In 1979, when Pham Thi Kim Huyen in HCM City gave birth to her youngest child, her son Tran Hoan Phong unexpectedly caught a sore throat. She asked her 12-year-old son, Vu, 12, to take his younger brother to a hospital, about 2 kilometers away.

After medical examination, Vu left his brother in a place and told the brother to wait for him, who had to go buy medicine. However, when he came back, he could not find the brother.

Desperate over the loss of their son, Huyen and her husband searched tirelessly everywhere. 

After that fateful day when Phong, called by his family members Lun Ma Tu, went missing, he began a new chapter of his life, filled with suffering and misfortune.

Phong can only remember that someone took him to the hospital that day. Despite being told to wait, he wandered off and somehow got lost.

A woman later gave him a banh bo (a type of Vietnamese cake) and bought a bus ticket to bring him to Bac Lieu province. He remembers arriving there between 1-2am. He was then given to a foster family and renamed Nguyen Van Thong.

Misfortune came when his foster mother lost 0.1 gold tael and suspected him of stealing it. She beat him each night, forcing him to strip and jump into a canal, only allowing him out by daylight to keep him away from locals’ curious eyes.

Living with the foster mother, he never could eat up his fill, and she beat him, leaving scars on his face. He had to hide in rice fields. At that time, Lun Ma Tu was just 6 years old.

When Phong turned 8 years old, his foster family took their buffalo to Dong Thap and sent him there to graze the buffaloes. His conditions were a bit better in Dong Thap. But when they sold the buffaloes, he had to return to the foster family. 

"I bought you at 7,000 dong back then, so, if you want to leave, you have to pay 70,000 dong,'" he recounted what the mother told him.

One day, he met a local man who felt sorry for him and helped him leave the foster family. 

They traveled by boat through the U Minh forest, gathered snails for sale at Ca Mau Market. After nearly two years later, he saved up 73,000 dong. Then he returned to his foster mother, gave her 73,000 and said "I’m not staying here anymore."

"What she said made me shed tears. 'I said that because I wanted you to stay with me, the mother said.' I cried out with a sense of injustice, thinking of all the hardship I endured to earn that money. But I still left,” he recalled.

With 3,000 dong left, he returned to Dong Thap and worked as ordered.

“A couple told me to do the same things as they did and agreed to feed me. But they did not pay for clothes and other expenditures,” he said.

At the age of 13, he participated in many charitable activities and became beloved by many people. He decided to leave for HCM City to find a job as advised, because he hoped he might find some information about his real family.

At 14, he moved to the city, trying various jobs, including tailoring, which he did for many years. He once rented a room on Ton That Thuyet Street, not far from his childhood home. Yet, the only memories he had of his family were his brother named Vu and his sister named Bich.

The physical and emotional pain in his childhood led to a long period of negative thinking, sometimes wanting to let go or engage in self-harm.

Luckily, he turned to Buddhism. He realized that being human is already a privilege, and harming his body would add sins. From then on, he let go of negative thoughts and committed to living wholeheartedly. 

Finally, he could found his biological family members thanks to the support of ‘Nhu chua he co cuoc chia ly’ (As if we were never apart) TV show. His father and his brother Vu had passed away, but he now has his mother, sisters and brother.

Nguyen Thao