From the filial vegetable garden to a beautiful story in the heart of Tay Do

Regularly around 3pm, people see the shop owner with a gentle face named Tran Hai Au (38 years old, living in Binh Thuy district, Can Tho city) carrying vegetables back to sort, waiting for people to come and pick them up.

Từ vườn rau báo hiếu đến câu chuyện đẹp giữa lòng Tây Đô — *Hai Au's parents' garden is growing a new crop of vegetables - Photo: AN VI*

For the past three months, from lottery ticket sellers to scrap collectors or people who have unfortunately missed work in Ninh Kieu district (Can Tho city) have come to a table filled with free vegetables with cute words: "Free! Whoever needs it, take it! Whoever has extra, give it! Any amount is fine, just enough is fine! Wishing everyone peace!". The table is placed at a sugarcane juice shop on the embankment near Rach Ngong 2 bridge (Ninh Kieu district, Can Tho city). Every day at around 3 pm, people see the shop owner with a gentle face named Tran Hai Au (38 years old, living in Binh Thuy district, Can Tho city) carrying vegetables from the market, sorting them beautifully, waiting for people to pick them up.

Vegetable garden to satisfy parents' old age

Talking to us while his shirt was still soaked with rainwater after carrying a box of squash from Tan An market (Ninh Kieu district) to the shop, Hai Au could only laugh out loud because he did not understand why he did this "free" thing that many people said. Hai Au said that his family is not rich, nor does he have the idea of doing it to accumulate virtue, but each squash and vegetable stalk displayed on the warm table in front of his shop came as a fate. "Last year, I moved to this area to live and open a coffee shop to do business, my siblings also came here, in the countryside there are only my parents so I am very worried. I invited my parents to come live with me so that it is convenient to take care of them and be close to their children and grandchildren, but the problem is that down there, my grandparents are used to gardening, and coming to this city, they are too free to bear it", he said. Knowing his parents' psychology, Au decided to transform 100 square ^meters of his garden in Binh Thuy district into a vegetable garden, with vegetable beds, squash trellis and asked his parents from the countryside to take care of it. With his two grandchildren crying for their grandfather in the morning and calling for their grandmother in the afternoon, Au successfully "recruited" his parents to take care of his tiny garden. Although it was small, each crop of squash and pumpkins produced continuously, and they were too much to eat. They gave them to this person and that person in the neighborhood, but there was still a lot left over, so Hai Au decided to bring them to a sugarcane juice shop and set them up in front of the door to give people in difficult circumstances a heartwarming meal. "I saw many people selling lottery tickets on their bicycles, many days without any results, so I felt so sorry for them. Not to mention that there were many people collecting scrap metal, so I decided to bring home-grown vegetables to give to people," Hai Au recalled. At first, Au was afraid that no one would take them, but on the first day, in less than an hour, his free vegetable stall was sold out. When he told his parents, the next day they immediately cut a few more baskets of squash and pumpkins, then added a bunch of home-grown clean vegetables, and gave them to their son to do the good deed. Within a week, the vegetables from the 100m2 garden that Hai Au's parents took care of were all gone. He said his parents regretted not being able to grow more to send to the neighbors. Recalling the late afternoon, Hai Au received an old man who was cycling to ask for squash to cook soup. "Oh my god, I feel so guilty, ^100m2 is not enough to serve everyone, my parents at home have planted a new crop, but it will take another month to have vegetables. Squash and squash will take even longer. So I decided to use the profit from my shop to buy more vegetables from the market to display on this zero-dong stall," Hai Au confided.

Have a pot of soup to warm your heart on days when sales are slow

On sunny days, Hai Au's shop opens at 3:30 p.m., the table full of vegetables is also placed neatly in front of the shop, less than 10 minutes, someone comes to get it, they look inside and see him busy serving customers, they say: "Let me thank you!". It has been raining continuously in Can Tho for the past few days, few customers, not enough revenue to pay the staff, so Au decided to temporarily close the shop. However, he still goes to the market to buy vegetables regularly and brings them in. Now he opens the door slightly, the table full of love is brought out waiting for the recipient.

"Please give me two squashes to cook soup!", Ms. Ngo Tuyet Thanh (42 years old, living in Ninh Kieu district) called out from outside the shop. This woman is Mr. Au's neighbor. It's raining today, so she can't go to the market to buy food, so she came to ask for some squashes to cook soup. "There are four people in my family. These two squashes can cook two pots of soup for today and tomorrow. I've known about Mr. Au's free vegetable stall for a long time, but I'm not having any trouble, so I didn't come to ask for them. I couldn't buy food today, so I came over," Ms. Thanh said. Not long after Ms. Thanh left, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong (67 years old, living in Ninh Kieu district) shyly pushed her waterlogged bicycle into the shop. She is a "regular customer" of this zero-dong vegetable stall. "Because I'm used to it, I'm shy, asking for things all the time is weird, but now the sales are so bad, I can't finish even a hundred bills, so I grit my teeth and come here to ask him for a bag of vegetables, squash or something to cook," Ms. Huong confided. Ms. Huong took two squashes, saying that this was enough for her to eat for two days. She planned to go back to the meat stall to buy 15,000 VND worth of ground meat to cook soup for dinner. She also bought two eggs to save for tomorrow to stir-fry or fry to eat with the squash to avoid getting bored. "It looks like that but it's very convenient, without these two squashes, I have to spend money to go to the market to buy food, and there's no way to get fifteen or twenty thousand VND for a meal. On these rainy and windy days when business is slow, receiving a squash like this makes me feel less sad," Ms. Huong confided. Or the case of Mr. Minh Phuc (56 years old, living in Ninh Kieu district), who drove his old bike to the stall, opened the plastic bag that Mr. Au had put two squashes in, took out one and left it for the next person. He explained that he only eats one fruit so he doesn't take too many, because if it gets old it won't be as tasty anymore. One fruit is enough for him to cook a pot of soup to eat all day.

Until it's gone

Mr. Phuc, Mrs. Huong or anyone who comes to receive free vegetables will also receive a bag of pickled fish sauce that Mr. Au made himself. Many people who receive vegetables sometimes ask: "Do you have eggs today?", "Do you have rice or cooking oil today?"... "On days when I'm not too busy, I will make pickled fish sauce with my parents, go to the market to buy fermented bean curd or eggs to give to the neighbors. Sometimes, just giving a bunch of vegetables is boring, so I add a little fermented bean curd and fish sauce to make it more flavorful," Mr. Au explained. On a low day, the vegetables cost 300,000 VND, on a high day, it can be up to 700,000 VND. It's so expensive, but Mr. Au has never thought of stopping. "Doing it so often is like becoming addicted, if I don't see many people coming, I'm sad, but when many people come, they run out quickly and the next person doesn't have any, I'm also sad. In general, I'll probably keep doing this until it's all gone," he said with a laugh. He changes the vegetables every day so that people don't get bored, and it's also a way to buy more vegetables because the prices of each type are different every day. Many stall owners in the market like him, and from time to time they contribute 5kg or 10kg bags of vegetables to send to people. Some days he gives away 60kg, some days almost a hundred kg, but it doesn't make much difference, people always come to ask. Even on some days when he runs out of vegetables, seeing that people feel sorry for him, Au goes down to the kitchen of the shop to collect everything edible to give away. He remembers one time a lottery ticket seller saw him closing his shop but still giving out vegetables, when she asked, he explained that it was because of the rain that he was losing money so he temporarily closed. "So she took out a "1 xi" bill and gave it to me, asking me to contribute to the vegetable stall. Think about it, is it believable? She is the one who receives the most vegetables and is so kind. How can I bear to stop this vegetable stall?", Mr. Au smiled but his eyes were filled with tears as he looked at the vegetable stall that had been sold out after nearly two hours of setting it up.

The shop may be slow to sell but the vegetables are not.

"When it rains, will the vegetable stalls ever be unsold?", we asked. Mr. Hai Au laughed loudly and affirmed that his drink stall might be unsold but his vegetable stalls have never been unsold. "From the beginning until now, the amount of vegetables sent to the people has only increased, but they have never been unsold. The only thing I'm afraid of is that when it rains and the roads are flooded, it will be too much for people to come and receive them. Many people have to walk a kilometer in the rain to get just 1-2 squashes or bunches of vegetables, I'm embarrassed," Mr. Au added.

Tuoitre.vn

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/tu-vuon-rau-bao-hieu-den-cau-chuyen-dep-giua-long-tay-do-20241021082428178.htm