Vo Tan Thanh, 74, an artist living in Vinh Cuu District, Dong Nai Province, has been drawing portraits of criminals upon the police’s request since 1999. His hobby is to draw portrait paintings inside glass or plastic bottles. His artworks – portrait paintings in bottles – posted on social media have won the interest of a large number of followers.
Formerly, Thanh used to draw portraits in glass bottles. However, as glass bottles were easy to be broken during the transport, he shifted to drawing portraits in plastic bottles. He uses industrial paints for his artworks, but he has to bend brushes of various sizes 90 degrees so as to be able to draw on the inside wall of the bottle.
Thanh told thanhnien.vn that he draws two portraits in every bottle. When the first portrait, which can be seen from the front side of the bottle, is finished and dried out, he covers a layer of silver-color paint on the back of the first one as the background for the second portrait, which can be seen from the other side of the bottle. He added that he often draws the portraits of Buddha, Avalokitesvara, and his relatives.
Handicraft shop opened to help people with HIV
Le Hieu Binh, 27, an accountant living in Binh Thuy District, Can Tho City, opened a handicraft shop in the city in July last year to lend a hand to people with HIV.
Initially, Binh welcomed those with HIV to his shop to guide them through making such handicrafts as scented wax products, keychains, potteries, clay flowers, paintings (made of seashells or crystal), bracelets and necklaces. However, due to their inferiority complex, very few came over to the shop. Binh later had to hire artisans to make these products for sale, and use sales revenue from the shop to help those with HIV buy medicines for their antiretroviral therapy.
Binh’s shop opens from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day when there are employees working at the shop. On the days without workers, Binh would open it at 5 p.m. or later after work at the company. He told thanhnien.vn that he is now helping about 10 persons with HIV buy antiretroviral drugs for their therapy. He also introduced some of them to work at cafés or restaurants run by his friends to make a living.
Quitting well-paid job to pursue shoe polishing
After spending three years as an IT engineer at a Singaporean company with a lucrative salary, Dinh Thanh Phong, a 38-year-old resident of Hanoi, decided to leave his job to follow his passion for leather shoes.
To kickstart his new career, Phong spent his weekends in 2017 polishing shoes at a café, offering free services to passersby. He also captured photos and videos of the restored products and posted them on social media. As demand grew online, he opened a shop at his home in Long Bien while continuing his IT job. By 2019, Phong made the decision to leave his job and fully commit to shoe polishing, targeting luxury brand users as his target clients.
Currently, he has opened two shops, providing jobs for over 10 employees, with a monthly revenue of about VND400 million. Reflecting on his journey, Phong believes that passion is a key factor, helping individuals find ideas and motivation in the first two to three years of starting a business. Patience and the accumulation of skills through real-life experience are also essential, he told the VnExpress news site.
“Blind box” gains popularity among youth
“Blind box,” a type of sealed packaging that keeps what is inside a mystery until the buyer opens it, is now in vogue in the country, especially among youth.
Duc Tien, a 29-year-old man in District 8, HCMC, happened to watch a livestreaming video about the opening of blind boxes in September this year. He promptly fell in love with the attraction of buying and opening such blind boxes to collect the toys or figurines in the boxes. He told vnexpress.net that he spent VND100,000-200,000 buying blind boxes a week (a blind box sells for VND2,000-8,000 apiece).
Meanwhile, Thien Thu, a 30-year-old woman in Binh Duong Province, often bought 50-100 blind boxes costing hundreds of thousands of dong once or twice a week to find out the toys or figurines inside and keep them as her collection.
Entering Vietnam since the middle of this year, the blind box movement has grown with some 50 groups gathering 50,000-300,000 members on social media.
