None of the women in Kim Lien village in Da Nang can remember when they began to earn their living as hawkers by jumping from a bridge on top of moving trains.

Women hawkers jumps from a bridge on the top of moving trains so that they can sneak in to sell stuff as food, eggs, and local specialties Photo: Tuoi Tre

But their grinding poverty means despite neighbors and friends getting killed, they cannot give it up.

Tran Thi Cuc, an old woman with a tanned face and scars on her cheek, has been a “train jumper” for 25 years.

The oldest of her five children, now 20, has been doing it together with her for three years.

“My husband is a construction worker whose income is not enough to feed himself. So my eldest daughter and I have to jump on the train to hawk stuff,” she says sadly.

Cuc says she has to do the dangerous task twice a day, at 7:15 am and 10:30 am, when TN2 and SE6 pass by her village.

On a lucky day she earns 100,000 dong (US$5), but sometimes nothing.

When they hear the train horn in the distance, Cuc and the other women rush to the nearest xe om whose drivers will take them to Nam O Bridge without saying a word.

The xe om drivers are further down the food chain, gathering en masse at designated times of the day to transport the women. They get VND5,000 for a ride with two women.

“They choose to go to Nam O Bridge since the train usually slows down here,” one of the xe om men explains.

At the bridge, dozens of women of various ages wait for the arriving train. Some of them have their bags tied to their body.

When the train passes, they clamber aboard one by one, grabbing on to anything they can on the locked carriages.

They then crawl up to the train roof where they stay waiting for a chance to sneak in when the doors open.

“If we cannot get inside, we need to wait until the train stops at South Hai Van station,” says Le Thi Ty.

“Then we climb down and get in to start selling.”

Though the job is extremely hard and risky, Ty says, she cannot make ends meet if she does not do it, though she sometimes feel sorry for herself for doing it.

A risky job

Many of the women in Kim Lien get up very early to clean the house or to warm the old food to make breakfast for their husband and children before leaving for work.

At 6am the village is filled with their voices calling out to each other to go to the nearby shop to buy things to start a new “working day.”

The items they buy to sell on the train include souvenirs, handicrafts, dried cuttlefish, and some local specialties. They pack all of it in their old faded bags.

Asked why they cannot stock their own goods instead of buying daily, Hanh, one of the women, says no one has enough money to do it.

They put their life on the line daily to earn a small sum.

Tumbling down on to the rails, getting electrocuted, and being chased away by railway security are everyday hazards.

“We have to accept it,” says a woman with a Hue accent.

Seeing their fellows fall out of the train is something these women see every day, but as the old Cuc says, though scared to death sometimes, they still cannot quit.

Phuong, who comes from the distant Hoa Vang District, has left her four young children with their grandparents to rent a house near Kim Lien station to join the train jumping group.

During her seven years at the job, she has been arrested twice and fallen out of the train numerous times, taking weeks to recover each time.

“But I must live with it until my feet fail to jump and climb,” she says in a resigned manner.

No way out

Nguyen Thi Tuyet Nga, chairwoman of the Hoa Hiep Bac Ward Women’s Association, admits to the existence of these women but says the local authorities have told them not to do this risky job and promised to help them sell at the market.

However, though most of the women want to switch to a safer job, it is a case of “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” Besides, they do not have the money to start a new job.

Some seafood companies recently offered to provide work for 100 women but most of them declined saying they were too old for that work.

Some even said that since the train only came twice a day, they had time to take care of their family, something they could not do if they worked all day in the factory.

Men also go train jumping

Around Kim Lien station, train jumping is not exclusive to women. Many young men -- and some old ones -- are occasionally seen with the women at Nam O Bridge.

On a bench in Kim Lien station is a dark, skinny 60-year-old man with a bag of goods. Ten years ago he had an accident while jumping aboard a train, breaking one of his legs, and he has since been unable to do it.

“I need to wait until the train arrives at the station to get on it and sell things,” he says.

Besides him is a girl, maybe eight or nine years old. She is also a “train jumper” who sells chewing gum and newspapers. Lien, as she introduces herself, says she badly wants to go to school but her family cannot afford it.

The most pathetic case must be Le Xuan Be, 38, a homeless man. Seven months ago, exhausted from a hard day jumping into trains, he fell asleep by the track and was hit by a train, causing him to lose his hearing.

But he still has to work as a “train jumper” to make his living.