VietNamNet Bridge – The university entrance exam wrapped up on July 6. Tuoi tre newspaper’s stories show how Vietnamese people cherish the hope of going to university.

Mr Nguyen Huu The

The man is Nguyen Huu The, 76, from Chau Thanh district in Dong Thap province. He related that he arrived in Can Tho city at 8 am when his grandchild, Ngo Thi Kim Trang, was in the exam room taking a mathematics exam.

“Tran’s parents are too busy to bring her to the city to sit for the exams. I’m afraid that she is lonely so I caught a taxi motorbike to travel from the village to Can Tho. I want to meet her and encourage her on the exams,” he said.

The man related that the night before he was so anxious that he could not sleep. Therefore, he got up at 4 am that morning and left for Can Tho to meet the grandchild. He brought the gift of 100,000 dong for the grandchild, and because he didn’t want to touch the sum of money, he only had a breakfast of 1,000 dong worth of steamed glutinous rice.

However, he admitted that he had trouble eating because he was nervous.

“I wonder if I can meet her after the exam. She will be very happy if she can meet me so unexpectedly,” he said.

The man was lucky enough to meet volunteer students outside exam rooms who promised to help him find the grandchild after the exam. He then became calm and smiled.

The dream of the ‘orange boy’

The woman hurriedly led the boy out of the crowd because she feared that someone might bump into her grandchild and make him fall.

This scene took place on July 4 at the Hanoi University of Natural Sciences.

Hiep, the boy, only began walking when he was 11. In the same year, he began going to school, where he sat together with children five years younger than him. However, Hiep was so small that he looked like a five-year old child. The boy with disabled legs and the crippled hands which could not hold a pen firmly has experienced 12 years at school with excellent learning achievements.

Hiep decided to take the exam to enter the Hanoi University of Natural Sciences’ Information Technology faculty. Explaining his choice, Hiep said that this was the best choice for his health situation, because he cannot do work involving a lot of activity.

However, to date, Hiep still does not have a computer of his own. Hiep and his family have been living on the rice field and the allowance for Agent Orange victims, 900,000 dong a month.

Hiep’s grandmother is old now, but she still had to bring Hiep from Vinh Phuc to Hanoi to attend the exam. Hiep’s father passed away in 1991 after many years of struggling with the wounds he got during the war. Hiep’s brother and sister died because of the diseases caused by Agent Orange, while his mother is sick all the time.

The heavy burden to earn money to feed the family is now on the grandmother’s shoulders. The grandmother is also the person who brings Hiep to the hospital every time he is sick. Therefore, Hiep does not call her grandmother, but mother, because she has brought a new life to him.

VietNamNet/TT