At the age of 89, when many artists of the same generation have retired or chosen a retirement life, artist Hong Sap still regularly goes to work to earn income. For her, having enough health to work is already precious.
Sharing with reporters, the female artist currently lives in a rented room in Ho Chi Minh City with her nephew. Her income mainly comes from the job of looking after costumes for the Huynh Long Cai Luong troupe of artist Binh Tinh. However, recently, the troupe has few performance schedules, so the work has also become precarious, making her worried.
However, Hong Sap has never thought about completely resting. She said she is still healthy, walks normally and always hopes to have the opportunity to continue working.
Love for art also helps the female artist not miss any invitations.
She said that working in the troupe does not have a fixed salary, however, the artists all take care of her. Each month she can earn about 3 million to cover living expenses.
She said that artist Binh Tinh - Head of Huynh Long troupe also cared for and took care of her life.
With filming salaries, the crew gives her as much as she receives. She exemplified that when filming the horror movie "One Candle of Incense" by director and actor Huynh Lap, she was paid a salary of 5 million VND.
The income is not large but enough for her to pay for rent and cover living expenses for a period of time. The rest, she uses to buy food for the two grandmothers and grandchildren.
For Hong Sap, the important thing is not the cat-xe level but to continue standing in front of the camera, to live with the profession he pursued throughout his life.
Artist Hong Sap followed her parents from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City when she was only 8 years old. At the age of 14, she began to step on stage as an illustrative dancer before becoming a familiar face of Ho Quang Cai Luong.
Throughout her career spanning more than seven decades, she made her mark with many unique and flirtatious roles in plays such as "Tam Cam", "Love Story of A Nang", "Lưu Kim Đính", "Thunder rises, hating poetry" or "Two Mother's Milk Lines". In particular, Cam's mother role once made the audience hate her to the point of threatening "if I meet her in real life, I will beat her", becoming a memorable memory in her professional life.
Looking back at the past journey, Hong Sap admits that sometimes she feels sad when many colleagues of the same era have a fuller and more famous life. However, she always believes that each person has their own destiny and has never complained about life.
What moves many people is that although life is still difficult, the female artist still maintains an optimistic spirit. She only hopes to have enough health to continue working, to meet colleagues and audiences.
At nearly 90 years old, Hong Sap has not thought about entering the Artists' Nursing Home. According to her, many artists living here have lost their ability to work or their health has declined significantly, while she herself is still lucid, able to walk and wants to take care of her own life.
Besides, she is used to a free and simple life, so she is afraid that it will be difficult to adapt if she moves to a collective living environment.
After nearly 90 years of life and more than 70 years of attachment to the stage, Hong Sap's desire is not title or fame. Her biggest wish is only to have enough health to continue working, living peacefully every day.
