Because of a Small Promise

For three years of high school, I had worked like a buffalo plowing through endless fields of words and formulas. Nights stretched until two or three in the morning, my eyes drooping shut, my body ready to collapse. My hand trembled from the cold as I forced myself to solve yet another difficult math problem. The rainy season of senior year dragged on; muddy village roads were flooded, my thin raincoat clung to my skin, my lips turned pale from the chill—yet I kept whispering chemistry formulas under my breath.

Once, exhausted, I lay down for just a moment before my evening physics class. I ended up sleeping straight through until nightfall. Missing that class felt like dropping my entire future on the ground. After that, I set two alarm clocks, determined never to skip another lesson.

For a poor student in the countryside, my dream was simple: just to pass the university exam. Passing meant going to Hanoi, living independently, learning a profession, finding a job, earning money… that was enough.

But my uncle saw further.

“If you don’t study abroad, it’ll be a waste of that brain of yours,” he said, laying a hand firmly on my shoulder, his gaze heavy with something like destiny.

Study abroad. Those two words felt as distant as the summer night sky above the rice fields, scattered with unreachable stars. I had heard of it, seen online stories of outstanding students winning scholarships worth billions of dong. But I had never dared imagine it for myself.

“But our family has no money,” I whispered.

“We’ll worry about money later. Just study well first,” my uncle said, eyes steady.

So my uncle and father carried a small bag of country gifts—just two bottles of fish sauce and a kilo of dried squid—up to Hanoi, to visit the president of the university I had just been admitted to. It turned out he was from the same village as my uncle; they had once herded buffalo and cut grass together.

When they came back, their faces shone as if they had won the lottery.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he has a chance to study abroad in the first year. All he needs is to excel in his studies and improve his foreign language,” the president had promised.

My heart pounded. This man, whom I had never met, had lit the very first flame on the long path ahead of me.

I entered Hanoi with faith swelling in my chest like waves against a windy shore—restless, powerful. I believed that if I studied hard, the doors to study abroad would open. The president’s promise became my lighthouse.

In my first year, I buried myself in books. General math—I devoured it. Computer science—I signed up for outside classes, sitting among technology majors. The library became my home. The cafeteria was my fueling station. My tiny attic room was a place where, under a yellow desk lamp, I studied while dreaming of airplanes.

Then I hit a wall—a towering wall. English.

In the first English class, I sat in the second row. The teacher, with curly brown hair, spoke fluently. I tried to keep up, but after ten minutes my head buzzed as if a swarm of bees had erupted inside.

“What does it mean?” she asked me.

The class giggled. I froze.

I had studied French in high school. But because I was in the science track, the result was… I knew neither French nor English. Just heavy sighs after every class.

Some of my classmates from Cambodia spoke English like wind. Others from Hanoi were fluent. And me? I was a stone at the bottom of the stream, slippery and out of place.

“You’ll have to start from scratch,” my roommate said, handing me an old beginner’s textbook.

I laughed bitterly. “I can’t even pronounce ‘Hello’ properly.”

But I knew that if I wanted to go on, I had to climb this wall. I began learning English the way only a poor student could: free centers, discount classes, embassy workshops where I stood silently for hours just to listen.

But by the end of the first semester, no call came from the international office, no word from the president.

One day, cheers erupted in the neighboring class. Lam, who had scored as high as I had on the entrance exam, had been chosen for a study-abroad program in Eastern Europe. I heard the news while chewing a stale piece of bread in the cafeteria. The bread stuck in my throat.

“What about me?” I whispered. “The president promised…”

But nothing came. No invitation, no message. When I asked the office, the staff shook their head: “You don’t meet the English requirement.”

The sky collapsed. A promise forgotten, a dream shattered.

That night, I climbed to my boarding house rooftop. The wind howled. The city lights shimmered in the distance like a dream out of reach. My chest ached.

“I trusted. I waited. I worked. And still…” My voice was swallowed by the wind.

But I didn’t give up. I started from nothing: no money, no foundation, no guide. But I had perseverance.

At night, I tutored children for a few thousand dong. Afterward, I biked to a small internet café, where four thousand bought me an hour. I sat for hours with a crackling headset, scribbling down every word from BBC Learning English. The owner noticed and whispered: “If you’re preparing for an exam, come at 11. Stay an extra hour, free.”

I nearly cried. In this vast city, even small kindnesses became lifelines.

In my second year, a friend introduced me to Mr. Tan’s English class in a narrow alley. It was on the third floor of a tin-roofed house, stiflingly hot. Over forty students crowded inside, some on stools, some on the floor, all focused on his passionate teaching.

Mr. Tan had once been a student at my university. He had won a scholarship to the UK, studied abroad, and returned. He quit his government job to teach English to poor students. He was also a poet, his voice both gentle and inspiring.

“Don’t fear English,” he said. “It’s just a door. That door doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor. It only opens for those who knock long enough.”

I sat in the front row, taking notes feverishly. His lessons blended vocabulary, translation, and human stories. Each week, I forced myself to hand in homework, to read aloud, to practice speaking.

“Are you aiming for IELTS?” he asked one day.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I want to study abroad. But I never had the basics like the language students.”

He smiled. “Even better. You’re not trapped by old patterns. Learn naturally, and it will stay. Just don’t quit.”

I bought a secondhand cassette player. Each night, I repeated “Listen and Repeat” until my roommate nearly lost his mind. I practiced in the bathroom, the kitchen, the hallway. Vocabulary cards covered my walls and mirror. My room became a battlefield.

I wrote messy essays and begged Mr. Tan to grade them. I signed up for scholarship programs. The president never mentioned his old promise again. But I no longer blamed him. In a school of ten thousand students, who remembers one casual promise?

But I remembered. And I believed.

The night before the IELTS, I stood once more on the rooftop where I had once wept. Now I looked at the full moon. I closed my eyes and whispered: “I’ve been knocking at this door long enough.”

Two months later, while working at a secondhand bookstore, my phone rang. A soft voice:

“Hello. This is from the council. Are you Son, a student at Polytechnic University? Congratulations, you’ve won the scholarship.”

I froze. The noise of the store faded. My vision blurred. I hid behind a bookshelf and wept into my hands. For the first time in my life, I cried from happiness.

At Noi Bai airport, I clutched my passport and ticket. My father stood beside me, in his faded worker’s clothes, eyes wet. My mother pressed ginger candy into my hand: “It’s cold there. Western winds are harsh. Eat this to stay warm.”

I hugged them tightly, unable to speak. On the plane, as the city shrank below, I thought of the president. I opened a small notebook and wrote:

“Sir, I don’t know if you remember that promise. But for me, it was a spark in winter, a flame that kept me alive. Thank you—for a small promise that led me to a great dream.”

Outside the window, the plane soared through clouds, sunlight blazing open across every horizon

cre Vietnamese local