After retiring, People's Artist Thanh Hoa left the city and lived in a family of suburbs in Hanoi.
She and her husband, artist Ton That Loi, built a house together to rest and take care of the garden on a piece of land of more than 1,000 square meters, of which the garden area accounts for 930 square meters.
Sharing with Lao Dong reporter, People's Artist Thanh Hoa talked about the life of a player with many joys but also many "half-crying, half-laughing" incidents.
"When we first had the garden, my husband and I raised fish in ponds. But the fish are not seen, only the mosquito is raised. We filled the pond to plant grass. I bought grass in Hungary and brought it back to plant but it was not increased. After that, I decided to switch to growing vegetables and fruits.
However, due to the lack of farming techniques, many types of trees do not grow. I keep figureing out how to grow vegetables and fruits, and buy big plants to grow in the garden. I don't understand why our gardens can only grow sour fruits, which are very bad, and sweet fruits cannot be grown," said People's Artist Thanh Hoa.
In her free time, People's Artist Thanh Hoa went to the garden to water the plants and enjoy the fresh air. She likes roses and revealed that she spent nearly 100 million VND to replant this flower with many different varieties of roses.
After People's Artist Thanh Hoa bought a few trucks of soil to cover the entire garden, the trees began to grow green.
Fruits such as legumes, cherry tomatoes, spinach, papaya, kohlrabi, green vegetables... all grow well in the garden, helping People's Artist Thanh Hoa have a clean and abundant food source.
The garden is also a space for the couple to relax and gather with their children and grandchildren.
People's Artist Thanh Hoa also shared an interesting memory of her youthful life: "I still remember the early days when the first roots of kohlrabi grew up, my husband and I just sat and watched and accepted 'this is mine, this is mine'. Both the grapes and the grapes are not right in fruit, sometimes harvesting 20kg at the same time. My husband joked that the main task of the Hop garden was to let me take photos, and it couldn't be eaten because it was sour".
In addition to vegetables and fruits, People's Artist Thanh Hoa and her husband also grow many types of flowers such as Southern apricot blossoms, Thai green apricot blossoms, tigon, chrysanthemum, and pink.
People's Artist Thanh Hoa's real name is Nguyen Thi Thanh, born in 1950 and is known as "the singing woman", "the woman whose voice overcomes time".
People's Artist Thanh Hoa started her singing career at the age of 16. After graduating from the Central School of Vietnam Music (now the Vietnam National Academy of Music) in 1970. Later, she became a singer of Liberation Radio (also known secretly as CP-90 Station). The birth of Thanh Hoa is the name of two artists who adopted her as her adopted mother, artists Thanh Hung and Ngoc Hoa.
In 1975, Thanh Hoa went to perform in Truong Son to serve the Ho Chi Minh Campaign. At the end of 1975, she worked at the Voice of Vietnam and remained there until her retirement in 2006.
During her time working at the Voice of Vietnam, she recorded nearly 500 songs, including many famous songs such as "Love of the soil and water", "Con canh ta dao", "Khuc ca ru cua nuong me", "Em chon cach nay", "Giua Mac Tu Khoa nghe cau ho Nghe Tinh"...
