Grand­ma Huyền sells flow­ers at the mar­ket in Hoi An, Viet­nam, a few times a month. “I love grow­ing flow­ers. Each month I have to plant twice, take care of them with fer­til­iz­er and water. I also pull the weeds. It is hard work…Selling flow­ers makes me happier.”

“My grand­chil­dren don’t want me to work. They said because I had dif­fi­cul­ty for a long time and now it’s time to relax. How­ev­er I want to do it (grow flow­ers) for fun and to save some mon­ey to buy fruit to wor­ship my ances­tors as well as to join wed­ding par­ties if I’m invit­ed. They help me with the flow­ers sometimes.”

“In my whole life, the hap­pi­est thing is to have my hus­band and my children.”

“My hus­band passed 10 years ago. I got mar­ried when I was 16 years old. Our par­ents arranged the wed­ding. We didn’t know any­thing. We couldn’t have choic­es and had to obey our par­ents. How­ev­er, we loved each oth­er. Then we had 4 kids.”

“My hus­band used to be in the US army before but his health was not good. After 4 years in the army, he did not have any mon­ey. I had to work to raise our 4 kids on my own. I worked for peo­ple and earned 15,000 VND (64 cents) per day but I could sup­port my kids to go to school.”

“I am hap­py to see my kids grow up, go to school and know about the world.”

“My life used to be very dif­fi­cult, now it is so much bet­ter. I am hap­py with it and can­not ask for more.”

“In my whole life, the hap­pi­est thing is to have my hus­band and my children.”

We returned to the mar­ket in Hoi An and found grand­ma Huyen again. She was very hap­py to receive her print­ed photo.