Siu Black raises pigs and does YouTube

Siu Black’s day now is like any other elderly person in the Vietnamese countryside: she wakes up at 4am to drink coffee, feed the pigs, watch the news, exercise, look after her grandchildren, and cook for her daughter-in-law at the market. Siu ends the day by going to bed at 7:30 or 8pm. The daily routine of the Ba Na singer is far different from her peak: “In the past, I went to bed at 2am.”

Siu Black sings charity songs in the rain

Siu Black recently had a successful performance in Da Lat. The singer of “Ly ca phe Ban Me” is still as passionate and fiery as ever, only her appearance is different. Previously, Siu Black weighed 70 kg, now she is only 53 kg, much slimmer. Many people guessed that Siu was worried so she lost weight or tried to lose weight to be more confident with her appearance. All the guesses were wrong.

Siu shared honestly and humorously: “I have been fat for a long time, only 20 years. Now I really like seeing chubby friends because I myself want to be fat but can't. It's different from the past when I wanted to lose weight but couldn't.” Siu Black revealed her health condition: “I have diabetes. I abstain a lot, take medicine regularly but my blood sugar is still high. When I come home from work hungry but just eat a little starch, my blood sugar immediately jumps to 20, my blood pressure also increases. The doctor once asked me to stay in the hospital but I asked to stay outside. Because every time I see a needle, I get nervous, my heart rate is not stable, my blood pressure is not stable.”

I asked Siu Black: "Are you afraid of hospitals?". Siu admitted that she was afraid of hospitals: "In 2010, while judging Vietnam Idol, I had a motorbike accident, seriously injured my leg, had to go to the hospital, and have been afraid of hospitals ever since." But every time she got on stage, Siu Black became a different person, interacting with the audience innocently and friendly, singing as if she were exhausted: "I have always been on fire. Even though I was very tired, when I held the microphone to sing, I was no longer tired. After singing, my body felt exhausted."

I am Ba Na, from Kon Tum

I told Siu my feelings: “It seems like after the storm passed, she found peace again!”. Siu agreed: “Exactly. Very peaceful. I am not a person who competes, does not look for trouble with anyone, the trouble happened when I opened that shop. I built it myself, I broke it myself… Back then, I just wanted to do business, wanted to get rich. When I failed, I realized that not everyone who wants to do business is successful. If I had listened to my family and not done anything, it might have been better. It was all my fault, I do not blame others.” Siu Black, with her cheerful laugh, now wants to live more quietly: “There are quite a lot of rumors about me, I do not correct them, but it makes me afraid to appear.”

Today's audience sees Siu Black still maintaining her form when stepping onto the stage, but "God" does not know that there was a time when she lost her voice. Looking back at those sad, dark days, we can see that Siu Black's return was a journey to overcome herself: "Only those who have gone through crises in their personal lives can understand. It took me a long time to recover. I thought I could no longer sing, I no longer wanted to sing. Then I locked myself in a small room to think. I felt like I had lost a lot, had given up too many things... And I walked out of the small room and returned to the church to listen to the priest preach, the priest preached many things, gradually I regained my faith, regained my form. For years without singing, I thought I had lost my voice forever, but thanks to singing in church, I found the feeling again, then I practiced on my own and returned to the stage." When she stumbled on the road of life and had to leave the city to return to the village, the villagers did not mock her but opened their arms: “Everyone comforted me: Thanks to you, people know more about Kon Tum. Because every time I go on stage, I say, I am a Ba Na and I live in Kon Tum.”

Siu Black and family members

God lets me sing, I will sing

Siu Black of today is still rich in spiritual life. Not only do the villagers love and respect her. She has also returned to the father of her children. Will “broken mirrors mend” be peaceful? I asked Siu. She neither beautified nor darkened the reality: “We understand each other better and we both know that we are old, living only for our children and grandchildren.” When the pandemic broke out, Siu Black realized how necessary it was to have men in the house: “COVID broke out, I was in a panic, I had to sell my pigs at a loss, because I didn’t have money to buy feed. I just hung around the village all day because the local government encouraged people to stay home and not go out to prevent the spread of the disease. My family has three men, all of whom were quarantined. My husband and two sons went to get vaccinated for COVID, but unfortunately, a “F0” came in. So all the people in the village who went to get vaccinated that morning had to be quarantined. Oh my god, there were no men in the house, only me and my two daughters-in-law, we didn’t know what to do! During that time, I cried every night, read the sutras and prayed, just hoping that my husband and children would return safely without COVID.”

Comedian Thuy Nga teaches how to make YouTube videos Siu Black is clueless about the internet. Her phone is only used for listening and calling: “I also have Facebook but I don’t do anything on it, whoever wants to post can post whatever they want. It’s not that I don’t care about social networks, but I don’t know how to use them, even though I was taught. I film clips but have to wait for someone to post them for me. Now I know how to post a little bit but it still doesn’t seem to be working, because when I ask others if they have seen what I post, they say they haven’t.” Yet she created her own channel on YouTube: “SiuBlack Kon Tum Life”. Talking about this strange story, Siu laughed: “Thanks to comedian Thuy Nga. Thuy Nga came back to Vietnam and called me: “Sister, where are you?” I told Nga, “I’m in Kon Tum.” Nga said: “Is it that far?” But she still asked, “Can you come visit me?” Unexpectedly, Nga really came to visit me. It was Thuy Nga who taught me how to make YouTube. Since then, I’ve filmed my daily life, when I perform, when I sing at church or participate in some event…”. I encouraged Siu Black: “If you work hard to “raise” a YouTube channel, it might be easier to make money than raising pigs.” Siu Black laughed out loud as if the storm had never passed.

But Siu Black tried to suppress her fears, she did not dare to complain too much, because there were people who blamed her: "There are many people who are suffering more than Siu Black but they do not complain, why does Siu Black complain?". In life, it is normal for people to not understand each other. Siu did not blame anyone: "I do not want anything anymore. In the past, I had everything, now I just let it be. I do what God tells me to do, just live slowly, without complaining. My life is difficult, so I say it is difficult, how can I say my life is happy? But it is true that out there are so many poor people, homeless, they have it worse than me, so I tell myself to live quietly."

Siu Black feeds pigs

Siu Black's current business is "stable" but she shared: "The price of pigs is not as good as before. In the past, raising pigs was profitable, but now it's all losses. Because the price of feed is very high now, but the price of pigs is only around 40-45 thousand VND/kg, if 50 thousand is still break even. So I switched to raising fish. I need to change because I'm a farmer, I only do things that are profitable. I still raise pigs but only a few dozen." Thanks to her husband's diligence in learning fish raising techniques, Siu Black is more secure. The debt is still hanging there, Siu Black has only paid a small part, but when she works hard, she can completely hope to be debt-free one day.

“Do you plan to go to the city again or stay in your hometown for the rest of your life?”. Without thinking, Siu replied to my question: “Right now I am just stuck in Kon Tum, I have no intention of anything else. What else do I have to do to go far away? I am content with my life now. I eat as much as I have.”

Does Siu Black regret the lost glory? The nightingale of the Central Highlands no longer longs to return to her famous days: “I’m old. Never mind. God lets me sing as much as I can. My life is now peaceful, I can sing, travel here and there and then return to my children and grandchildren, that’s Siu’s happiness. Sometimes, looking back at the past, I feel a little sad.” Siu may not be young anymore, considering her age, but has her voice ever known the passage of time? “Are your eyes green or is spring coming/The cigarette smoke lingering over a cup of Ban Me coffee…”.

Tienphong.vn