A tiny 4m² room for 5 people. Low-income life in Vietnam. How do we survive ?

[00:00:00]what it's like for five people to live in a 43 square foot room. Today, I'm going to share how we make it work in a 4 square meter space. You'll also be coming along with me to the local market. Plus, I'll show you a couple of unique jobs you'll pretty much only see in Vietnam. One is a junk collector and the other is a literal mobile store built right onto a motorcycle. Hi everyone, I'm Thu and I'm 35 years old.

[00:00:28]My wife and I have three kids and right now I'm unemployed. Our family lives in a tiny 4 square meter room on the outskirts of Hanoi. All of our living expenses depend entirely on my wife's single income. She has never once complained about me being out of work, but I know I need to find a job as soon as possible. When we get up in the morning, the first thing we have to do after brushing our teeth is fold up all the blankets and pillows since this 43 square foot room is where we do everything, playing, eating, and sleeping. We have to keep things super organized just to have space to move around. It's summer break right now, so the kids don't have school. In Vietnam, kids get 3 months off for the summer. We have four seasons here, spring, summer, fall, and winter.

[00:01:20]>> [snorts] >> This is breakfast for my three kids. My wife and I usually skip breakfast. We aren't that hungry anyway and it helps us cut down on costs.

[00:01:57]>> [laughter] [crying] >> These three eggs cost about 40 cents.

[00:02:16]It's a very simple breakfast, but my kids are understanding and never complain about the food.

[00:02:35]This is the whole room. There's a tiny fan up on the ceiling. A regular sized fan would just take up too much space.

[00:02:51]This small corner here is for all of my clothes. Boys don't really need that many clothes anyway.

[00:03:17]After breakfast, I take my kids and a few neighborhood kids over to the local community center to play. We spend a lot of time outside because the room is so cramped and there's no space to play indoors. So everyone prefers being out.

[00:03:30]My kids also love hanging out at the neighbors places. Most of the people living around here are renters, too.

[00:03:37]This community center even has two pickleball courts. It's a pretty new sport here and I've never actually tried it.

[00:03:47]Even though it's a community center, people dump a lot of trash around here.

[00:03:57]This spot is used for discarding old unwanted stuff. It's kind of like my place. We also have areas packed with things we don't use anymore. Is it like that at your house, too?

[00:04:16]It's not sunny today, but since it's summer, it's still pretty hot and human.

[00:04:21]After playing for a bit, we head back home.

[00:04:28]Huh?

[00:04:31]My oldest daughter already knows how to help out by cooking rice, and she helps with the dishes every now and then, too.

[00:04:55]Now, I'm heading out to the market to buy stuff for lunch. This is the spot where I usually shop. It's less crowded around noon. The afternoon is when both buyers and sellers really show up.

[00:05:27]The market looks pretty run down. Deep inside, they sell live chickens and ducks, and walking through that section, the smell is pretty overwhelming.

[00:06:02]>> Now, I'm going to grab a few calamansi limes and some chili peppers.

[00:06:41]Next, I'm heading over to the pork patty stall. My family eats this a lot because it's already cooked, so you can eat it as is or it's super easy to quickly fry up.

[00:07:00]The shop has a pretty cool way of handing food to customers using a basket setup, and I use the exact same basket to hand over my money. The stall is pretty busy right now.

[00:07:38]On the way back, we ran into an excavator at work. My son absolutely loves watching excavators, so I stopped for a bit. We even saw a forklift on our way home. My boy is obsessed with these kinds of machines. I was the exact same way when I was a kid. I loved watching excavators and bulldozers work. Were you guys like that, too, when you were little?

[00:08:32]We passed by a cemetery. Every grave here has a cross at the head, which is the symbol of Christ.

[00:09:00]We also spotted a pretty unique advertisement. This company works with hydraulic machinery, and their billboard is really eye-catching.

[00:09:22]Here is a very unique job in Vietnam, a junk collector. We call it dong nat. If both my wife and I end up out of work, this is definitely a job we could consider. In Vietnam, almost everything recycled. Paper, plastic, aluminum, copper, and iron.

[00:09:55]And this is a mobile store on a motorcycle. They carry tons of different items and accessories right on the back.

[00:10:02]They ride this moving shop through every single alley and corner of the village.

[00:10:06]Do you have stores like this in your country?

[00:10:17]Now, I'm going to cook lunch. I just need to slice up the pork patties and fry them up a bit.

[00:10:42]And that's it. Come join us for lunch.

[00:10:45]Lunch for five people costs $2.30.

[00:11:05]After eating, we take a quick power nap.

[00:11:08]In Vietnam, most people love taking a midday nap. Do people nap in your country?

[00:11:21]In the afternoon, I cleaned the rice cooker. The other day, a lot of people called me out because the cooker wasn't clean.

[00:11:54]>> Now that it's scrubbed down, it looks a whole lot better.

[00:12:07]I'm also taking advantage of the time to hang up the laundry.

[00:12:11]I do most of these household chores since I'm currently between jobs.

[00:12:16]I try to handle as much housework as possible to take some stress off my wife.

[00:12:22]Whenever she has some free time, she'll cook or help out around the house, too.

[00:12:27]How about you guys?

[00:12:28]Who does more of the housework and childcare in your family? To me, doing chores or watching the kids isn't hard at all.

[00:12:36]In fact, after doing it for so long, I actually enjoy it. Man, any dad who can balance taking care of the kids, doing housework, and bringing home the bacon is truly amazing.

[00:12:47]Since I lost my job, I've barely had any friends left. Just a few childhood buddies that I still keep in touch with a little bit.

[00:12:55]Anyway, here is our dinner tonight, a $4 grilled fish and a bowl of sponge gourd soup. Come have dinner with us. All right, that's it for now. See you guys in the next video. Thanks for watching.

[00:13:10]>> Mom, what?

[00:13:12]I don't know what she