You may only have a vague notion of poverty because you were not born and brought up in any hardship. However, you may also have been granted a warm heart, enabling you to be touched by some life stories; and an open mind to learn from peoples’ experiences. Experiences within poverty are not just sad stories told by sweat and tears; but rather, fairy tales of life that illustrate how miraculously man can struggle and win over their unlucky situations. It is the strong will of those who can “turn life’s lemons into lemonade” that is most respected and appreciated.
Le Thi Thai Ha, a twenty-two year-old gifted student of the Foreign Languages College, National University of Vietnam, is one of the examples I have known. Little did I hear of her life before, but I understand how hard her life has been since she caught a refractory disease. Medical treatments and worries about living have accompanied Thai Ha all through her pursuance of “academic excellence,” as she said. Coming back to university after a one-year treatment, Thai Ha is now sharing her story…
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Experiences have granted me a new life. It all began with my first-hand experience with poverty at the age of 7. My father, a businessman and a professor at a famous university in Hanoi suddenly went bankrupt. All of our property was mortgaged to pay his loan, and we had to leave the capital for our hometown, a mountainous, remote hamlet in the poorest province of Vietnam. My beloved Hanoi was left behind. Now, what I saw was a ramshackle cottage with a dilapidated thatched roof. It was so quiet that I could hear insects chirping and the wind blowing through the garden every night. There was only well water. Oil lamps replaced light bulbs because there was no electricity. Meals had less meat, but more vegetables and salt.
The first and most dramatic twist of my life was influential in shaping my personality. Despite those unexpected changes, nostalgia for my previous comfortable life didn't prevent me from opening my mind to new ideas. Witnessing all the hardships of life at an early age, I also had an irresistible desire to get out of the hard life my family was grappling with.
As a child, I began helping my parents do farm work by following them to rice paddies, learning to sow rice seeds and transplant rice seedlings into muddy soil. At that time, as machines were not available, all of our onerous farm work tasks were done by manual labor with only a cow, a wooden rake and a material plough. On sun-drenched days when drought chapped the paddy fields, my mother and I had to take water in from a lake by using a four-string bucket. Lao wind, a typical hot wind in Central Vietnam, scratched my face. I bathed in sweat, but did not feel tired. Gazing at the young rice plants gently moving in the wind, I felt satisfied to see them grow quickly day by day. At the end of the harvest crop, I cut them down and plucked rice cereals from their ears. The sweet smell of the rice now still remains intoxicating in my mind. The experience with farm work in my early childhood helped me understand the power of labor. I began to realize that I had the ability to produce my own food by my skillful hands, and that I had enough power to turn life’s lemons into lemonade under any circumstance.
At age 11, I had a hair-raising job: snake-hunting. Every night, at 9 o’clock, my brother and I departed from one place, and then went on in two different directions to hunt snakes. The first time was not easy for me. When I was on ill-lit roads, the images of ghosts haunted my mind and made me walk fast as if I were running. Suddenly, in the light of my porch, I saw a big snake on a branch of a tree. My spine was tingled at the thought of touching such a horrible creature. "To catch or not to catch," the decision was up to me. Like always, surrendering would never be my choice. When my hands touched the snake’s skin, a strange feeling was aroused in my heart: it was half scared and half happy. After I had carefully put the snake into my bag, an irresistible sense of satisfaction swept through my heart as if I had just won a towering victory. I named this gumption a “snake-in-bag" attitude.
With a wish to reduce my parents’ burden, one year later, I secretly started earning money by peddling ice creams. In summer, I bought ice creams from a factory to sell on a train. My goal was to sell as many ice creams as possible. So, I hawked ice creams not only on the stuffy and noisy train, but also in some crowded towns where the train stopped. After the back train had brought me home, whilst other peddlers took a rest, I continued hawking ice creams in some crowded areas of my town. Sometimes, people refused to buy, but I did not give up. I continued calling out so loud to advertise my ice creams that my voice almost became hoarse. I came to each person, trying to persuade him or her to buy my ice creams. Each ice cream sold fueled me with energy to head on despite the scorching summer days and the sun-baked roads. I will never forget the invigorating joy when I held the very first money I had earned on my own. The first trade not only trained me to become more persistent and determined, but also revealed the business acumen I unknowingly possessed as a child.
A new chapter of my life opened when I returned to study in Hanoi at the age of 14. I received admission to one of the best schools in Vietnam. Unfortunately, I contracted a refractory disease, which cost me a five-year rigorous treatment in different hospitals from North to South afterwards. Financial difficulties piled up when my father’s health deteriorated and he had to undergo six operations. However, the "snake-in-bag" attitude urged me to make continuous endeavors. By spending many hours studying hard even on the hospital’s bed or when doing part-time work, I continued to excel as the best student of the school.
My efforts paid off. In 2003, I was one of the top-five in the national entrance exam to university. Articles about me were published in more than ten newspapers and on the internet. Since then, I have received thousands of letters from people of different ages from many provinces in Vietnam and abroad. I felt deeply touched when some people even shared with me their sad stories and said that I had instilled courage and ambition in them. The fact that I have become some people’s inspiration in their hard lives, in turn, has encouraged me to try harder to live up to their expectations.
Now, I am looking forward to a future filled with hopes and promises. Undergoing many adversities since my childhood, I fully understand the meaning of POVERTY. For my own life, I will try to eradicate my family’s poverty and make up for all the hardships they have endured. I want to dig into the realm of business to unlock the economic principles, which once made my father fail and put us into poverty. I am dedicated to bringing a better life to my people, especially those who are now suffering from abject poverty like me. In the long run, with deep knowledge of business and commerce, I wish to contribute to the development of my country.
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