7 - your family

“Well, I live in Long Thanh with my immediate family.

There are four of us in total – my wife, my two children and me.

• My wife is a full-time homemaker. She left her office job a few years ago so she can concentrate on looking after the house and the kids, and, to be honest, she is much better at organising everyday things than I am.

⇒ Men make houses, women make homes

• My elder child, my son, is in grade 12 at the moment.

⇒ He is working really hard because next autumn he plans to study in Finland, and luckily he has already received a fifty-percent scholarship from a university there.

I’m very proud of him but also a little nervous because it will be the first time he lives so far away from us.

• My younger one is my daughter; she’s in grade 7. She’s quite outgoing and always keeps the house noisy with her music and TikTok dances. I try to help her with her homework, although mathematics nowadays is harder than when I was a student!

We live next to my mother-in-law's house. At weekends we usually have a small family meal together, and occasionally I have a drink with my brothers-in-law or other relatives. Those gatherings help us stay connected and release the stress of work.

All in all, even though each of us is busy with different things, we support one another and that makes our family life in Long Thanh quite warm and joyful.”