Nhì, 70 — Tra Que Vegetable Village

Nhì is 70 years old, work­ing in per­haps the most famous organ­ic gar­den in cen­tral Viet­nam: Trà Quế, in Hoi An.

“I get up at 4:00 AM and start to water and col­lect veg­eta­bles, my daugh­ter-in-law will bring them to the mar­ket to sell them. When I was a kid, I start­ed to work here. I have been liv­ing here, my whole life.”

“This land is from my ances­tors. So I just con­tin­ue to work here. My ances­tors start­ed to work here under the rule of King Gia Long (the first Emper­or of the Nguyễn dynasty, uni­fy­ing what is now Viet­nam, in 1802).”

“Only veg­eta­bles grown here smell good. If you grow them some­where else in Hoi An, they will not smell bet­ter than the veg­eta­bles here.”

“In the ear­ly morn­ing, every­body here works a lot, water­ing plants and col­lect­ing veg­eta­bles. I grow let­tuce, onions, spinach, morn­ing glo­ry, and many herbs. Most­ly we use fer­til­iz­er from cows or peanuts. We use buck­ets for water­ing, although 3 years ago many sprin­klers were installed.”

“So many peo­ple take pic­tures of me. Fun! Haha. I was work­ing in the gar­den and some­one filmed me from above (using a drone). That per­son was sit­ting some­where in a bush. Hehe.”

Nhì, 70 — Hoi An, Vietnam