Singer Anh Tuyet: 'Often hungry' in her youth, 'billionaire diva' in her old age
When she was young, Anh Tuyet had nothing and often sat looking at the sky and wished to have money to buy a house, buy a car, open a tea room; unexpectedly at the age of 62 she has it all, and is often teased by her colleagues as a 'billionaire diva'.
"No rice to eat, starving, sitting there wishing and wishing"
Singer Anh Tuyet was born in 1961 into a family with an artistic tradition, her father was a music teacher and her brothers were musicians.
Since childhood, she showed a talent for business. Every afternoon, she opened a stall selling candy, fruits, cigarettes... and always calculated how to sell "profitably, profitably", even being suspected by her mother of stealing money because of the high profit.
When Anh Tuyet first came to Saigon, bolero and pop music dominated. While singers were competing to sing, she found a genre of music that no one was competing for and pursued it alone.
The way she built her reputation was also unique: always wearing a white ao dai and singing at a high pitch. "In order for people not to remember Anh Tuyet, they should remember 'the girl in the white ao dai', 'the girl with the soaring voice'," she explained.
The name Anh Tuyet became famous after appearing in a private concert that musician Van Cao attended. After one night, the press unanimously wrote about Anh Tuyet as a musical phenomenon.
However, Anh Tuyet's journey to build her career was not smooth. She started life with nothing, no money or reputation, no one to support her and did not want to rely on anyone.
In her early 20s, she was "poorer than poor, working like she was "selling her life" without leaving anything behind" so her mind was rarely at ease. In her free time, she often looked at the tall buildings in the distance and daydreamed.
Once, Anh Tuyet told her friend that she wished she had money to open a tea room, buy a house, and buy a car, and was immediately scolded: "No rice to eat, starving, sitting there wishing and wishing."
When criticized, she said nothing, just quietly buried herself in working to earn money. She believed that she did not need to prove or intimidate anyone, but wanted to challenge herself.
In Anh Tuyet, there are two opposite but complementary personalities: an artist and a businesswoman. She founded a construction company, opened a restaurant, a coffee shop... to nurture her artistic dream - ATB tea room.
She has been in many businesses without ever losing money, but she was heavily in debt and almost went bankrupt because of her art. Opening the ATB tea room, the singer spent 4 billion to renovate it, but then lost about 40 million/month and had to close it after 5 years of struggling.
According to Anh Tuyet, she failed because "she could not make money by exhausting the artists, and did not want to collect too much money from the audience".
After ATB tea room, she also gave up other big dreams such as opening a cultural and artistic stage combining tradition and modernity.
Often teased as "billionaire diva"
Except for the tea room, Anh Tuyet's artistic business style is "doing well". In the early 2000s, she started buying land even though she had no knowledge about real estate.
Many times, the singer read the newspaper and saw cheap land and liked it, so she called to negotiate, and could close the deal without even going to see it. Later, when she bought a house in France, she still followed the method of... checking the location on Google Map and closing the deal over the phone.
"Some landowners said they couldn't believe someone would buy like that. My brother often scolded: 'This girl buys land like she's buying a potato,'" she said.
Just like that, Anh Tuyet bought and sold land from Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria - Vung Tau to Hoi An, even in France. In 2021, she suddenly realized that she could not manage it all.
Land in Long Thanh, Vung Tau... was forgotten by her for more than 10 years. Real estate in Ho Chi Minh City, including the famous 7,000m2 garden house, has more or less degraded.
"Perhaps, I will soon sell all the real estate in Saigon and the surrounding areas, I can't manage it all by myself. I plan to keep only the house in Vo Van Tan (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) - the first house I have," the singer shared.
Her motto has not changed over the past 20 years: "If you like something, you will buy it. If you are happy, you will sell it with love."
At the age of 62, Anh Tuyet lives happily with her hobby of growing crops and raising livestock. In Hoi An (Quang Nam), she has 4 gardens with clearly divided purposes of use: the garden on Phan Chu Trinh street grows flowers, the land next to Hoai river grows vegetables...
Traveling and taking care of 4 gardens takes almost a day. In addition, she also manages the villa where she lives and the famous ancient house where she entertains friends.
These properties were once bought by Anh Tuyet for only about 1 billion VND, currently the old house is valued at nearly 100 billion VND, a garden is about 60 - 70 billion VND.
In France, Anh Tuyet’s husband’s family also has a beautiful garden near the border. Before the pandemic, she and her husband often visited every year, and this garden house inspired her to create her own garden.
Anh Tuyet has a maid but likes to decorate the house and tend the garden herself. She has never studied design, only learning from friends and the internet.
The singer has been romantic and loved flowers since his youth. Gardens in Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An have flowers brought from France such as climbing roses, amaranth...
Until now, the female singer still doesn't think she's rich, always living with the mindset that "even if I sit on a pile of gold, I'm still the Anh Tuyet everyone knows".
Several times when she returned to Ho Chi Minh City to sing, her colleagues teased her as a "billionaire diva" or "real estate diva", but she always dismissed it in a serious tone.
Anh Tuyet is still simple, tolerant and emotional. During the pandemic, she reduced the rent by half, even resolutely returned the 1.3 billion VND deposit when she saw that the tenant did not dare to terminate the contract. Or she once lent an acquaintance 4.5 billion VND, but later did not have the heart to sue to demand the money when that person fell into trouble and got into trouble with the law.
Looking back, Anh Tuyet saw that she had suffered for most of her life. In her old age, she was not yet satisfied, still liked to work, occasionally sing and meet friends.
