Instead of going home, doing housework, and preparing for the New Year, this year some employees of the 2,000-VND Smile Restaurant are excited to display old clothes for sale at 2 locations…
Every year, every December 15, the 2,000-VND Smile Smile restaurant starts to stop selling, because most of the poor migrant workers (regular customers of the restaurant) have continuously returned to their hometowns when bus and train tickets are available. price has not increased.
But this year, instead of going home, doing housework, and preparing for Tet, some of the shop’s employees are excited to display old clothes for sale at the Smile 1 restaurant (385 Cach Mang Thang Tam, Ward 13). District 10) and Nu Cuoi 6 restaurant (11 Nguyen Huy Luong, Ward 14, Binh Thanh District).
Old people new us. Western clothes, dresses, suits, shoes, bags, belts… everything is available, for only 2,000 VND/piece. Poor customers rushed to choose to buy, crowded.
Many people laughed and laughed: “For twenty thousand, you can buy 10 pieces. Children, grandchildren, husband and wife are free to wear Tet”.
One sister tried on a pair of high-heeled shoes that were still quite new, walked back and forth to see if they fit well, then another sister saw that and immediately chose a polka dot dress, inciting: “Buy this more to wear for Tet and it will burn fleas. Go, cheap.”
Men also come to buy themselves a few pairs of trousers and a shirt and explain: “To spend the first day of the New Year going to the temple, visiting neighbors to wish the New Year, should dress politely”.
Even so, Mr. Nguyen The Khanh at Nu Cuoi 1 shop and day by day go to the wholesale market to buy vegetables and fruits and sell them at cost price. Cabbage, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, radishes, cilantro, peppers, green vegetables … in the market during Tet season, they sell 20,000 – 30,000 VND, the shop only sells 5,000 – 7,000 VND, the highest is 10,000 VND.
The women who sold lottery tickets back late also came to buy vegetables to “make a pot of kimchi with nothing, eat rice is also delicious, let him drink spicy food”.
Drivers of technology cars also take advantage of shopping for Tet items of 2,000 VND
Every shop has three or four employees who come to sell from morning to night, tired, but everyone is fresh: “Yesterday sold seven hundred, today sold a million”. 2,000 VND/one that sells for a million means to sell 400, 500 pieces, not less.
All proceeds from the sale are put into the shop’s fund to cook rice for the poor every day. The money for parking, the gratuities of brothers and sisters, all go to the fund to help people in need. In the days near Tet like this, the cries for help are also constantly calling to the shop.
Being temporarily laid off by the company for a month before Tet due to lack of goods, nine workers in the boarding house in Lo O hamlet (Ben Cat district, Binh Duong province) had no Tet bonus, but also no salary. Finding a job, even applying for a job as a helper, is not easy, even though I go to ask for a job every day. They don’t have enough money to go home. Staying, the room fee, even if it’s just over 1 million VND/month, there is nowhere to pay. Along the way, they had to call the Smile restaurant for help.
So the brothers and sisters in the shop went to each household to verify. Very sorry but the shop can only help each household 1 million VND, 10 kg of rice, a few bottles of cooking oil, fish sauce.
Not only that, dozens of poor people, who are daily customers of the restaurant, are also struggling during the days when the restaurant stops selling rice like this. It was Mr. Hung, who sold lottery tickets and was deaf. That is a girl who specializes in collecting ticks and bottles for a living, renting a room in H. Nha Be, only 27 years old but has 5 small children, her husband is in prison for drug use. That is 70-year-old Mr. Tran Hong Son in Chu Van An Street, Binh Thanh District, who has to take care of his 92-year-old paralyzed mother and mentally ill brother every day…
Many people are still in such difficulty, Smile Charity Restaurants, although temporarily closed, can’t wait to stay at home to see people still coming to the shop every day to “look back and forth” to wait for the shop to have something for them. Therefore, although Tet is close, the brothers and sisters in the shop are still open and the lights are on.
