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Transcript

479 - Can We Break Free From Refugee Trauma? - Peter Broke The Habit · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I have Peter from broke the habit back on.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been probably a year or so.
0:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm so curious like what has been going on with you in the last year.
0:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I know that the journey that you've taken in the last year or so has been something that
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was unclear.
0:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just wanted to get back on and I know that you've been through some ups and downs in the last year.
0:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome back.
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
0:31
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're having me and I'm back on my pleasure.
0:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you walk me through like when we got off the last episode?
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what was your journey like was that almost, was that almost two years ago?
0:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, could be.
0:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're in a half ago?
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I came in in 2024 and I was 26.
0:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so when I first met you, looking back, hindsight's always 2020, I was still in survival mode.
1:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And the big takeaway from that was all of my life, I was in survival mode.
1:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So I came to Vietnam.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I was an English teacher.
1:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then still trying to do content on the side part time.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went through my own trials and tribulations.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: worked at a media company that I'm not going to say the name and then burnt myself out and the TLDR is had to go back home for like four or five months to reset.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Twenty-two-six, I'm finally doing what I wanted to do in Vietnam, it's try to do this content and think full-time.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I've been doing since
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: January and I'm gonna play it out until the year and see whether that takes me and I'm slowly making my way up north I'm currently in Nya Jang right now as the as we're talking
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So okay, so you worked for this media company and you burned out because you just like worked too many hours like how did it worked too many hours I felt like I was a little bit over leveraged and I couldn't work on my own bread I took it because it was an opportunity that I thought I'm like, oh, this would be you know exciting, you know Enter the Vietnamese market and then I realized oh, no, I don't have enough time for my own stuff
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I realized that was the same thing that happened to me in Vancouver, Canada, where I was like, took this big job, six figures, but then, you know, didn't feel happy.
2:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Something was kind of missing.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it, I took it because there was like stability, there was like a paycheck, but I'm like, wait, I am slowly actually recreating the life that I had in Canada in Vietnam.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, wow, and that was like, okay, now I need to take us to take us that back.
2:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's so trippy that we don't really leave ourselves, right?
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't really get a percent wherever we go.
3:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We're taking the same mindset wherever we go.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So do you think that you've purged that mindset?
3:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think you're still no?
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm aware of it now, but it's like because I have family in Thunbin and in Saigon.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I look back, I'm like holy crap, just years of intergenerational trauma and poverty.
3:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm starting to see a lot of the way that my parents raised me.
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The scarcity survival mindset, I'm like holy crap, my whole life.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole life scarcity, like, if I have this job, I don't know if there's a bigger job out there.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so hard for me to think abundance.
3:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
3:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And even till this day, like, I just visited my aunt dropped off some of my luggage and she's like, hey, if I had the chance to go, no one, I would never come back.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I always have that guilt of like, I'm back in Vietnam.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: My family doesn't support me.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's always been like this kind of guilt
4:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing this content creation journey.
4:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I had identified with so much of it.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I do.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I identify with the scarcity mentality I have to like.
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to read affirmations every day to purge myself of this idea of not having enough, but this has been one of the most plentiful years for me in 2026 in the podcast, like all these brand deals and just ability to look into the camera and talk into the camera.
4:33
[SPEAKER_02]: That wasn't there before, you know?
4:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel so much,
4:37
[SPEAKER_02]: gratitude, but at the end of the day like deep down inside, it's still there.
4:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still like lingering and feels so dirty and and and drags your confidence down.
4:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do we get out of this?
4:50
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we like?
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like you lean into the things that make you uncomfortable.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That is like to be able to like, my default is like isolation when when like stuff hits the fan.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I run away and isolate.
5:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, how about now?
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I just kind of confront sit.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just sit with the uncomfortable like, hey, this might not work, but it's completely different.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm doing something that is way out of my comfort zone.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: to break the habit and trying to I'm trying to yeah so on this iteration of your life going back to Vietnam this next shot what is different about the way you're doing your handling concentration.
5:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it full time now.
5:38
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no, I should get another remote job or I'm going to try to, you know, take a full time.
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, I'm, I'm working and really cool shout out stitch and sue.
5:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you follow my Instagram page.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a brand deal.
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, cool.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do this and a lot of people are like, Peter, aren't you doing content full time?
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, this is part time.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's any money, but I'm like, wait.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I can get partnerships here.
6:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I have a big enough audience to like, this can actually sustain myself.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, I had to like, change my mindset of like, scarcity to abundance.
6:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There is opportunities here.
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause a lot of people look at me like Peter, you made it, I'm like, no, I feel like I'm barely beginning.
6:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, and what number did you feel like you could now get brand deals?
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think I always could.
6:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I had an interview with an interview at Chris Doe, shout out to him, and he's like, all dressed with your level as a, I had like, I think 60K followers back then.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you could easily get like four figure brand deals, I'm like, really?
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what?
6:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Because back then, I was like,
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: as a content creator, I'm like, oh, I'll $200, $300.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'll take it.
6:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like, no, I was thinking so small.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking so small.
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And now with the creator economy, it's like, there's companies out there.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know yourself that are willing to pay money, even though you don't have a huge viral audience, they have a budget.
7:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember,
7:16
[SPEAKER_02]: a chef telling me when he was at 15,000 subscribers on Instagram, he was already monetizing.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: He looked at me, he's like, it's not that hard.
7:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not.
7:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a mindset.
7:31
[SPEAKER_02]: and I began to think about that, and I was years ago, but I began to think about that, you know, it really is a mindset.
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: All of this is a mindset, all of this world that we live in with this concentration or the next iteration of our lives for the next 20 years on Earth with AI and all, it's really a mindset, you know, like you can actually get really rich if you can swim in this like new world.
7:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's all in here.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I realized, because like the first month of doing this content thing full time, I'm like, wait, I'm like, I'm doing what I wanted.
8:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, it took me a year of being an English teacher.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, why do I need to be an English teacher?
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Why can I just do this?
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Jake, jump straight into this content thing.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's here, there's this brain.
8:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's all up in here, controlling it.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: because a lot of people online are like, hey, you shouldn't get a job.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You should find something stable, going to Vietnam.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not gonna work.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you're watching the content.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this content is a job.
8:36
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't realize that.
8:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you have?
8:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I look at, there are people that I look online.
8:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, for example, milky trend.
8:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't had her on the podcast yet, but one of her mentors told me, hey, you should check out milky trend.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And you start to look at her post, right?
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to milky trend, love to have you on the podcast one day.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You look at her growth, and you look at what she's done,
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can say, that is somebody who really has done it right.
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I think she's at 260k.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And the ability, the idea of monetizing for her, seems like it's there.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Adobe, all of these brands will honor the way that she puts out content.
9:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's beautiful stuff.
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But then for the rest of us,
9:28
[SPEAKER_02]: people, how do we get to that point where we're so adept at, we're so good at what we do and feeling confident to be where you are right now, which is, it's a journey.
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's a few, two years and I'm feeling like,
9:45
[SPEAKER_02]: To interview people for me, it's okay, I'm okay with that, but the next big step is really understanding how to really tweak the brain to go, I'm going to lock in and I'm just going to make the money.
9:58
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you go from that?
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I think with her, I've seen her stuff.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like she worked years in production as a creative.
10:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So you understand that roadmap were for us.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more like, start off as a casual hobby.
10:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you need to make the switch of like, oh wait, I'm actually a media company.
10:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a business, so once you start seeing that, it's pretty much just put together your one page business plan.
10:25
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how I'm going to scale.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my go-to market here in my values and here's how I'm going to take the next step.
10:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I needed to switch because like, I was doing both the habit as like casually, but now you'll see within the next couple of videos.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm walking in.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Damn, you're the horse.
10:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel the same way.
10:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel the same way this year.
10:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like, yeah, everything is like locking in, and I feel like the money for some reason in the creator space is more this year.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, interesting.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it's more.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've gotten more brandyos.
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think that it's an issue of me being a veteran of the business anymore, but I think it's more like there's just more money it feels like in the creator space.
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, can you go to look me up with the bin fast?
11:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't love bin fast, this bots are me.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we should do a, maybe we should do a deal.
11:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We fly back here and get on some, are you going to get my flight?
11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's done, done, done.
11:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Just in favor of the flight, I'm there.
11:27
[SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy, that's, you know, but maybe we can make something happen.
11:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean,
11:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we could figure that out together and join up and get together in a brand deal or something.
11:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's what this is all about.
11:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like opening up that opportunity space and your brain to be like, you know.
11:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So tell me, all right, so after you burned out at that big company and you love the company and then did you stay in Vietnam or what was your mentality?
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a lot of stuff happens.
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I don't want to talk about too much about his tea, but like something happened that was a falling out.
12:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends become business partners and business partners become rivals.
12:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Stuff like that.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I was so naive as this little kid from Vancouver stepping into Vietnam.
12:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not knowing much, right?
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I was very, was the right word.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Green.
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like just like coming in and being like, I'm here to explore my culture and my roots and everything that's going to be like a walk in the park.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, when you travel to a new place, I'm like, oh, man, there's like different social groups.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There's different things to be aware of, laws are different.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I quit.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got burned a couple times, definitely the year of the snake.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: God burned a couple of times.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Just people that, I don't know, once you have a bigger number, that's why I'm scared of as well.
13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the scarcity mindset of like a bigger number next to your Instagram handle, people treat you differently.
13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me about that.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So people try to be friend you, but it's not so much of a befriending.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more of an exchange, like what can you do for me versus, I just want to get to know you generally as a person.
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that comes along the lines of what I realize is now, is like, oh, I was getting into showbiz.
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like triple Z level, but it's show business.
13:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that if someone has like 500,000 followers and million followers, they're not going to try to be friend everyone.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be people who want something.
13:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to grab something.
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't realize that coming in because I was like, I'm just going to travel and be a climter greater.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, now I'm starting to be a little bit picky of who I let into my circle and who I talk to.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a lot of growing up growing pains.
14:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what point did you realize of it?
14:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think after I got burned, where I'm like, oh, I, I thought this guy was my friend and then it turned out, oh, this was just a business um, transaction on their end.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And we will, how do you know that in Vietnam?
14:21
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, how can you distinguish that now?
14:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, um,
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: word of mouth, I think Saigon is very small.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like people are like, hey, that person just because you're something like, okay, okay.
14:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also getting a feeling vibe, I'm much more selective, I don't say yes to every single person that wants to meet me.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But it can come up pretentious because people will be like, Peter, who do you think you are?
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a balancing act.
14:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we're careful, I think it's more important to make sure that we are okay with saying no.
15:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a hard thing too.
15:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for people, when we live in the scarcity mentality, it's people play thing.
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're all about the people pleasing.
15:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you see our successful friends, they're not about that at all.
15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And like no means no, they got the reasons they've been burned many, many years before we ever got step, before we
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: and they've understood the cycle of like, yeah, it's a tricky space, but how has your content changed?
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm having more fun with it and not just reping the same thing.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna show people,
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: local POVs of Vietnam and what it's actually like to move here and have fun.
15:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I just get my I got my Neil the other.
15:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to comment on that too.
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I picked my nose every now and then too.
15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm just having fun and like just there's there's this notion of like there isn't
16:02
[SPEAKER_00]: local POVs from Vietnamese people put out to the world.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: As usually, foreigners, expats who show you one side of Vietnam, they come here as cheap, but Vietnam has so much more to offer.
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So much more interesting stories that I think can be broadcasted to a global scale.
16:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, we have a lot of soul.
16:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it exists in every country.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a matter of, like, how can you bring it to the world?
16:33
[SPEAKER_02]: How can you pull it out of people and show that POV to the world?
16:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And are you going to be focused on a certain sector of the POV kind of business or are you like looking to do food or, you know, what is it travel?
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's still I'm trying to redefine, because as a content creator, you're always trying to figure out what's your stick?
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And even with that, you've got to evolve that.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now, I'm going through every stay.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to find like a local person to be my guide.
17:11
[SPEAKER_00]: to show me around what's in the life like in that city and their own life.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So in Saigon, I'm actually interviewed this guy named Archer and his kid, very interesting story, lived in District 8.
17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually a stay-at-home dad.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: As a Vietnamese man, that is very interesting
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and him wanting to invest in his daughter and like raising a kid in the education system.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And he drives 40 minutes every day.
17:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Just so his daughter can get a better education because the school system is better in district 10 versus in district 8.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So these things I'm starting to see when I'm like, wow, my parents
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the reason why my parents pushed a lot of education onto me because they see how important it was in the different levels.
18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And education in Vietnam is still seen as the gateway, you know, in terms of success, having a happy life, right, being educated.
18:14
[SPEAKER_02]: but it is a real gateway, I think for anywhere, any country, and even in America, I mean, the more education you have, the more access to knowledge, you are bound to make better decisions, if you're in the know, you're definitely gonna make the right decisions, or better than if you think that was,
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking touted in the last month, right, X-Bat area, and I lived next to Ishmick, the International School of Hoachiming, and I'm like, wow, the level of wealth here is insane.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They're speaking English fluently, but these are 16-year-olds.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, just the contrast in Saigon, I had a friend on my podcast, Saigon is not as while-ay, right?
19:10
[SPEAKER_00]: the stories of the super rich and also super poor, just that stark contrast.
19:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But are you covering that?
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about it briefly, but it's something that I wanna touch upon and seeing that, yes Vietnam is not super poor, but there are really,
19:33
[SPEAKER_00]: sad stories that I guess coming from the West we take it for granted right we take education and we take just what our hardship is versus you know what other people are going around in the rest of the world.
19:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's made us soft sometimes, you know, the descendants of our, you know, our parents level, like second generation like me, I'm much softer than a guy who's my age, who came to America when he was 15, guy out paces me on any level, right, a 15 year old kid who came from Vietnam in 1985, same age or 1990.
20:11
[SPEAKER_02]: 15 year old kid smokes me in terms of like work ethics and all that and I think that that has a lot to do with like when you grow up in poverty and Vietnam and you get to the United States and you're like a fish and you're just like now you're getting into the big ocean and you can eat all the little you just have much more plankton to to grow bigger in size because you're in a bigger ocean now and I'm coming from
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: a lot of poverty in the early 80s, you just get here and now you're just, it turns everything around for you.
20:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a lot of Vietnamese men and women now living in Vietnam, like my age, they're just so driven to like make the country a better place.
20:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that,
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We are living in a new time with Vietnam with the people in their 40s and 50s who are clear and free of the war and they're born after the war and they're now they're grinding and now they've made so much progress and now they're sending their children off to the United States and now the new crop of Vietnamese people are coming up and
21:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that you're going back to Vietnam doing content, I wonder what kind of shift you're seeing in yourself in the way you tow stories from when you first came into now?
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of VITQ or those that come from the West, there's this, there are different stages.
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I, I passed through the novelty stage.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I touched about that in our first podcast, but like, everything's so new, oh my god, motorbikes.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people never get out of that stage, right?
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people keep visiting Vietnam every two weeks and they're just in that, like, I'm sure, you know, like party mode and then they go back home and they live their life and it's back in party mode.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: But now it's like, I see all the good and the bad and it's able to, I'm able to make a better decision of whether or not, you know, I want to live a long term or I want to do like my dream was like six months, Vietnam, six months back in Canada.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's definitely,
22:23
[SPEAKER_00]: this time around, it definitely changed my POV.
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel much more comfortable in Vietnam.
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I walk around in my slides, my flip flops, and I just feel much more at home.
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, yeah, comfortable.
22:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And then why do you want to go back to Canada for six months?
22:41
[SPEAKER_00]: My parents, my parents are getting old.
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the only reason.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: The scientists.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So they moved to Vietnam with you.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They would not.
22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: but I'm trying to convince him, maybe in a future broke the habit series, I'm gonna have my dad, my dad has not been back in 30 years.
23:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So his V was gonna be like blown in terms of like how to wait V and I'm is, he left and never came back yet.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I came back in 95, right?
23:14
[SPEAKER_00]: He left in 80, and then he revisited in 95, and then since then he hasn't been back.
23:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, why?
23:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
23:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just worked.
23:24
[SPEAKER_00]: He just worked, um, scares these horrible minds that worked his whole life as a janitor, 40 years, man.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I think I'm like, I interviewed him, and, um,
23:35
[SPEAKER_00]: He never, it was just survival.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't know anything more.
23:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like no one could help him and he just worked for 40 years.
23:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think about I get a little emotional, but yeah, he just worked, but now he's retired.
23:47
[SPEAKER_00]: He retired last year, but he still has the same mindset.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, dad.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You're retired now, like, what's your excuse now?
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, um, your mom doesn't want to go or I'm like, I'll go next year.
24:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, dad, you said next year last year.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the next year now when you're going to come, I'll be your tour guide.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's still this thing where it's like, he doesn't know how to just like relax.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just constantly like 40 years being a janitor.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I just got to survive.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to make ends meet.
24:18
[SPEAKER_02]: When you left the first time, did you think that you were coming back?
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that's a good question.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think it was not coming back to Canada or Vietnam.
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Vietnam, Vietnam.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You left when you left the last time.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so I actually left in like after a year just to visit them, um, I knew I was coming back.
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it was just a month because back then I was still a teacher.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So I told the school, hey, guys, I'm gonna go for a month and I'll be back.
24:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But every time I come back, it's like,
24:52
[SPEAKER_00]: the initial novelty wears off, and it's like, every time I come back, it's like, I'm a different person.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if other overseas Vietnamese can relate with this, but every time it's like a different version of me, comes back into Vietnam.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know that's because I see myself differently.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm different, but every bit you comes back, oh my God, it feels like home.
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But then that mirage starts to fade.
25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're like, who is this?
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this feeling that actually coming back to?
25:24
[SPEAKER_02]: In this time, do you think you'll leave again?
25:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's we'll see after I make it up to Annoy.
25:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I do want to visit two, three months back in my parents, but I still want to build in Vietnam.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I still want to build this story because everyone knows me as the dude who moved to Vietnam.
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like there's still so much more that I haven't done in terms of storytelling and making this for everything where I'm like known as like a Vietnamese content creator,
26:05
[SPEAKER_00]: more than just Vietnam, because I don't want to put myself in a box where I'm like, I'm just that dude in Vietnam.
26:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I go to Thailand.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Who knows?
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm on that path too, which is trying to figure out, you know, the brand is called the Vietnamese podcast, but I want to like go out more.
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to like interview more mainstream Asian Americans, because we're all like in his ally ship here in LA, and
26:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I desperately want to move to Vietnam all the time.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I talk about that on my podcast.
26:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think that you are so lucky to live in Vietnam, you know, at your age.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, now that you kind of have an understanding of what to do, you know, skies the limit and the, you know, and Vietnam's changed so much that you have such a big
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's amazing, because like a year ago, I'm like, I don't really see those opportunities.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been survival of mode.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm working for like $18 an hour at this English center.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to grind and like make it through.
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like now, after like reflection, like, oh, yeah, I see it now, right?
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like the world is my oyster.
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do anything I really want.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And do you think that you could really make a big difference in your career trajectory?
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, I think there's always a part of my own insecurities as a content creator.
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like comparing myself to other people, especially with online.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I'm guiding myself in the right way, but I'm still having those like, oh, I don't know if I make it, whether it's fails, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And why do you want to get to Hanoi?
27:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what's the plan of like moving up north and making your way up north?
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: because I've never done the whole travel Vietnam.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just for the past two years.
28:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I was planted in Saigon and I never, I just did like a nine to five and didn't really travel and see the tourist view that a lot of other Vicki's around the world.
28:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I went north to South, I wrote a bike, I went to this place and I went to Sapa.
28:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I never did any of that.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to like denying that that was it.
28:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is my first time being like, let me enjoy Vietnam.
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And are you on a motorbike doing it or how are you?
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going my plan.
28:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going my bus.
28:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of just hopping around and feast very free spirit.
28:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Just going from town to town to town up north all the way to yeah.
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Then what's the plan?
28:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you get up to Hanoi.
28:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe come back to say, go on, make it my base, maybe back to Canada.
28:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of going with the floor right now.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy cow.
29:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it's literally last week.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, I was in the second, like this is my suitcase.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm like, I'm like, and yet Jack now.
29:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I got so much love and respect for that.
29:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like,
29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know, I'm just, oh, man, I'm feeling old.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 34 this year.
29:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, in Vietnam, I'm 33, 33, 33, 33, I'm 50.
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look at your life and I'm just like, what a beautiful time of your life, right?
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: At 34 to be, well, once you look back at it, you're just like, the freedom to just really map out whatever you want right now and just like have no strings attached and live like a free bird.
29:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though you say that, there's my scarcity, like, oh, no, what of this word, I also have that because my parents have me really late, right?
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They're born 54.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They're getting up there.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know, you know, John Villa and like everything, it's like, I have a small window before I have to go back and take care of them because I'm still Vietnamese like that, right?
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I still be like, okay, the time to leave it now and do whatever I really want to do is now.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this two, three year window, who knows, knock on wood,
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, and you the only son, I have a younger brother.
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, brother.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the must be tough.
30:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, must be tough.
30:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's exciting at the same time.
30:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad to see you back in Vietnam.
30:41
[SPEAKER_02]: What can we expect are you just, you know, going up free flow and you're just doing
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: interviewing people, I want to vlog.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of things I know that I want to explore Vietnam, talk to locals and just share more of my story and who I am and have fun.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the the moral of the theme of me is like, I just want to do cool stuff and like interview people who have
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: also done their journey because like my story inspired other people to come to Vietnam.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm flipping the script and my platform is their platform and I'm going to showcase other people like I the next podcast I have on my channels like any of this guy who lived in Australia.
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: He's 42 and he just dropped everything and came to Vietnam to say go on to make this little
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: and he's trying to make a business out of that.
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of people who are just like jumping ship and be like, I had enough of the West.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try to do something.
31:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that is.
31:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And now is the time to do it.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Now is the time to, I'm telling everybody that.
31:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Now is the time if you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s even, go to Vietnam.
31:56
[SPEAKER_02]: It's such a developing country.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that, yeah, there's partnerships everywhere, but
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's worth it.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's very worth it to taste it to be honest.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because you can, because of the geo arbitrage and like the dollar costs, it's like in America, it'd just be back in your nine to five and you have more of the scarcity mindset where because you have USD, you can bring it here and leverage that to your own advantage.
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Use that privilege to see what you can build.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Because to build a business here, you don't need that much capital.
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And that comes from a privileged place to say as a foreigner.
32:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can use that to your advantage versus where it's like, if you want to build a little mom and pop coffee shop back in America, that's like 500k, whatever, like, build a brick and mortar.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You bring that out to Vietnam.
32:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, maybe, okay, if it's like luxury bar, maybe 300k.
32:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's just little, like, hold the wall.
32:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like 10 to 20k.
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 50.
32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you can experiment if it blows up and blows up, you know?
32:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 50k or do the job in Vietnam right now.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Do a nice coffee shop and have a good life.
33:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I have some friends who in Vietnam, people who are from Vietnam asked me, you know, what is the deal with you Americans and identity, angst?
33:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, why do you always obsess about identity?
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just recently been confronted with that a lot because I think it just has never left me.
33:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always there.
33:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think people who grew up in America were always dealing with that.
33:38
[SPEAKER_02]: We're always dealing with like America's dropping bombs on other countries.
33:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like it never stops and then you think like it happened to Vietnam and it's so complicated.
33:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: difficult to kind of comprehend in the first go around at it.
33:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you you're sitting, you're like living in this country, you're just like, it always haunts you.
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you see like different voices of like leaders in our community who are just like America is like a war machine.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you're like, well, we benefit from it.
34:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Canada, the West.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: We all benefit from this
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But then people like you and I who are just so thinking about Vietnam all the time, we live with this pain of identity, and it's like hard to separate that from who we are.
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it comes from just being second generation, third culture.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: being Asian was frowned upon in the West where people in Vietnam, the kids don't have the same issues that Vicki use have, right?
34:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they're Vietnam, you grow up, you're Vietnamese, that's all you are.
34:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole society is Vietnamese.
35:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but when you grow up in America, Canada, you look on the TV, it's white people, right?
35:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like,
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Vietnamese guys are not sexy, right?
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You grew up being almost ashamed.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everyone, especially if you're born in the 80s or 90s as a guy, you know, it was not cool or sexy or attractive to be Vietnamese.
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be white black, you know, this macho guy.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And you always go, like, huh, like, I don't really love, it's internalized racism.
35:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't accept who you are.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then even our Asian counterparts, the ladies have this, like, oh, I don't date Asian guys because you look like my brother.
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only with the Asians that they have this kind of comment.
35:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's because you grew up around trying to appeal to the
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think with now in the West, there's this Vietnamese Maxing, you know, you're trying to embrace more of your culture.
36:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And is this balancing act between
36:10
[SPEAKER_00]: embracing who you are and holding space for both.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I'm realizing now as growing up in Canada, I will never be accepted as, you know, 100% Canadian or when I go to Vietnam, I know I thought I was very Vietnamese growing up in Canada.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I know the language,
36:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of my Vietnamese homies in Canada, they don't know Vietnamese.
36:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, my Vietnamese is like, first grade, but it's like, it's good.
36:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I know about the culture.
36:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I know who like the linders.
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I know who like, MTP.
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm very Vietnamese.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you walk into, like, Saigon, the first thing in the airport, like, wow, they clock you as a foreigner.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, I'm very white.
36:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very foreign.
36:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very Nuhuaia.
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then it's like, huh?
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this constant struggle between like, who am I really?
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And I should don't get old either.
37:01
[SPEAKER_02]: That question, you confronted with it everywhere you go as somebody who grew up in the West, you know?
37:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You're looking at that, every place you go, whether you go somewhere in America, you go somewhere in Vietnam, you know, you confronted with the same damn question.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know?
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, everyone's like, where are you from?
37:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, Canadian.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, where are you really from?
37:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it just exists.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the place that you don't get that from is like London, you know, is everybody so international, you know, and I would argue New York, you don't feel that way either, New York just feels like, you know, everybody's from somewhere else, you know.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you get in the like the little pockets of like America, you know, it just feels like constantly, and there are people who don't think about this.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's just not thinking about it.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's okay, too.
37:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's sort of not knowing is a blissful place to be sometimes.
38:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I also realize that there's very difference now between being Vietnamese and the West and being like, there's almost a divide.
38:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna cause more friction between a culture.
38:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like, cause more, you don't want it.
38:15
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't want it cause.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, Vietnamese Americans now or Vietnamese outside is very different from being Vietnamese Vietnamese.
38:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference is between living in Vietnam, like, okay, I get now what it's like to be more Vietnamese, where it's like when I was growing up in the town, I'm so Vietnamese, but I wasn't really.
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Or what's that difference?
38:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna hear it.
38:39
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean by that?
38:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Just mannerisms or like culture or how you present it or stuff or the way I think, right?
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The way I think, it's very Western, right?
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Where in Vietnam there's more, it's hue, right?
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like hierarchy.
38:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's little things where I didn't know I had to like, if I send fake, you know, hey guys, I'm gonna leave the table.
39:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just eating dinner.
39:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like little things after the little things learn.
39:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like wow I'm very foreign or I'm like international or I'm like I just get up and leave whenever I don't excuse myself.
39:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I don't have manners Which that that's why I find Vietnam so beautiful
39:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I found so beautiful.
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I find the little things that even if somebody's out to correct you and want to make sure you're doing it the right thing, if you don't think of it as annoying or aggravating, it won't be.
39:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, hey, I just want to show you the way we do it here.
39:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I got to let you know and sinfep when I get up, so be it.
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I want that.
39:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I want that in my life, you know, my mommy saw we say, oh, this is how we're doing Vietnam.
39:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the fight back.
39:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear that.
39:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But now,
39:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me the word of that.
39:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear more.
39:54
[SPEAKER_02]: How do they do it in Vietnam?
39:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to think about why they do this stuff in Vietnam.
39:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and there's always some some odd reason.
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always some thing that makes sense to the people from Vietnam.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's fine.
40:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just told somebody today.
40:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, Why do I want to live in Vietnam so bad?
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: because I just want to feel what it feels like when everybody around you is Vietnamese and everybody speaking Vietnamese.
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, how beautiful is that, you know?
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I always get my dick.
40:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you?
40:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when I was going back in Canada, I was just going to sound racist, but I'm like, oh, white people.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm like, I like, big around my people.
40:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I wasn't the first time where I'm like, I'm in Vietnam where it's like, oh, everyone's Vietnamese.
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to be like,
40:48
[SPEAKER_00]: cater or act as though I'm like everyone just it just feels like family-esque.
40:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never grew up around like a huge Vietnamese community.
40:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm like I'm just sitting at a coffee shop, you know, this lady is over here talking about her son, blah, blah, blah, blah.
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like surrounded by Vietnamese culture.
41:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like literally rambling about this, but that's like literally what I'm consumed with all day in my head.
41:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all day thinking about it.
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all with all day thinking about
41:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Your kids are older now, right?
41:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You can just, you just slowly make the back and forth.
41:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're eight, eight going on nine.
41:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have my son just turned seven.
41:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
41:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, the summertime I'm going to try to spend more time there.
41:32
[SPEAKER_02]: But I, you know, I'll have a lot of work here.
41:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So partly I'm very grateful for that and a lot of gratitude.
41:38
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, like, I want to pick up brand deals and Vietnam.
41:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to travel Vietnam, get on a motorbike and just go by myself.
41:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and vlog, you know, and live, just be out there by myself, yeah, maybe a week or two, you know, and just vlog and just roll up to different places that are like completely unbeknownst to me.
42:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's just like a, it should be like a passage where every person who is in the West needs to come home to the motherland, once in their life, spend like two, three months and just really do the whole full circle, if you grew up in America, the West, whatever, Australia, UK and you had Vietnamese parents coming to Vietnam will change.
42:32
[SPEAKER_00]: the reality of, yeah, of like, you'll understand your parents and through that it's like a mirror you understand yourself.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I, I encourage all the young people who are, you know, in the 30s who have 20 and 30s who have parents that are, you know, still healthy enough to travel back with your mom and dad.
42:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's such a beautiful, I did it in 99 or 2000 for the first time with my mom and dad and we took 12 relatives in a big van.
43:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I looked back and I'm like, that was like one of the most epic trips we went to south up to the north and back down.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the most epic trips in my life, two, three weeks, and I took a picture on this beautiful rock somewhere in the north.
43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom and dad were sitting on this rock and I had a DSLR camera and I shot the shot of my mom and dad sitting and I still have that picture and it's on my dad's tombstone right now, that picture with my mom and dad sitting there.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look back in the album and I'm like, you don't realize this how special these things are when you get to travel back home to their homeland, you know, and connect with them.
43:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.
43:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And my dad's gone.
43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah.
44:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, my love for Vietnam will
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it'll ever, I've ever died.
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I make it a point in my work, I think to bridge all the people who look the other way and I'm like, oh, I just can't deal with the government, I just can't move up.
44:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all these things that I get that, I get the pain, I get the loss.
44:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the end of the day, if you know, I'm such a beautiful country, and it's part of us.
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I am, you know, I want to probably end by asking you like, you know, what do you hope in the next year to kind of like this 2026 to do differently from what you, um, what you did in the past, uh, trips.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to find about this and she was like, what are you doing right now?
45:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a tendency to burn out.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm scared of.
45:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I go hard and then I'm going to burn out.
45:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But putting myself a lot more out there and see where it goes, going into the unknown.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you think you burn out?
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you think you go that hard and allow yourself to burn out?
45:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And did you ever study when you actually hit the burnout point?
45:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like, there always in the back of my mind the guilt, this parental guilt of my parents are gonna die one day.
45:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need to do everything.
45:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Quick look, now, now, now, now, now.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can be there for them, whether that's physically financially.
45:46
[SPEAKER_00]: they sacrifice so much.
45:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have to somehow take care of them in some way and some form, especially being the older, the elders kid, there's always this sense of like, I need to be a millionaire and figure things out and take care of the whole family.
46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Canada, I did a lot of jobs just to,
46:11
[SPEAKER_00]: make sure that they're okay or just help them with whatever.
46:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always have that intensity of like, go, go, go, go, go, go.
46:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But I realized I was like, digging myself in, I was just like a car, spitting its wheels with no direction.
46:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been like that.
46:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm hoping this year would be different.
46:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I hope so too.
46:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And Peter will check back in in about a year.
46:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see where this adventure takes both of us.
46:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I get to Vietnam, I'll hit you up and hit Chris, Trent travels up and love a few guys again.
46:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
46:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for coming in.
46:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Lee.
46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Lee.
46:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Lee again.
46:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Lee.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a, but I didn't, where were you?
46:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, I mean, I didn't.
46:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a Vietnam.
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it wasn't Vietnam.
47:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it in January?
47:04
[SPEAKER_02]: What, what?
47:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I love January 20th.
47:08
[SPEAKER_00]: At least get on the 24th.
47:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, yep, yep, okay.
47:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'd ask Chris, you know, I was like, is Peter wrong?
47:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, no, he's not there.
47:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he, yeah.
47:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, dude, thank you so much.
47:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I know we, and thanks for being patient.
47:22
[SPEAKER_02]: We had to reschedule a few times.
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I appreciate you being so both traders, I get it, our schedules are crazy.
47:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to The Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
47:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at The Vietnamese Podcast.