Owning a house in Ha Noi is a dream of most of immigrants in this city. The price of houses in the city center is even more expensive than in Hong Kong, Paris, or London. Even if you spend most of the life time earning money, it might be not enough to buy a house.
How much does the tea seller take to start her business? To sell teas, she occupies the foot of a tree in a street where there are a lot of companies. She has some thermos which holds the hot water, some buckets of ice, several kilograms of dry teas and a lot of glasses. The money needed to open this sidewalk shop is not enough to buy a 50ml bottle of Miss Dior perfume.
At first her only customers were the staff members of my company. And then, with the growth of other new companies on the street, the number of her customers gradually increased. They drink iced tea in the morning, a newspaper in one hand. They also drink tea after lunch, or at odd moments of the day. From the foot of one tree, she extended her “restaurant” to two, and then three, trees. She now has several assistants—her sister and her children. They help her serve the customers during “rush hour”. She also creates an opportunity for several other street vendors, who sell newspapers and shoe shines to the people drinking the tea. Most of these vendors are in the same boat. They live in cheap rental houses. .
One fine day, after 30 years of selling tea, the woman said to me: “I’ve just bought a new house.” Her dream had at last come true.
I know that during all that time, she never thought once about a bottle of perfume.
The tea seller is just one lucky person out of the 250,000 new immigrants who arrive in Hanoi each year. I don’t know a lot of other stories like hers. But I know many people who migrate from rural areas to this busy city to earn money. Most of them are not as lucky as the tea seller. They barely dare to dream about a big meal, let alone a house. But they sacrifice their lives for the next generation. They send money home. That money is used to repair rural houses and send the children to school.
Is a brighter color emerging in the picture of immigration and integration in Hanoi?
Should I quit my job and open a sidewalk ice tea shop?
