HERE COMES THE SUN - LITTLE BEATLE from VIETNAM!
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!
Hello Life Lovers!
Hello Great people with big dreams and big actions!
Here I come with my introduction story. So you don't have to wonder who is this little Vietnamese girl who gonna speak to you like singing a song lyrics 😜
In this post, let's discover:
- Who I am
- Why I'm here
- What to expect from my blog
- What I expect from you and this community
# 1 - "WHO I AM"
I'm Diem, a freelance musician, an international tourguide, photographer and a to-be personal development coach. Myself still amazed by how I came up with Little Beatle. Does it remind you of anything all at?
Yes, it's what you are thinking of right now, something just popped up in your head. The Beatles! haha
I've gone through 27 years of my life and never took any nickname or stagename. I love my Vietnamese name, Diem. It's just as basic and easy to remember. It means "beautiful" which made me kinda shy to introduce my name for a long time and it sounds as cheesy as the cheesiest pick up line you could ever hear in your life 😆
But as time goes by, I learned to love and passionately love whatever is me and about me. I came up with this point: Take it easy but don't play it too safe!
Saying hello with my baby girl - Cookie - A little Sausage dog
In my life, I love so much and want to do so much, I look at this world with a baby's eyes and a 80 years old lady's mind so I never get bored. If I get bored, I pick up my guitar and camera and go. If I stay bored, I'm dead!
Here are top 4 things that I'm all about:
🎸 Music
I'm a musical girl. I have been playing guitar and singing since I was in highschool, 11 years already. Music is my breath, my inspiration, my panacea, my life, my everything, the only thing I know that I can count on even when I lost everything else, and that's why music is my superpower. Music makes you happy, makes you sad, makes you feel emotional, it triggers your senses, it heals you and it spreads happiness. My greatest passion is 60's music, a lot of classics, specially The Beatles for sure. I'm an introvert but when it comes to making music, I'm pretty much of a rock'n'roll girl. On the stage, I'm totally a different person!
I started writing my original songs recently and I realized I did really get influenced by The Beatles and 60's classic rocks haha
Look at me here! Pretty wildly mild? 😋
✈️ Travel
My expertise is international tourguide and now I'm just taking a break from Covid. I mostly want to stay in my country and welcome international friends to visit Viet Nam because we'll have a lot to discover here. I have big pride for my country and I'm really into cultures and local experiences.
Back to the normal days, I spent 4 years designing and guiding my own tours with American veterans where I received the old blurry black and white photos which were taken over 50 years ago with me, flying from Saigon to Hue alone, then riding on a motorbike "tracking down" people in small villages, locating villages and people using military maps which I did not know a-thing about, which the Marines had to spend years to learn to read. You know after 50 years, the maps changed! The names changed! The buildings changed! People are gone and many of them are not alive anymore. And it is a sensitive topic to bring up to ask for help. I remember clearly those rainy cold days I pulled out the military maps and comparing one by one corner of the old map with the Google map on my phone, comparing the shape of the rivers, the curves of the rivers to find out the estimated area that I would ride to before I could find out the new name of the village, then find out if the people in my photos were still alive or not and any story behind the photos?
It kept going deeper and deeper into endless adventures, so much hard work to do, so much emotions we went through, so much laughs, so much tears of joy and sadness, and disappointment too.
How a typical day on my tours looks like. So cool, isn't it? 😎
They trained me to be tough and to make everything possible!
We were like people coming from a spaceship 😆
In fact I was just a little Southern girl getting lost in small rural villages of Central people. I could even write a book about how crazy that work was but how glorious it turned out to be.
After 4 years, I had found hundreds of people who are still alive after the war, connected many and many people together, made so many reunions between veterans and local Vietnamese that I can not count, healed them and made them fall for Viet Nam; my footprints are now all over the local villages in Quang Tri, Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, somewhere that typical tourists will never get to, somewhere a typical tourguide will never know in their whole life doing a typical guiding job. I met and dealed with so many problems with local people and local officers, with my drivers, with hotel owners, with my own clients to sort things out. I was 22 years old and just graduated when I started that work and that's why I say "Me doing that work is like I jumped into the ocean before I learned to swim". My name is now all over the US veterans sites and 100% my clients became my friends and we stay in touch until today.
One of the most adorable reunions ever 💗
A lot of times that's how exciting life is
But...
A lot of times we are too afraid that we are not good enough to do this or that
A lot of times we wait until we-are-good-enough or we-are-ready to do something that we THINK it's bigger than our current ability
And so WE NEVER START DOING ANYTHING, WE NEVER START MAKING THE FIRST MOVE and NEVER GET ANYWHERE!
Instead just make the first step and if it does not go well, then we at least know we gotta fix it.
Myself is a proof for HOW A LEARNING PROCESS LOOKS LIKE
Goal --> How to achieve goal --> What to do and how to do --> Do it --> Look at the data/result --> Analyze it and find the problem --> Find the solution to solve the problem and apply the solution --> Try it again --> Look at the new data/result --> Analyze it and find the problem -->...
IT IS A NON-STOP PROCESS and IT IS THE UNIVERSE'S RULE
And that's why I also chose to be a present person to enjoy my journey and little things I do because isn't it the main part of our lives?
I start to sound so greedy to learn and share experiences now already haha
My goal is visiting 50 countries in 10 years. And it's really something to look forward to when the world opens again. As you are here reading my post, I know you might have been to many countries, and wouldn't you admit that the more you travel, the farther you want to go? 😊
📸 Photography
A lot of us who love travelling will love photography or writing too, or both. Music, travel, photography are really the things that connect us with our senses and enrich our life experiences. Myself I love nature and portrait photography or taking photos of people playing music, anything natural and can deliver authentic vibes, then I'm in!
What about you? Let's share our photography journey here! And I'd love to see and support your work from all over the world! 💗
Running into my friends on the beach and took a random shot 😊
❤️ Love: What is "Love" here?
In my life what I treasure most are experiences and relationships. And we are human, we need our community, we can be as free and independent, but All we need is love, Love is all we need! (John Lennon's lyrics haha)
In a world of so much noise and confusion, I treasure authentic communication which builds authentic connection. That's why I chose to be a decisive, selective and genuine communicator. I chose to be brave to say "No" to what goes beyond my boundries and that means I chose to say "Yes" to more new oppotunities to meet the right things that are meant for me and make me happy.
This is the message that I desire to deliver to this world and everyone I know. Simplicity is power, and knowing what we want and what makes us happy to go for it is the key to LIVE A MEANT-TO-BE LIFE!
# 2 - "WHY I'M HERE?"
I have been spending too much time to learn and experience this life, I'm an observant and writer, it's time for me to take things out and make them officially beautifully shared to spread the happy enegry and inspiration. I love this journey though I treasure the destination. If you go hiking for 3 hours to get to the top of a mountain to get a nice view which you might get bored of after 15 minutes, and then spend 3 hours to go back to the bottom... what you think? Why don't we just enjoy the best out of those 6 hours too 😘
Thank you so much my friend Tim @jacuzzi for bringing me here and teaching me "The theory of the bamboo seed". What you are doing now and the efforts you put into something everyday will reward you later!
# 3 - "WHAT TO EXPECT FROM MY BLOG"
As I made it very clear of what I'm into and want to contribute, it will be: Music experience, Travel, Photography, Love and Personal Development
# 4 - "WHAT I EXPECT FROM YOU AND THIS COMMUNITY"
I love and treasure authentic experience and connection. Once I find that vibe from you, that means it matches mine, I'll be a real supporter. I hope each of us can be a unique inspiring story for this community. Be who you wanna be and write and share what you want to write and share. And I'll do the same 😀
Long short haha
We'll have more to share very soon, this is just to say hi. Before I end this post, I'll recommend you to look up the song "Part of me, Part of you" by Glenn Frey (the leader of The Eagles) to start your day with. I was delaying this first post for awhile cause my writing inspiration comes from music. Today this song has been playing for hours on my big speaker and so I feel like I'm on a road trip already with someone I love.
Once again, hello from me and my most favorite quote 🤗
Little Beatle ♫
