Vinh City these days is filled with the colors of spring when everywhere is full of flowers. On the streets, trucks are full of flowers to the selling points. Apricot, kumquat, grapefruit, chrysanthemum, orchid, camellia, rose... are blooming brilliantly. The atmosphere also becomes more bustling when many people come to see, admire and buy flowers. People who come here to sell flowers and ornamental plants are from all over the country. They are people who grow apricot from far away Binh Dinh, kumquat from Quang Nam or peach trees from Hanoi. They are farmers in rural areas who grow flowers to sell in the city, or people who take advantage of the days before Tet to do business, to earn extra money for Tet.
But unfortunately, selling "flowers" is so risky that many people compare it to a "gamble". Renting premises at high prices, eating for free, lying in temporary tents. On sunny days, they worry about the flowers blooming, wilting, and dying quickly. If it is very cold, they worry about the flowers rotting. During the day, they take care of and introduce the flowers to customers; meals are cold lunch boxes or hastily cooked instant noodles, or hastily made bread. At night, they huddle in tents with the wind blowing from all sides. After all the hardships and difficulties, they only hope to sell all their goods soon, earn a profit, go home to celebrate Tet, and reunite with their families. However, that wish is not easily realized...
During Tet, everyone goes shopping. There are people who shop early, after the full moon of the twelfth lunar month, buying kumquat and apricot blossoms to display, while those that quickly fade wait until after the Kitchen Gods' Day to buy. Buying early is partly to decorate the house to create a Tet atmosphere, and partly as a way to help flower sellers sell out quickly to return to their hometowns to celebrate Tet in the spirit of "everyone is happy". But there are also many people who wait until the 29th or 30th of Tet, or even before New Year's Eve, to buy with the mentality that when the market closes, sellers will have to sell off at cheap prices like giving away...
I still remember, Tet 2017, at a flower market in the South, starting from the full moon of December, it was bustling with people preparing goods, but there were only people looking, watching, asking for prices, almost no one buying. Until noon on the 30th of Tet, people poured out in large numbers and forced the sellers to lower their prices. Many people had to "swallow the bitter pill" and accept selling at a cheap price, to salvage whatever money they could so they could return home in time for Tet. But there were also people who were determined to bring their goods back, some others angrily smashed flower pots, destroyed flowers into trash instead of selling them off.
And in the past Tet, many times, flower sellers had to accept unsold products, losses, and empty-handedness, but they were determined not to let buyers force them to lower their prices. And as Tet approached, messages appeared on social networks calling for "Don't wait until the 30th to buy flowers for Tet". A Facebooker shared: "Don't buy flowers and ornamental plants on the 30th of Tet if you can afford to buy them before. Don't wait until noon on the 30th, don't wait until the afternoon of the 30th, the evening of the 30th, or even after New Year's Eve... to buy them at a cheaper price. Flower growers work hard all year round, take meticulous care, and go through many steps. At the end of the year, they bring blankets to the selling place to sleep all week, stand in the middle of the street to sell even in rainy and cold weather, and sleep curled up in a tarpaulin at night, while you sleep in warm blankets. So don't be afraid to give each other joy and smiles at the end of the year."
Tet is coming, to make everyone happy, sellers should not shout “sky-high” prices, and those who are interested should go buy early. So that everyone can be “happy as Tet”, not “flowers smile, people cry”.
Article: Tue Anh
Illustration: Document
