Trading is either profitable or loss-making.

Tý Sún was a regular customer, the "richest" one. He paid with bundles of Terminalia catappa leaves he gathered from the corner of the market. His "money" was beautiful, each "bill" bright red or speckled with yellow. Once, Tý was so sad, he asked if I'd sell on credit. The beautiful leaves had all fallen, only the young ones remained. Those were the days leading up to spring, when the Terminalia catappa trees were shedding their leaves. My sister pouted, speaking in a sharp, grown-up manner, "How would I know where you live to sell on credit?"

During his years at the village school, still at the "bottle cap stall," the seller and buyer silently grew up through each midday market session… After the village was devastated by a bombing, Tý Sún's family drifted away to who knows where.

My sister dropped out of high school when times changed and life became difficult. She said she wanted to go into trading to earn money to help Mom. Mom agreed, saying, "Don't be afraid, trading will either result in losses or profits. Go out and see the sun and moon." I was dumbfounded. She's all grown up now, surely she's seen the sun and moon already? Why does she have to go into trading to see them?

Later I understood. Trading requires hard work, careful planning, traveling to experience the ups and downs, interacting with all kinds of people, broadening your horizons, and accepting the hardships of life to understand why people say the marketplace is a battlefield. And the results of those trading trips are… a small matter: "If you don't lose, you make a profit." My mother would add, sometimes you lose but still… profit. The profit is seeing the sun and moon – the profound insights into life and human existence. The fear of loss is swept away the moment you pocket a few coins and place the carrying pole on your shoulder.

She sells cigarettes and rice cakes at a small train station. On good days, she sends a message to an acquaintance, and my mother and I rush out with our goods to help her out. Sometimes, she gets so excited that she grabs her wooden box of cigarettes and a bunch of rice cakes and jumps onto the train. Selling on the train is great; everything is gone in no time. She gets off at the next station, takes a bus back to her home station. My mother praises her for being quick-witted. She says, "I've been quick-witted since I started selling bottle caps, Mom."

She chuckled and said, "Do you remember Tý Sún, the boy who used to buy bottle caps from me when we were kids? He's all grown up now, and he's 'transformed into a dragon' with Long, a handsome and formidable bank officer. He met me at the train station, bought them, and paid for them, his mouth smiling but his voice filled with sadness, 'So, I can never buy bottle caps on credit from you again, beautiful lady.'" She was startled, thinking to herself, "The paper money of yesteryear was soaked with dew. The paper money of today is soaked with tears." Then, in that moment, a whole era of her village youth came flooding back with so much emotion. Memories are wonderful. Just think, if the "drawer" of memory were empty, how impoverished the soul would be. Knowing she was about to get married, he gifted her a poem (by Nguyễn Bính): "The seller has already been bought / In the marketplace of life, what can I buy?"

Her husband was a high school literature teacher. During the years of scarcity under the subsidy system, after teaching hours he would work shirtless making sticky rice cakes. Many times he brought rice and lemonade to the train station for her. Often he would wait for the last train to take her home on his old bicycle. He said during dinner, in the dim light of an oil lamp, "Students greet their teacher differently at school than at the train station. One is respectful, the other is surprised and flustered." She replied indifferently, "As long as they greet me, that's enough. A straight tree casts a round shadow. Don't worry about it."

After finishing his lesson plan, he helped his wife make sticky rice cakes, chatting about "insider" matters in the kitchen. The poor couple laughed together as the pot of sticky rice cakes for the next day emitted a fragrant aroma…

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nhan-dam-di-buon-khong-lo-thi-loi-185250308193548291.htm