At dusk, we rested at the diner of Dì Chín, which is located on the side of Tan My Market. The market was over, the buyers were sparse. Dì Chín sat down to pick up the vegetables. We sat down at the only dining table in the diner, waiting for her to bring up two bowls of Pho. The smell was very appealing.

Dì Chín is old, but still very lucid. She has a kind face and always laughs. She told us the stories of her past days, not answering our questions, but enthusiastically remembering and telling us about her impoverished childhood. She was not originally from Saigon, but from Tien Giang. She just moved to Saigon for studying, and then accidentally lived in this place for half of her lifetime. At first, seeing how she was cooking Pho, we thought she was an employee who was used to this manual work. Surprisingly, before sticking to Tan My Market, she was a teacher of the college of Education: “I had been a teacher. All my students have become teachers. In the afternoon, after a working day, they came here to support me. They miss me, but I can not remember their names. It has been five years since I retired, I think I gradually forget the smell of chalk. “

After a while, she told us about her family: “Although my father is a farmer, his thoughts were very progressive. His eight children, three sons, and five girls, all went to school. He let us go to school during the day and helped with the farm work at night. We were forced to work in the summer to make money to go to school. After that, my three brothers were all successful, and four sisters and I were all teachers. In the entire village, only my family has been so successful. ” We asked her the reason why she did not return to her hometown. It was a pity. She could not go back home even though she missed it a lot. She had only one daughter, who sells rolls next to her diner. If she went, there would be no one to take over the business of her daughter and her two granddaughters …

Therefore, Dì Chín decided to stay permanently in Saigon. Every day, she gets up early in the morning to go to the market, buys things to get ready to sell in the afternoon. She is always there until midnight. “There is no moon in the city, but it is not necessary to see the moon to miss your hometown, right?”