taekwang Vina Joint Stock Company (Dong Nai province). "I still remember the first time I received a salary, I held 500,000 VND in my hand and couldn't believe it, how can I be paid so much money in a month. In my hometown, I had to sell countless vegetables to get this amount of money," she recalled.
From that first salary payment, she decided to stick with this place for a long time. The early years were really difficult for a girl just over 20 years old at that time. Especially when Tet came, in the sacred moment of New Year's Eve, she only knew how to cry alone in the rented room, then fall asleep to soothe somewhat the feeling of wanting to be close to her parents and loved ones.
During her time away from home, Ms. Thinh's trips back to her hometown were all associated with sad events, which were when her father passed away, or when her family members were sick. And during Tet - days that for any Vietnamese person are sacred days, days of reunion, she has never been in her hometown for 27 years.
The female worker, who is 47 years old this year, wants her whole family to return to her hometown, to snuggle into her mother's arms like when she was a child; her children to enjoy typical Northern dishes, but life abroad is still difficult and lacking, so she has to calculate carefully.
Especially when 2 children were born. The cost of raising the children is very expensive, so every Tet holiday, just thinking about airfare, I immediately withdrew that idea. If the whole family goes back and forth, the cost of two-way airfare is about 30 million VND, not including gifts, visits and other expenses," Ms. Thinh shared.
Ms. Thinh said, it's not that she can't afford money for the whole family to go home for Tet, but if she goes home, where will she get money after Tet to pay for her children's tuition, where will she get money for the whole family's living expenses? Therefore, every time her mother urges her to take her children home for Tet, she has to promise next year, although she knows for sure that promise is difficult to fulfill. Next year, another promise next year...
If you don't promise, you can't, but if you promise, it becomes empty promise," Ms. Thinh said blankly, feeling really guilty for lying to her mother.
Every year at the end of the year, every time she goes on the road, seeing people packing luggage to prepare to return to their hometown, her tears suddenly flow out, missing her hometown, missing her mother in a sadness that few can share. She remembers the scene of the whole family wrapping banh chung, remembering the time of picking up old cilantro to sell at the market, earning money for Tet spending. She has completely forgotten the sweet cold feeling of the North at the end of the year.
Many times calling, her mother suggested selling the house to return to her hometown to live. At those times, she didn't know how to tell her that she had gone too far to return. In a foreign land, her family already has a house, although small, it is also a place to shelter from the sun and rain, the children are going to school, if she returns now, she must start over. Moreover, she has a job with social insurance, she tries to maintain her job so that she will have a pension when she gets old. At such times, she doesn't dare to promise empty words, nor does she know how to tell her mother, so that she understands the suffering in her heart...
Ms. Thinh's story had to be unfinished because the car had arrived at her house in Hung Yen. "Everyone, Thinh has returned", someone exclaimed. Ms. Ngo Thi Tuyet - Ms. Thinh's mother - hurriedly went out into the alley. The two mothers and daughters cried together, hugging each other in the moment of reunion. All day today, when she heard the news that her daughter was about to return, Ms. Tuyet sat and stood restless, going out of the alley and back into the house waiting for her daughter...
In a small, simple but neat, clean house, Ms. Tuyet recounted that she was very sad that her daughter had not been able to return to her hometown for Tet for decades, "but she had to endure it, what could she do". Many nights she lay crying for her daughter who was away to earn a living, life must still be difficult...
Although the joy is not complete when her son-in-law and eldest grandson celebrate Tet in the South and cannot return together, Mrs. Tuyet feels healthier when her daughter and youngest grandson are by her side. She smiles, talks, asks about her son, and sometimes tears well up again. She and her daughter will celebrate Tet warmly this year, wrapping banh chung together like in the old days.
Ms. Thinh thanked the trade union organization for supporting air tickets so that her and her children could return to their hometown for Tet. "I hope the program will continue to be implemented in the following years so that workers far from home like us have the opportunity to reunite with our families at the end of the year after days away from home to earn a living," Ms. Thinh expressed.
