The knock at the door early in the morning awoke Giap Thi Song Huong, born in 1974, in district 12, HCM City. She heard people calling her name.  

Someone was leaving her baby in front of her hotel. The child was blood red and placed in a bag by her mother together with a letter written by a pencil. 

The mother wrote that she did not have good conditions to feed the baby and she hoped Huong would do this for her. She promised to work hard to earn enough money to get the baby back in the future.

Looking at the baby in her arms, Huong remembered the day 30 years ago, when she found a baby at a dumping ground.

Huong was just 16 years old at that time. She just left Dong Nai for HCM City to look for a job. She could not find any job and had nowhere to stay. As she could not return to Dong Nai and was a burden to her uncle, Huong went to Gia Dinh Park in Go Vap district, HCM City. She collected scrap in the daytime and returned to sleep in the park at night.

But the park was the home of street children, addicts and beggars. They did not welcome Huong. She had to move to an old cemetery on Nguyen Van Luong street, Go Vap district. At night, lying on the gold marble graves, she dreamed of the warm rooms with roofs to prevent rains.

After one year of working hard, Huong saves money to rent a small room. But at that time, she became a single mom in an accidental way.

The first child was abandoned at a landfill. The second was the child of a student living in a rented room near her.

Huong was too young and had no experience taking care of babies. She asked for milk from mothers and asked students to help take care of children when she was away collecting scrap to earn their living.

Later, she realized that the income from scrap collection was not enough to feed her and her children. She decided to sell groceries and then opened street food eateries. During that time, she continued to adopt many other children. She felt that she was fated to become the mother of the unhappy children.

The first two children Huong adopted have grown up, are over 30 years old and now live overseas. Huong cannot remember how many children she has received and raised since then.

For Huong, her happiness is seeing her children grow up. “Everyone wishes to have happiness, have their own families and their own children. And so do I. But if I had my own family, I would not be able to devote myself to the children and the people I am helping. I decided not to get married so as to best take care of my children,” she said.

Many years ago, Huong adopted children as she believed that the real parents of the children would come back one day to get them. However, the number of such parents is modest.

At present, Hoa Hong Home is taking care of 100 abandoned children, from infants to 13-14 years old.

Ha Nguyen