The Third Packet of Instant Noodles Today
6/23/2026
2 min read
#OnMaTuTu
“Lan is 19, her bank account has 87,000 đồng left, and she's been eating instant noodles for two days — until the night she almost called her mom to ask for money, and saw something in the family group chat that made her put the phone down.”
— The Third Packet of Instant Noodles Today
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87,000 đồng. Lan checks the number a second time.
Rent came due yesterday — 1.8 million, nearly everything her parents sent this month. What's left is enough for a few more packets of instant noodles. This is the second day in a row she's been eating them, and today is the third packet.
She turns on the electric kettle and waits for the water to boil. While waiting, she opens her phone — she's been meaning to message her mom, just to ask for a little more, enough to get through the week.
There's a new photo in the family group chat.
Her parents just sold a few plots of rice. In the photo, sacks of grain are stacked neatly on a cart, her dad standing beside them smiling. The message below reads: "Sold it. Saving the money for Tuấn's tuition next semester."
Lan reads the message again. Then she puts the phone down.
The kettle clicks off. She gets up, tears open the packet, pours the boiling water into the bowl.
It's not that she isn't hungry. Two days straight of instant noodles and she's already tired of it — she knows. But looking at that photo — her dad standing in the sun, smiling because the rice sold, and that money already earmarked for her brother — she can't type the message asking for more.
Not out of pride. She just doesn't want to give her mom one more thing to worry about.
Lan sits eating her noodles in the quiet room. Outside the window, Saigon traffic carries on — this city never goes silent, but inside, there's only the sound of her eating and the fan turning.
Next week her part-time pay comes in. It'll be fine.
"Call home. Your mom will never think it's a bother that you need her."
Have you ever carried something alone because you didn't want to worry the people you love?
How did this story make you feel?