I went to visit the famous house of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore today. You can find plenty of professional photos online, so I won’t bore you with mine. It was just a typical American row house from the 1830s, small compared to modern standards, but even with its not-up-to-modern-housing-codes stairs and *gasp!* notoriously small space, I thought it was quite comfortable to move around.

MY tour guide, however, a sassy and intelligent young lady who clearly grew up from a very different background and culture than mine, sure didn’t share my same viewpoints. As we stepped into the master bedroom of the house, she blurted out a smug comment:

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. The ceiling is low. This is horrible living standards, even for the time back then.”

And immediately I thought: “Wow! I wonder what she would have thought of MY childhood home in Vietnam in the 90s!”

Our humble home, photo below with my Dad and brother, was exactly 2 meters wide and 8 meters long, and it had 2 stories. That is about 344 square feet in total living area, if I didn’t miscalculate. I spent a beautiful childhood there with my parents and 2 siblings, and my parents were private teachers so we always had students coming in and out of the house from 6:00am to 9:00pm, from elementary school children to middle-aged professionals, depending on what class Mom or Dad was teaching.

We adapted. We folded our beddings and tucked them away during the day to turn sleeping space into classroom. We stowed away the tables and chairs at night to turn the house back into a family space.

And if we had seen the Poe house back then, we would have thought it was a mansion for how big it is compared to our house.

We were not rich, but we were always grateful for a roof over our head. Not once did we feel that our tiny home was too cramped, or “horrible.” And maybe that was because around us, there were many people who were living inside houses that were literally just shanties made of flimsy metal sheets taped together, with maybe a roof weaved from bamboo and coconut leaves on top.

And maybe we were grateful because we knew that not too long ago, my grandmother’s family was homeless and hiding in the jungle, after the French pillaged and commandeered their house and killed my grandmother’s father. My grandmother’s infant sister did not make it due to the horrible living conditions in the jungle.

So I supposed it’s true that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.🙂 It all depends on perspectives and lived experiences. No matter what, I encourage you to be grateful for what you have today. I still think back to that 344-square-foot house fondly, even if it’s “horrible” living conditions by today’s standards.