There’s a relatively new phenomenon in Vietnam – kids decide they must move out of the family home and learn how to ‘stand on their own feet.’
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They are mostly university students from well-off families. Their living conditions are ideal and their allowances ample. And yet they resolve to move out, to stay away from parents and earn their own living.
Thuy Huong, a student of
Others might envy Huong’s life. Huong, however, is fed up with her ‘perfect’ existence. “Everything is predictable, monotonous, without purpose,” she says. After three days of deep thought, Huong has decided to hire a room to live separately.
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Hoang Tu is a student at the Australian-run university, RMIT. He had a part time job as website designer for an IT company from which earned four or five million dong a month. However, Tu was always out of pocket at months-end and he found he was always asking for some more money from his parents.
“Because I lived with my parents, I did not have to think about how I should spend money. I decided to live separately to learn how to spend money,” he said.
Thuy Tram hopes to continue her studies abroad when she graduates from the Hanoi Open University. She aims to become independent and learn to earn money to feed herself, so that she can manage herself when she goes abroad.
Four students, each from a different background and with different motivations. But each eagerly shoulders his or her backpack and leaves home with this belief: my life of freedom begins today!
The itinerary of becoming independent
Becoming independent isn’t as easy as they thought. After a week of searching, Huy was hired at an assistant in a bakery. Every night, he works hard from 10 pm until 3 am, so that new loaves can be delivered to customers at 4:30. For five hours’ work, he earns 40,000 dong.
Huong works as a waitress for a café near her university. She’s on her feet five hours every day. They blister in the evening after she returns to her rented room.
She’s had to get used to hard work and rude jokes by clients at the café. Her wages are just enough to cover room rent, electricity and water bills
Hoang Tu has had to think carefully how he should use his wages from his part-time IT job. Though Tu tried to practice thrift, once he ran out of money for meals and he had to live on instant noodles for one long week.
The price of becoming independent
Before leaving home, another Huong, Nguyen Huong of
Huong believed that two million dong would be enough for her each month. She’d spend a million on the rent, while the other one million dong would be spent on meals, while she will be seeking job.
Huong thought that it would take her one week at most to find a job. However, she didn’t find one, and ran out of money. Finally, Huong decided to return home to live with parents
Becoming independent – and growing up
After three months of living independently, a sobered Thuy Huong and Quang Huy decided to return home.
Huy is studying hard for the TOEFL exam, hoping to win a scholarship for training. He’s still working at the bakery, too, as an unpaid accountant. “Thanks to it (the bakery), I have become the person I am today,” Huy said.
Meanwhile, Huong has gotten a promotion – she’s a supervisor at the café. “Now I know what I want and what I need to do. I feel my life has become more significant,” she said.
Meanwhile, Thuy Tram and Hoang Tu are still following the way they have chosen for themselves: staying independent. Tu visited his parents a month after he left home, bringing gifts to both mother and father. Tram is now confident that she’ll be able to manage herself well if she goes to study in a strange land.
VietNamNet/SVVN
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