My Story

Cradled in the duality of my parents' intense love and complex shadows, I emerged as the golden child, a beacon of precocious intellect: fluent in English by 4, write the first poem by 6 and created an independent school magazine and worked part-time as radio presenter for the national radio youth channel VOV, yielding my very first earnings by 8.

 

I secretly yearned a love for dancing, singing, and all forms of embodied creative expressions. However, the expectation to follow in my father's footstep in law education had been ingrained in me since the age of 3.

 

My parents' troubled relationship has made me believe that academic success was the only way to ease the pain and gain their attention. I learned to earn love through achievement and derive self-worth from the constant 'doings.' By the age of 9, after my parents' divorce, and at 10, when my father became embroiled in one of Vietnam's most significant political’ scandals, I excelled in various competitions and secured a scholarship to attend a boarding school in England.

 

I convinced myself that academic excellence was the only escape route. This pursuit, coming from an unhealthy inner place, was also the onset of severe high-functioning depression, bulimia, borderline anorexia, social anxiety, self-harm…and later on even a few suicidal attempts.. All the unprocessed childhood traumas metamorphosed me from a sensitive, artistic spirit to a detached, steely individual, driven by logic and achievement, deeply haunted by mistrust, loneliness, and perpetual fear.

 

I pursued law, avoiding all ‘holidays', and graduated in a swift 2 years and 6 months—seeking, perhaps, not a degree but deep down a remedy for my hidden tumult.

 

At 20, I stepped into a role at an international bank, orchestrating sales that soared to nearly $20 millions quarterly before even attending graduation day. By 22, I was the young luminary at Mayer Brown JSM, and at 24, I co-piloted the transformation of a faltering construction firm into a thriving real estate and hospitality venture in Vietnam. Over 05 years, we sculpted a luxurious beachfront resort, over a thousand hotel rooms, restaurants, beach club, city tour buses , tourism infrastructures and hosted international events…generating a thousand jobs for the local community.

 

Amid this crescendo of success, I was waging a silent war within. Outwardly, I was the archetype of perfection, yet mornings found me racing against an inner void, where failing to outrun the sun spelled collapse upon the treadmill. I had mastered the art of emotional evasion, a detachment so profound that tastes and textures of life faded into obscurity. Work became my fortress, each project a stone walling off the rising tide of past traumas. Isolated in a crowd, I harbored a secret wish for betrayal, a desperate plea for an exit from a relationship that mirrored my parents' fractured past. In a world where I was desired by many, I was seen by none.

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