Nguyen Van Minh loves to clean up advertisements for housing, concrete cutting and drilling, drainage dredging and other services plastered on the electricity poles and walls along streets near his house without getting paid a cent.

The 70-year-old just hopes that his city becomes cleaner and greener, like he used to see in the past. Though neighbors and friends have told him to his face that he is a strange man for doing the job, Minh insists on continuing his work from Khuat Duy Tien Intersection to So Intersection in the city’s Thanh Xuan District.

He begins a “working day” by riding on his old bike along Nguyen Trai Street to “spy” ads and prepare for his afternoon task.

He explained: “Biking in the morning helps me to maintain my health and observe the locations where many ads are plastered. People who stick the ads on walls, electricity poles, and trees are very tricky. They often do it at dawn, so nobody can see them.”

Minh carries out his task at around 4:30PM, as everybody rushes home to prepare meals and pick up children. Amid the hustle and bustle of the city, nobody pays attention to an old man who does an odd job.

Minh is cleaning an advertisement on a transport sign. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Sometimes they think that the lonely man’s work is useless, because ads are plastered everywhere in this vast city of millions.

Restoring Hanoi’s beauty

The resident of Thanh Xuan District said in the past he lived on Lo Duc Street, near Luong Yen ground. Today the area is a residential area where ads are displayed everywhere.

He said: “Hanoi was clean in the past. I did not see ads plastered everywhere. Each shop had only one advertising panel. Now the ads look more topsy-turvy.

Though Nguyen Trai Street, where he lives, is listed among the dirtiest streets in the capital, partly due to smoke from vehicle’s engines and dust from nearby construction sites, Minh still decides to do “exercise” on the street.

 “Despite the dust and smoke, I insist on walking on the street to clear kilograms of the ads plastered along it,” he said. Minh was born and brought up in Hanoi, and says that for half of his life he witnessed a clean and tidy city.

Ten years ago, when he began the task, the way of advertising by sticking paper ads on walls had become popular. Numerous papers were pasted everywhere, even on dead-end streets in Hanoi.

Minh travels around the city with a little knife in his hand, the tool he has used since he nurtured the will tidy up areas near his house. The knife and he are inseparable. He carries it along everywhere and all the time. Even when he queues to collect retirement allowance, the knife is in his pocket.

Minh is working with his useful tool. Photo: Tuoi Tre 

Without the knife he cannot clear all of the ads, many of which are now attached with good quality glue. The elderly man always shows the knife to people who ask about his job, adding that he has used it since he started the job.

“With my elderly age, I am not able to contribute much to society. Keeping my residential area tidy is the only thing I can help with now,” said Minh.

He is happy because after hours of doing “exercise” the streets are tidier, though he knows that the ads will reappear next morning.

Silent job

Twice a day the hard-working Minh rides his bicycle when the dawn breaks, and walks along Nguyen Trai Street at twilight to clear leaflets stuck on poles.

For a decade, his wife and children did not know about his job. They thought that he walked for his physical training. Peers living near his house suggested he join their exercise club, but he refuses. He loves to “exercise” alone.

Only some men who work as xe oms (motorbike drivers) and street cleaners on Nguyen Trai know the bizarre “hobby” of the man.

“It’s not a great contribution at all. No one knows about my task and I also don’t like to talk about it with everybody. At my age, I get nothing if other people praise me for the contribution. The only thing I want now is to live happily and helpfully to my family and society,” Minh said.

His unrecognized contribution has recently gained results, as the streets he often visits no longer have adverts plastered on the walls, polls and trees.

“They are discouraged to see their adverts cleared every time they put them up, so they quit,” he said humorously. “Many think I get mad at the job, like a sand-crab carrying sand to the sea. But I think differently from them. The streets will be cleaner after I take the adverts off.”

He proposes that if every neighborhood had a team working like him, the streets would be tidier. Besides having a clean street, he also gets revenue from the job. Every ten days, he earns VND10,000 from selling the adverts he collects.

Minh became popular on social networks recently as some students wrote about him and his work. The youths encourage each other to follow him. He does not care about his fame, he only wants to continue the work.

One day a journalism student came to talk to him and volunteer to work with him. Later, he had to answer questions on local television. His wife and children finally recognized his silent contribution by reading about it online.