Female huckster is superwoman

It is early morning, clear and sunny. A familiar women’s cry echoes down the lane. She sells sticky rice. That women is a huckster who moved to Saigon from a far away area like many other hucksters in this city.

Ms. Hien with her sticky rice in a early morning. Photo: Vân An

A day working

Mrs. Hien is 54 years old and moved from Thái Bình to HCMC in 2004 and has worked as a huckster since then. She sells sticky rice on an old bicycle every day.

Three o’clock is the fixed time for her to get up and prepare ingredients for the morning. Normally, she sells from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Therefore, she has breakfast before 7 a.m. and the cost does not usually exceed $10,000 VND. After taking a break, she continues to prepare new ingredients for the evening. She keeps selling until there is no sticky rice left. On average, she sells 8 kg of sticky rice a day in her journey around Tân Bình market.

After a long day, she returns to her guest room, has dinner and goes to bed as soon as possible. Opening her eyes every morning starts a new cycle.

Fifteen years have been enough for her to make friends with her customers living in the lanes. A woman smiles and talks to me: “I usually buy her sticky rice because it is so yummy, convenient and cheap. She is also so friendly and almost each day I see her with her bicycle.”

In her hometown, the residents are farmers, and they just work during a fixed season, so the rest of year they are free. With two daughters and one son, she cannot make any headway on her finances. Mrs. Hien decided to move to HCMC with a need to find more income.

“I decided not to share a guest room with other people because I did not want to affect them. I have to wake up at 3 a.m. and the room is too small to make my roomate comfortable. That means I have to spend more,” she said.

Hope

Aloneness: being away from family when they are sick, her older parents, paying children’s school fees are all worries that are put on her shoulder every day. Burdens.

She said that the erratic weather in Saigon has caused many troubles for her. For example, sunlight in the morning and rain in the afternoon makes the food get stale easily. That means that on days like that, she will lose her investment.

“Sometimes, I want to cry loudly. A pot was still full of sticky rice because of the heavy rain yesterday. I just wanted to throw the entire thing,” she said. But after crying a lot, she brushes away her tears, smiles and continues working hard because of her children’s future. She knows that there is only 1 year left before her son will go to the university.

She will still work hard day after day whether it is sunny or rainy. She cannot find another suitable job, and her children need money to go to school. So she will still keep hope.

In the early morning, the old bicycle still rides through lanes, and the active voice still echoes, selling the sticky rice.