New York in the 90s, two people conversing eloquently about touchy sentiments, which frequently took the form of New York’s fall, school’s supplies, the air and the coffee. Talks about leading small lives, Pride & Prejudice, The Godfather. Connecting and talking about nothing, isn’t it so Nghiem Mai Linh, right Nghiem Mai Linh?

“But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”

That morning Linh took her laptop and met me at us 4's favorite Starbucks place. “Where do you want to go, Bali? Singapore? Myanmar? What?”

--“How can we jam this trip in the before Tet? Next week is too close, now is too late.”

--“I know, if we go we should have been gone by now, right?”

--“Hey, how about we go now? -- No, no, it is never gonna work.”

--“Why wouldn’t it?”

That wealth of knowledge only gets bigger and bigger since she started university in Moscow. Linh has come home five times since she first took off 3 years ago. And each time, we get to see how she gets smarter, wiser, more balanced, more particular about what she wants out of life. “This is what she learned after her trips to Italy and that is what she learned about German people while visiting there”, and so on.

What she learnt and saw was transmitted to us in the form of stories packed in fog and mist of the faraway Europe. We knew our friend in versions of her formed personality, but never the process in between. Bangkok changed that. This trip where we spent so much time with Linh - 24/7 in 4 days - is the first time that those stories are no longer stories, but live sequences of Nghiem Mai Linh, thinking, talking, squinting her eyes (various degrees of squint depicted below). After all, that's what humans do to each other right? Witness and be witnessed.

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Danang, April 2023

Bali, March 2023

August 22nd, 2021

Singapore, 2021

Don't love one thing, love everything, and pass it on.

as a fellow human, what can we do?

August 22^nd, 2021