I frowned all the way through my 15 minutes of fame.
People tell me I should lighten up, be a little less serious. I blame the work I do, the hours spent furiously concentrating on just one person as they share the most intimate details of their life’s journey.
But I realised recently I’m actually doing two things in Vietnam. There are the biographies, the heavy, exhaustive life journeys each designed to preserve forever the beauty of their subject’s time on Earth before memory fades. But there are also the book projects that are thank-you letters for my own journey here, the projects I commit myself to just because I want to celebrate the place where I live and the changes I see around me.
My diplomatic book for Vietnam/New Zealand relations, my work encouraging young people to talk to and write about their parents, the current story collection gathering writers to craft 10th-century fables to share in the release of mega-movie Ho Linh Trang Si.
I’ve been too focused on the serious part of my work without realising I’m also doing something that’s really caught up in the energy of Gen Z’s Vietnam.
They tell me I should be “out there more”, doing the social media, speaking to students, and even getting my face on TV. In the past months I’ve been taking this advice a little more seriously.
And now I’ve done the TV show, proudly sharing the stage with Paul Kennedy, as warm and sincere a writer as they come. I should thank Vietnam International Television – VTV4 for their invitation, their tireless creative energy and late-night follow-up texts, for trailing me through some of my most consequential projects this year, and for letting me share in their creative energy.
Even if I did frown all the way through.
Watch the show here, if you have half an hour to share the moment with me: Between the lines | Eyes on V