After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not coming home is not done | Lifetime



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When they started working together in Saigon, Mr. Phan Chi Tam (46, from Tay Ninh) and Ms. Nguyen Thi Than (44, from Phu Tho) faced many difficulties, but at that time they could still turn around. . Now, after 11 years as a worker, now losing his job, you don’t know how to turn it around. 7 net months of unemployment is also 7 months in which husband and wife apply for jobs everywhere, but are criticized wherever they go and refuse to accept them.

“Who hires now over 40 years?”

In May 2020, the company announced the dissolution, everyone quit their job, leading to Ms. Than’s collapse, because this was the job that helped her stay in Saigon for 11 years. Unfortunately, he turned to recruitment agencies to get unskilled workers to apply for new jobs, but only received shakes.

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not coming home is not done - photo 1

Unemployment, financial pressure makes you reduce all your expenses

Ms. Than said: “In some places, they ask for recruitment to be reduced, others criticize old age. Now people are recruiting workers under the age of 25, but I am 44 years old, how can I be as productive as children? No way, just go ask every day like this. “

To make it through the day, whoever hired her to do it, from housework to packing Tet’s gifts, to being on her feet working hard for 12 hours packing instant noodles, she also agreed. But each job can only be done 2-3 days, then leave it for the end.

Her husband, Tam, who is a bricklayer, but encounters the epidemic season, has fewer jobs, has a daily income, also falls into unemployment, then works as a laborer, crashes something, who hires something to do. As long as you are honest and earn money.

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not going home is not done - photo 2

Home and school fees for your children are loans that must be borrowed no matter how poor they are.

“Every day, the couple also asked everywhere to see if there was a place that needed someone to work, what day or that day. Now, anyone who hires workers over 40, I can do whatever I can, I can do it with difficulties but I don’t have a job to do. Night came to take care of my children’s school fees, the boarding school fee, but I couldn’t sleep. I’ve never seen a dead end, the pressure of money, ”shared Mr. Tam.

Not a penny in your pocket

The room is only 8mtwo Your brothers and sisters are so hot, just enough to fit in the bed, the old TV is given by the neighbors, the clothes are hanging from the head, making the space more claustrophobic, the kitchen should also lead to the wet patio for cooking. Cook. On the four moldy walls there are girls’ writings.

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not going home is not done - photo 3

One day a friend loaned Mr. Tam to drive a motorcycle taxi technology, but he came to pick up the customer and found that the car was too damaged, the customer canceled the trip and refused to go.

Pointing to the refrigerator with the neighbor’s name to buy in installment payment a few years ago, Ms. Than said that 11 years in Saigon was the home’s biggest asset. The neighbors know that he and his wife are unemployed, so they often cook some leftover food to take with them so they can put up with after 7 months without work or work.

Losing her job, but her daughter’s rents and school fees are still approaching 5 million a month. The money for vegetables and herbs for the day they buy is insufficient in the stores near the house, while the rice store is far from the rented room, so they have to pay, they cannot borrow. You have to borrow this place and cover another place. As long as you have a job with money, you will pay the debt so that you can borrow it the next day. Fortunately, there are many loving friends and neighbors …

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not going home is not done - photo 4

The patio is used as a kitchen.

Since they had no money, they cut their own breakfast, each meal only had stir-fry dishes and soup with water. Ms. Than confided: “A husband and wife can eat whatever they want, but they must try to give their child an egg or some meat so that he learns, but eating vegetables is impossible to bear.”

The pressure of money caused him and his wife to stay up many nights, they ate irregularly, and their health deteriorated. A few days ago, Mr. Tam was anemic and it went to the brain and passed out. Ms. Than had to hurry up and borrow money from neighbors to take to the emergency room and buy medicine. Pointing to the kit with the words messy, Ms. Than said “this loan has not been paid yet.”
After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not coming home is not done - photo 5

The neighbor had just lent him and his wife VND 500,000 to buy rice when they found out that they had not a dollar left in their pocket.

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not going home is not done - photo 6

The food is watered down

“When the school sends me a notice to pay my children’s tuition, I feel impatient, I can’t sleep, I don’t know how to have money to pay the tuition tomorrow, so I have to think tomorrow about borrowing Mr. A or Mr. B. My life has failed, learning, already ignorant, so if my son is ignorant, I will be guilty for him. We have to give him lyrics so that we can do something less miserable in the future for a living, ”said Tam.

During the last half year, Mr. Tam has done many jobs, from loading, digging, digging foundations, transporting iron … he can do everything he does. One day, they loaned an app to an acquaintance to drive a motorcycle taxi technology, but he came to pick up the customer and discovered that the car was too damaged, so they also canceled the trip. Either way, he runs around looking for construction jobs to find work. But only a few days, then without work, he was unemployed. He kept calling, driving to find work.

Find a way out for me, but I still can’t find a way out.

10 years have passed, they have not returned to their hometown for Tet and they have not returned to their hometown for 3 years, even though they are less than 100 km from Saigon. In telling this story, Ms. Than sobbed: “I miss Tet holidays in the country so much, but the money doesn’t come home. Staying here, they don’t buy anything, every year we have money to buy a packet of cakes to light incense sticks, eat husband and wife and children. I feel sorry for wanting to cry, but life goes on.

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not coming home is not done - photo 7

The medicines were loaned by neighbors to buy them the day they returned from the emergency room, so far they have not had money to pay

After Tet, unemployed due to Covid translation: Deadlock in Saigon, not coming home is not done - photo 8

Thinking hard, but the more I think, the more I can’t find a way out for myself.

Mr. Tam also said that when Tet arrives, his brothers and sisters will call him to ask him to take their whole family home to celebrate Tet, but he keeps begging year after year, just because he is so poor. The brothers who had work to come to Sài Gòn and visit his pension couldn’t help but advise him to go home, but he just smiled and shook his head.

“If I have a house in the country, I will try to go home, now I return to live with my brothers and sisters. I am afraid that when there are happy moments, when there is a conflict, the brothers do not speak out loud.” . That is my brother but my sister-in-law, then my wife and children. Now I am an older brother and I go out struggling to find a way out for myself, but I still can’t find a way out. I can’t go home, but if I am unemployed like that I will always die … ”, he sighed.




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