Poor people in the central highlands province of Gia Lai are finding odd jobs around cemeteries to earn money for the Tet holiday.
Economic difficulties force these people to find odd jobs around cemeteries before Tet
Despite Tet being just five days away, many poor people who live on the outskirts of Pleiku City have yet to prepare for the festival as they are still busy cleaning up graves.
They normally make a living by tilling fields, acting as builders or as decorators.
In the last days of a year, they return their hometowns as construction sites halt their work. They opt to decorate graves to earn some extra money to better cope with spiralling living costs.
Vo Thi Huong, 39, from Pleiku, said that she has worked on decorating graves during Tet for 29 years.
“Due to economic difficulties, both my husband and I are jobless. We’ve no money to buy rice for daily life, let alone for Tet. Grave decorating brings us between VND50,000 and VND100,000 (USD2.37-USD4.75) per grave,” Huong shared.
Despite a lot of workers, only a few families have an interest in hiring someone to decorate the graves of their family members.
“This year has seen less grave decoration demand compared to the previous years. With fewer opportunities to find work, we’ve had to arrange the work in order to keep the cemetery clean,” Hieu, a grave decorator noted.
Working hard for the entire year, these people do not seem to be very happy when talking about Tet.
Lan, a grave decorating worker, said, “We don’t prepare much for Tet. We just try our best to bring small happiness to our children during the occasion by buying some sweets for them. I feel Tet is just like any other normal day as we are still struggling to live.”
Waiting for a new job
They can earn VND50-VND100,000 from decorating a grave
They often clean graves before painting
