Welcome back to my “Draw My Life” series.

This is the second episode of the series. If you are new here, you can read my first episode first.

In this episode, I would like to give you some context about my family, my very basic living conditions, and some difficult experiences from the age of 0 to 18. I hope this helps you understand more about who I am.

I. My Living Conditions

I was born in a very small town near Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. My father once told me that my family was the poorest family in the whole village, and of course, I believed him without any doubt.

When I was a child, my house was just a small place with four walls and one big room. There were no private rooms, no kitchen, no bathroom inside, no cable TV, and no CD/DVD player. Can you picture that house? Looking back now, based on today’s living standards, I think it should be called a room rather than a house.

My house had two curtains that divided the space into three areas, but the curtains only covered half the width of the house. In the center of the house, my dad placed an ancestral altar and a plastic living room set. Whenever it rained heavily, the roof leaked, and it became worse over time.

II. My Childhood

Under those conditions, what could I enjoy as a child? Well, I had to deal with it. No complaints.

I played traditional Vietnamese games with the children in and around my alley. There were both boys and girls. Some of the games I can name are kite flying, hide and seek, tip-cat, and mandarin square capturing. And of course, I cannot forget reading comics and student magazines.

I enjoyed my early childhood without many electronic devices. In Vietnam at that time, around the 2000s, we still lived deeply in a wet-rice civilization, and my family’s occupation was also farming. I had to go to the farm when I was only seven years old. That was a really hard time.

III. School Life

Years later, I went to secondary school and then high school. In Vietnam, school subjects are very heavy. There was a lot of homework, and school was stressful.

But for me, school was not my only responsibility. After school, I had to help my family with farm work. I went to the fields and did many things that I do not even know how to name in English. In the evening, I did my exercises until around 9:30 p.m., and then I went to bed.

Everything changed when I passed the high school entrance exam. High school subjects were much harder and heavier than I expected. Because of that, I no longer had to go to the fields on weekdays. I spent most of my time at school and doing exercises.

After finishing the afternoon session at high school, my friends and I usually stayed at school to play sports. I could play many sports: basketball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, running, jumping, and even dancing, especially C-Walk.

Those were unforgettable memories of my school life.

IV. Feeling Behind

During high school, I started to talk more with friends who came from richer families or who were much better at studying than me. At first, I felt quite small.

Some of them had better living conditions, better learning materials, private classes, computers, and support from their families. Meanwhile, I came from a poor farming family. I did not have many advantages. Sometimes, when I listened to their stories, I realized how different our starting points were.

One thing I still remember clearly is how different our childhood memories were.

For many of my friends, childhood meant HBO, Cartoon Network, Ben 10, movies, cable TV, and many other things that were normal to them. But for me, I had almost no idea what they were talking about.

When they discussed cartoons, movies, or TV shows, I could only listen quietly. I did not have cable TV at home. I did not grow up with those channels. My childhood was more about the fields, traditional games, comics, student magazines, and helping my family.

At that time, I did not feel jealous in a clear way, but I did feel left behind. It felt like they shared a world that I had never entered. The gap was not only about money. It was also about experience, culture, and confidence.

That feeling stayed with me for a long time, but it also became one of my biggest motivations.

I did not want to blame my background forever. I knew I could not choose where I was born, but I could choose how hard I tried. Every time I felt behind, I reminded myself that I had to keep moving. I had to study harder, observe more, learn from people around me, and slowly build a better version of myself.

Maybe at that time, I did not fully understand the word “ambition.” But deep inside, I already had a strong desire to escape poverty and create a different life.

[Draw my life] | Ep 2: School life made changes