Le, born in 1977, was the stepdaughter of Tran Thi Tam and her first husband. Tam later married Pham Van Son, with whom she had three children. Son also had two children from a previous marriage.

Tam was from Hue, while Son was from Thai Binh. They earned a living by singing on trains.

After the death of her stepfather, Le, her mother, and her two half-siblings joined a group of disabled people, singing on streets across provinces.

Back then, the mother and children rented a room near Hue Station. The lodging had no separate rooms; tenants shared a single space, with fees calculated per bed.

One day, upon returning from singing, Le was informed by her mother that Deo, her younger brother, had been taken away.

Losing her child, Tam did not report the case to the police but instead consulted a fortune teller. The fortune-teller said Deo had been taken northward. Le and her mother traveled tirelessly to the North, singing and searching for him as far as Lang Son, but to no avail.

By the time Le turned 19, an age when she began to feel ashamed, the family ceased their street singing to settle down and build a life in her mother’s homeland, Hue City. On a piece of land borrowed from an aunt, they erected a makeshift shack.

A year later, she married and gave birth to her first child. In 2000, she, her husband, their child, her mother, and her younger brother moved to BaRia–Vung Tau province to seek a new livelihood. 

Tam has three children with Son: Pham Thi Xuan Loc, Pham Van Deo, and Pham Huy Hung. Deo went missing. H has been staying with his mother and Le since childhood.  

As for Xuan Loc, she lived with her paternal uncle in Thai Binh from the age of one. The uncle and his wife, who raised Loc, worked as circus performers. He raised many children, training them from a young age to perform in the family circus troupe.

Loc recalls a childhood with little joy. She and the other children endured countless beatings from her uncle. As she grew older, she and the other children attempted to escape multiple times but were always caught.

It was not until she was 14 that Loc successfully fled. She began an independent life, performing with circus troupes in Hai Duong, traveling across the country.

In 2015, when her life had stabilized with food, clothing, and a peaceful family, Le traveled to Thai Binh to look for Loc, but Loc had left, and the uncle and his wife had passed away.

Moving to Ba Ria–Vung Tau with her mother, Hung, and her husband, Le initially worked in the refrigeration sector, and then switched to selling lottery tickets. Her gentle nature earned her sympathy, and many people supported her by buying tickets.

Now, she still earns a living this way every day, rarely taking a day off, even on the first day of Tet.

The boy, Pham Van Deo, after being taken by a woman, was about to be sold at Quang Phu Market (Dak Lak province) but was discovered and stopped by locals. The police handed Deo over to Thanh’s family.

Thanh raised Deo until adulthood. As he grew older, he guarded fields in the forest for his adoptive brother.

As an adult, Deo married a local girl from Cu M’Gar District, Dak Lak Province. He now has a wife and children, but life remains immensely difficult. 

Adopted, Deo has no official documents about his condition. Without an ID card, his life is filled with inconveniences and disadvantages. He doesn’t dare seek work elsewhere due to the lack of identification.

He rents land to build a house and farm and digs wells to earn money to support his wife and children with bitter sweat.

After years of searching for her siblings, Le finally found both Loc and Deo, her two siblings, thanks to assistance from the “Nhu Chua He Co Cuoc Chia Ly” (As If There Had Never Been a Separation) TV program.

Journalist Thu Uyen, the program’s director, said: “Le shows us that there is a kind of family bond that is not just blood.”

Nguyen Thao