Among the Things No One Wants to Remember
In late 2023, Iāa guy with a background in technical trainingāleft my hometown with nothing but a head full of dreams and a heart pounding with hope. I believed that once I escaped that old, greasy workshop, away from the sound of dying machines screeching every time I adjusted the spindle speed, life would be different. I thought moving to Saigon would light up my future like LED signs on high-rise buildings. But reality hit me like a bucket of cold water in the middle of winter.
I arrived in the dazzling city on a hot afternoon just before Lunar New Year 2024. The bus stopped at the last station. The sun was scorching, the air thick with smoke and the roar of motorbikes. Towering buildings glinted in the sunlight like burning blades. The streets were packed, horns blaring, voices overlapping in the frantic rhythm of a city that never rests. I thought I had stepped into a new chapterābut it turned out to be the most draining days of my life.
The first job I landed was as a security guard at a vegetarian food factory in District 12. The pay wasnāt great, but it included meals and a place to stayājust enough to get by. The factory sat at the end of a narrow alley, next to a thick, black canal that reeked like an unhealed scar on the cityās face. In the morning, garbage floated on the surface. In the afternoon, the stench of rotting mud mixed with heat made you nauseous even on an empty stomach. Thatās when I realized: Saigon wasnāt all bright lights.
My rental was in a makeshift housing area, patched together with rusted tin and leftover bricks. The roof was corroded, the walls stained with old rainwater. During the dry season, it baked like an oven. When it rained, the water leaked from bed to stove. The well water had a foul, animal-decay smell. Brushing my teeth or washing my face felt like torture. Some mornings, Iād ask myself if I was living in a pitāwhere people merely squeezed in to survive, not to live.
My neighbors were all kinds of people: addicts, gamblers, street thugs cast off by the city. Every night, the air filled with a chaotic symphony of shouting, crying children, and the static hum of old TVs playing game shows. At first, I couldnāt sleep. Then I got used to it. I kept telling myself: just a few months, then Iāll move out. But those āfew monthsā stretched on, endlessly.
Across the hall was LĆ¢m āScarāāa former convict who now hauled crates at a wholesale market, living day to day. There was NhĆ n, a widowed mother of three, who worked as a housemaid from dawn till night. And old Kha, abandoned by his children, surviving on scraps and recyclables, his gaze always distant. These werenāt people livingāthey were surviving, like weeds clinging to cracked pavement.
I once saw a shirtless guy smash his ex-girlfriendās door with a knife in his hand, driven by jealousy and drugs. The police came, then left, like a passing breeze. No one was arrested. No one cared. By morning, the man was still there, as if nothing had happened. Fear here is wrapped in silenceāand poverty is the reason no one dares speak.
I also witnessed a lottery ticket vendor dragged into a dark corner by the canal, where the streetlights didnāt reach. No one called the police. No one asked questions. The next day, she was back out selling tickets, steady steps, dry eyes. The poor here learn to swallow their painābecause no one believes them, and no one has the strength to protect anyone else.
The row of ten rental rooms was like ten separate worlds, sealed tight. We lived like isolated islands, only acknowledging each other when there was a fight or a clash. Most of the time, we avoided eye contact, avoided involvement.
But amidst that battered world, I met someone who shone like a small flame in the darkāUncle TĆ”m. He wasnāt old, but his back was hunched. He collected bottles and cans like old Kha. One time, I got sick and lay curled up in my room, hungry and shivering. He brought over a bowl of plain porridge and a bottle of medicated oil. He said, āWhen youāre at the bottom, donāt trample each other just to survive, son.ā
I said nothing. My throat tightenedānot because of the food, but because, for the first time since coming here, someone called me āson.ā
In this layer of society, no one talks about the future. They just hope they donāt get sick, donāt get fired, and donāt die alone. Uncle TĆ”m reminded me: even among the rubble, kindnessāsmall as a matchstickācan warm someone through a long night.
I still donāt know where Iāll go next. But one thingās certain: Iāll never forget this stretch of time. Because itās where I truly learned what it means to liveānot in an optimistic way, but in a raw, bruised, and honest way.
Life here offers no promisesājust one more day, and maybe not even that. There were moments I felt like a leaf falling in a stormāunnoticed, stepped on. But in the midst of these so-called ābottom dwellers,ā I learned how to bow my head without losing my dignity, how to hold onto what little humanity I had left.
The lower class isnāt a place for lofty dreams. Itās a place of harsh realitiesābare, painful, yet suffocatingly real. Itās a place where a clean bucket of water, a gentle gaze, or a quiet āsonā can mean the world.
I once longed to leave this place in search of something better. But now I understand: some things arenāt beautiful because of where they areābut because of how we survive the ugliest days. And sometimes, even in the filthiest mud, a seed of humanity still manages to sproutāquietly but stubbornly, like the people who live here.
