Funny story about raising pigs in Quang Trung house

(Baonghean.vn)- I met teacher Chau Giang, over 70 years old, the first generation citizen of the apartment building. Her greatest memory after nearly 30 years of living there is raising pigs on the upper floors..

In these high-rise buildings, in the 1980s of the last century, there were pigs raised to improve life. (Photo: Thanh Chuong).

The teacher slowly said: I used to be a provincial reporter on women's issues, and was known by many women in the province, but it was not until I raised pigs that my "reputation" became known. Many people came to see if the family of a university teacher had to raise pigs to make a living? I was not sad but proud, during the difficult times of the country, my husband and I did not mind the hardship of chopping duckweed and cooking pig feed to earn money to raise 4 children to study, and now they have all grown up and become adults.

The teacher said that the bathroom space is quite narrow, only about 3m.². When deciding to raise pigs to improve their lives, they had to divide them in two, "pigs on one side and people on the other". The hardest part was the water for cleaning the pigs. At that time, there was a serious shortage of clean water, so they had to save water to wash their faces and hands to bathe and clean the new barn in order to get rid of the pig smell and sleep peacefully at night. The main vegetable for pigs was duckweed, so the children took advantage of their spare time to go to the lake next to the apartment building (now in Le Mao ward) to collect duckweed. The family also placed plastic barrels right next to the hallway, and used the well to wash rice, or put leftover food in there so that the pig's food pot would have more protein and fat.

A glimpse of Quang Trung apartment building. (Photo: Manh Ha).

The teacher said that in September 1985, after 5 months of taking care of the white pig, it weighed 72 kg. The couple sold it to get enough money for their eldest son to go to university. The teacher also said: "Not only my family but many households at that time living in Quang Trung area had to choose to raise pigs to raise their children, just as Professor Van Nhu Cuong said, it was not me who raised the pigs but the pigs raised me. My husband is a PhD in mathematics with a salary of 115 VND/month, my salary is 85 VND/month but he has to feed 6 mouths, in the high-rise area without fields and gardens, raising pigs is like a lifesaver".

Perhaps, when designing that multi-storey house, German construction experts and Vietnamese architects only thought of the minimum standard of 4m2/person and did not think of the pigs, which provided a source of income for the family. There was a time when the sound of pigs squealing in the middle of the night filled the neighborhood…

AT

Photo: Manh Ha