Going abroad is not like a dream

After graduating from high school, Duyen did not go to university but decided to work abroad to broaden her horizons and earn a high income. Since childhood, her family's circumstances were difficult, her father passed away early, her mother had to take care of and raise Duyen and her two sisters alone. Duyen was the oldest so she felt responsible for helping her mother earn a living. Seeing the women in the village go to Japan to work, everyone sent home this amount and that amount to buy land and cars, Duyen believed that she would change her life by going abroad.

After passing the exam on the third try, Duyen eagerly prepared for the day she would board the plane to the "promised land". Duyen's mother had to struggle to pay a large deposit to the labor export company, running around everywhere. Duyen only hoped to go there to do business, quickly pay off her mother's debt, then save up capital so that when her contract ended, she could return home, open a small hair salon, shampoo shop, or open a clothing and shoe store... Duyen had painted a bright future ahead.

But reality is not always like dreams.

When she arrived in Japan, Duyen worked in the food packaging department. There wasn't much work to do to be able to work overtime. Many days, Duyen even got to leave early. Not everyone in the group got along with each other, so many people preferred to eat separately and not interact with each other at all. In the first days in a foreign country, Duyen missed her home and hometown so much that she cried, longing to have a family meal with her mother and siblings, but she couldn't. When video calling her mother, Duyen had to hold back her sighs, still trying to smile, saying: "It's great here, so much fun, Mom! Don't worry about me, Mom." But as soon as she hung up, Duyen burst into tears.

There was not much work, and the currency was depreciating, so Duyen's income was also reduced, not as originally calculated. After deducting food and living expenses, Duyen could only save more than ten million VND per month to send to her mother. If it continued like this, it would be more than a year before she would break even, who knows when she would be rich. Duyen was sad, thoughtful, and frustrated. It turned out that not everyone who went abroad was lucky or rich. Maybe in her hometown, working hard overtime at a company near home, eating her mother's cooking, she could have saved that amount of money. So why did she have to go to a faraway foreign country like this? When she was sick, who could she rely on?

Sure enough, there was a time when Duyen kept getting nosebleeds at night. Frightened and worried, Duyen went to the hospital there for a check-up but couldn't figure out what was wrong. She looked thin, pale, and tired, which made Duyen think of cancer. Her friends from her hometown were getting fat, so they advised Duyen to go home and get a thorough check-up. Duyen was still very young, she couldn't give up. Duyen decided to take a month off, bought a plane ticket back to Vietnam for a general check-up. The doctor concluded that Duyen only had internal heat and sinusitis, so he prescribed medicine. For the whole month, Duyen stayed home to rest, was close to her mother and sister, and ate familiar foods, so she gained weight, her skin was rosy, and she no longer had nosebleeds.

After a month at home, Duyen had a lover in the same neighborhood. The love affair was completely unpredictable. Thanh, who repaired motorbikes, was nearly thirty years old, so when the two developed feelings for each other, Thanh just wanted to "get married right away" and did not want Duyen to go to Japan anymore. But when her leave ended, Duyen still had to go to Japan to finish her contract. This time when she returned to a foreign country, Duyen had a big lump on the back of her hand, not knowing what kind of disease it was. Her lover at home urged her to return home for treatment, thinking that Duyen was not suited to the climate there. So Duyen decided to return home for good, no longer dreaming about getting rich by going abroad.

After discussing it with her mother, Duyen did not want to go abroad anymore. Although the money she earned had not yet broken even, she did not want to experience any more. Thanh's family brought betel and areca nuts to ask for her hand in marriage, so Duyen's mother agreed to let Duyen get married. The future ahead for Duyen would be to be a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law, then to spend time in the fields and gardens, working at a garment factory near home. Suddenly, Duyen felt regretful. If Duyen had woken up sooner, things might have been different. Going abroad does not mean that life will change in a positive direction.