Chia Buồn

By Hanh Tran, KF8 – Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW) – Vietnam

I never leave home without my camera these days. But there are many instances when I fail to pull it out in time to capture some of the interesting things I pass on the street everyday.

Then there are times when I am tired of filming or when I capture a moment on video and find myself debating what I should do with it. When you are interviewing people each day and they trust you with their stories, it’s a great privilege – and at times overwhelming. I had one of these moments last week.

Chief Credit Officers, Ms. Ha, whom I’ve grown very fond of, and Ms. Hanh gave me instructions to meet them at Nuoc Mam Thanh Huong for a borrower meeting. This is the area where the popular brand of nuoc mam (fish sauce) is made in Thanh Hoa. I hopped onto a Xe Om (motorbike) and told the driver to take me there. I knew immediately when we had reached the vicinity of our final destination…distinct harsh and pungent whiffs of fermented fish floated through the heavy, humid air. Nuoc mam is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. I grew up eating many meals with nuoc mam, and still, the scent is too strong for me. I was glad that I had recently caved in and bought a facemask to avoid breathing in the dusty Thanh Hoa air…and in this case, the strong fermented fish odor.

Ms. Ha flagged me down from the side of the road and led me to a small house with a front room that doubled as a garage. A small white car took up the majority of the space so we huddled on red plastic stools in a corner. Several members in this group sell nuoc mam and shrimp sauce (mam tom), including Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh. Through the other borrowers, I learned that Ms. Thanh had passed away several months ago. After the meeting ended, Ms. Ha and I walked two blocks to Ms. Thanh’s fish sauce stand and met her daughter, Ms. Huong. She is now managing her mother’s fish sauce stand and will be responsible for paying back the loan from FPW.

Ms. Huong agreed to be filmed for an interview. I pulled out the Flip and began asking my usual questions…
What was the loan money spent on? Purchasing fish sauce for resale at the market.
How much are your profits? One jug of fish sauce brings in a profit of 5,000 VND ($0.18 USD). On a good day, Ms. Huong can sell 10 liters a day for a total profit of 50,000 VND ($3 USD).
How many people are in your family? Ms. Huong has a 6-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter who is currently attending university in Hanoi.

…and so it went….until the final question: what are your dreams for the future?

This is what she says…

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Then, Ms. Huong’s eyes became soft with sadness. This completely caught me by surprise. Dreams usually generate smiles. She looked away and told me that her family has encountered much hardship since the passing of her mother. Her mother received a monthly retirement stipend of 1,300,000 VND ($76 USD). With a strong belief that education would draw their family out of poverty, Ms. Huong’s mother dedicated all of her retirement stipend and some of her profits from the nuoc mam stand to pay for her granddaughter’s university fees. Ms. Huong said that it has been difficult to pay for the children’s school fees with only one salary – she is concerned about their future. I could see through these words that it was the memory of her mother combined with the family’s current financial struggles that brought tears to Ms. Huong’s eyes. I turned off the camera. I could not imagine grieving the loss of a parent and worrying about how the loss will impact family finances at the same time. It must feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

Chia buồn is a Vietnamese saying that means, “to share sadness.” The words are said in a low tone and the phrase itself sounds sad. In Vietnam, people will offer to share another person’s grief and sadness. Chia buồn. My imagination tells me it’s like splitting up the cloud of sadness into puzzle pieces and distributing them across the universe, until the pain no longer exists. Of course, that is not reality. Despite anyone offering to chia buồn, Ms. Huong’s sadness, just like yours and mine, cannot be easily delegated to others. I suppose then, it’s more of a reminder to someone that they are not alone and that in the bigger picture, we are all one people. Then perhaps, stories that connect us to one another, no matter the distance, help us chia buồn.

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