In late January, Phan Huy Vo, 67, began building a two-story house, with an estimated cost of over VND2.5 billion.

Ten years ago, Vo’s family was in hardship, living in a shabby house with many children. Fishing, their major livelihood, could not bring stable incomes.

Their lives changed when Vo’s four sons, one after another, went to work in Taiwan (China), South Korea, Canada, and Spain. Vo’s eldest son’s family has settled in Spain.

Vo said he no longer fishes, and just stays home to look after grandchildren. Every month, his sons send a decent amount of money for him and his wife to spend. The new house is built with the savings from the money his sons sent back.

Vo is not alone. In Long Hai hamlet, many other households have also escaped poverty and become well off thanks to the money sent by their children working overseas.

Ho Minh Tho, Long Hai’s village head, said it was once a poor village, with many struggling households due to large families and reliance on unstable fishing. 

“But over the past 10 years, very few people have fished. They tend to work abroad,” he said.

According to Tho, the labor export trend in the village started in the 2010s, when many young people put down their fishing tools and went to Taiwan (China), Japan, and South Korea to work.

Settling down abroad with higher incomes than fishing, they encouraged siblings and relatives to join them.

In 2015, the village saw a boom of people going to Canada, the US, Australia, and other countries, where they worked in nail salons or restaurants. The jobs there paid well, so almost every household had someone leaving to work abroad.

Currently, Long Hai has only 25 households still following fishery. 

Long Hai is called the “village of export laborers.” As overseas workers can earn tens of million of dong each month, they send money to support their relatives in the village.

The money has helped change the face of the village. Modern houses are increasingly common, and living standards have improved. Many households have capital to invest in seafood businesses.

“The village has 487 people working abroad, with about VND100 billion sent back each year,” Tho said.

Since the beginning of the year, over 20 new houses have been built, valued at VND1-2.5 billion each. Two-thirds of villagers live in modern, well-equipped multi-story houses. About 60 percent of households are considered well-off.

Dau Tinh