I met with Duong today and when she came to my house, she realised I was able to converse in Vietnamese and she jumped around like a squirrel “oh my god a blonde girl can speak Vietnamese, let’s do the interview in Vietnamese!!” (she exclaimed in Vietnamese, much to my terror).
We giggled a lot and I put the recorder on, offered her a drink, and she was already gliding upstairs “what’s in here? what’s in there?”. We finally settled on a Japanese style tatimi mat on my bedroom floor, and what proceeded was a near three hour chat, covering every which subject under the sun. I felt so lucky, warmed in her presence and the good fortunes of the day which she so strongly believes in. Her captivating non-stop chatter never became annoying.
As the sun set on my room and the cold started to seep in we ended the chat and I thought, oh god, this is going to be hard to edit. Somehow managed to condense it into a ten minute podcast, but be clear that there’s a lot still to know about Duong!
– Eliza Lomas