After 8 pm, the dilapidated worker dormitory in the suburbs of Hanoi began to become red. Le Thi Lan (25 years old, garment worker) carried a bag of water spinach and a few pieces of tofu and hurriedly walked back to her room. The young girl's dinner was only simple, even though the company had just transferred her monthly salary today.
Looking at the figure of more than 8 million VND displayed on the phone screen after days of overtime to exhaustion, Lan did not think about buying herself a new shirt or changing a bottle of run-down skin cream.
She quickly operated, transferring 5 million VND directly to her mother's account in her hometown of Lang Son, along with a message: "This money is kept by my mother separately to pay tuition fees at the beginning of the year for youngest Nam, if there is any shortage, I will send it next month, absolutely do not let him drop out of school".
Nam, Lan's youngest brother, just passed the 2026 high school graduation exam with a score of 27.5. On the day of knowing the score, the whole small neighborhood was buzzing with congratulations, but in the dilapidated level-4 house, Nam hid behind the kitchen crying.
He felt sorry for his parents who were sick today and sick tomorrow, and for his older sister who went to work far away from home and endured food and clothing, so he hesitated and wanted to apply to work as a worker to earn money to support his family.
Knowing this, Lan called home that night, with a determined voice: "My task now is to enter university. I have interrupted my studies, no matter how hard it is, I can handle it, but you have to study for my part".
Years ago, when Lan received the admission notice to a college, it was also when her family fell into poverty because storms and floods swept away crops, and her father became seriously ill.
Without a word of complaint, the 18-year-old girl that year quietly put away her textbooks, packed a few sets of old clothes and went straight to the industrial park.
Lan's seven years of youth were associated with the sound of sewing machines, sleepless night shifts and rushed meals in the rented room area. All those sweaty money were saved up and sent back to her hometown to carry medicine for her father and raise her younger brother to study well.
The story of the Lan - Nam sisters is not uncommon in industrial parks with a large concentration of unskilled labor.
In cramped, damp boarding houses, there are so many older brothers and sisters quietly putting aside personal dreams to support their younger siblings.
In poor working families, blood ties are not only limited to blood ties, but also sharing and leniency to the point of heartbreak.
Those who came before accept disadvantage, taking their thin backs as a solid launching pad, shielding the next generation from the storms of poverty.
They understand that only the path of education can help them escape the vicious circle of hardship, not have to repeat tiring work shifts like them.
