With resilience through days of tears, that hand with a disability still opens to hope, lighting for herself and for others a flame of life, creativity and dedication.
Only by listening to this woman open her heart can one see that being able to study, work and contribute like an ordinary person is truly difficult. For many reasons, her schooling was put aside halfway through grade 11 (at Nguyen Trai High School, Ngai Giao town, Ba Ria-Vung Tau), and she entered a temple to practise her faith. Four years later, it was her longing to study properly that brought the schoolgirl Vuong Thien Nga (born 1976), originally from Quang Nam, back to life, to accept it and throw herself into it.
She stayed at the drinks stall of a fellow believer, going to school in the morning and in the afternoon carrying a tray of banh tieu and smoothies, following the bus from Tan Thanh up to Long Thanh and back to sell them. She was admitted to Dong Nai Teacher Training College, but halfway through her third year, when her classmates were assigned to schools for their teaching practice, she was suspended, on the grounds that her disability – writing with her left hand – did not guarantee her teaching ability! She begged the college leaders, promising that after graduation she would go back to teach at a school for children with disabilities, but to no avail. In despair, she wandered out to the sea, her steps going on and on… intending never to return.
Coming to her senses and thinking that she had to live, she decided to cycle towards Saigon.
She could not find work, and the little money she had with her ran out. She began selling lottery tickets and… writing poetry. One fine day in 2000, joy burst out: her poems, under the pen name Vuong Chi Lan, were accepted by a newspaper. Holding the 80,000 VND fee from the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Literature and Arts newspaper, she was truly moved.
“After that, my mother sold some land to give me money to buy a motorbike. With a bike, finding work was no easier. I became the girl who rode a motorbike taxi for the women poets before I knew it. I went to poetry clubs, joined in, and went up to read my poems… Life drifted along, the motorbike taxi rides had no fixed price – people gave what they gave. I decided that was just to get through the day. What mattered was a trade to support myself and look after my mother”.
To make a start, she worked as an assistant at a fashion shop, learning from the owner how to design printed patterns on clothes, make films, and work with embroidery thread, beads and fabric… “I am passionate about design and printing; I dreamed of tapping away on a keyboard. When I worked in distribution for a newspaper, I picked up computing on the sly while friends taught me more. Then I saved up to buy my own computer, found books on graphic design and read them over and over, understanding some things and not others… making a complete mess of it!”.
Also during this period, she met a group of friends who made comics. They treated her like a younger sister and helped her earn a living by making cards, menus and simple printing. Once she felt a little more secure, she began to think about helping others.
She set up the Pink Heart group, bringing together many poor friends with disabilities to lean on and help one another. The group worked quietly, selling boxes of cards, order books and gluing each chopstick wrapper by hand. She taught her friends computing with everything she had. After a few years, Pink Heart “grew into” a company.
Friends from the provinces heard about it and came to study, and parents sent their children with severe disabilities too. She provided food, accommodation, study, work and wages for her 15 staff, with the sympathy of someone who had been through so many hardships in life. At times the company was in such difficulty that it seemed it would have to close. To increase income, she opened a clothes shop as well. Now things are stable for the time being, and she occasionally goes with benefactors to do charity work and keeps on… writing poetry!
Tran Huy Minh Phuong – http://plo.vn