Hey there, this is Duy 🇻🇳 A Vietnamese millennial, lawyer, barista, and podcaster.

My daytime job is a legal practitioner in a Singaporean fintech, while I also host “The Finding Audio”, a podcast series that normalises failure and vulnerability, nurtures success and resilience for an inclusive community through discussion of social norms that are often less talked about in Vietnamese culture. My podcast has been featured in Apple and Spotify's Top 3 Podcasts in Vietnam with 100,000+ monthly downloads. You can check it out!

At a personal level, I considered myself to be “a rolling stone gathers no moss” with an adventurous heart that always motivated me to go places, learn new things, experience the ups and downs of what my 20s has to offer. I has “rolled through” almost 30 countries and territories, and been spending my past year in the Middle East to explore this region's culture and situation with my own eyes apart from all the lectures I got in college.

Before every trip, I try to get rid of all preconceptions, all imaginations. I let my mind go blank, with no expectations, no judgments, and leave my heart nakedly open. And I set out like a blank sheet of paper, with a longing to be covered, to be filled, to be changed.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Most memorable experiences I have while traveling have always been about the people and their generous hospitality, without regard to race, religion, or gender. I believe having chances to stay with the locals and share lives together, even just for a few days, is the best culture bridge. Though being an introvert 80% of the time, I still love making new friends on the go, exchanging stories and life experiences, connecting genuinely with each other as human beings.

While I'm home in Vietnam, I would love to meet up and walk other couchsurfers around the town.

Interests

• photography
• coffee
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• culture exchange
• podcast
• bubble tea

Music, Movies, and Books

Khaled Hosseini's trio: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And The Mountains Echoed
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Reasons To Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
How To Fail by Elizabeth Day
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
If You Know A Hundred Years Is Finite by Doan Lu An
Alone, Asian, and Atheist in the Middle East by Nguyen Phuong Mai

and so many more...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Late 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, I decided to quit my full-time job and started taking a gap year for the journey of self-discovery. At that time, I got burnt out and constantly had mental breakdown after years of being a hustler without taking care of my health (both physical and mental) properly.

I then spent time learning to make coffee and tea and became an amateur barista at my friend's coffee shop. My podcast "The Finding Audio" was also founded during this career break. At first I just wanted to create a healing space for myself (and my co-host too!) by bravely talking about our failure and vulnerability and normalising them, in a world where everyone's lives look glorious and perfect on social media. The key message of our pod was "We are always a work-in-progress", and believed that as human beings, we'd all gone through life's hardships, failure, disappointment, heartbreaks and pain, and that's totally okay!!

Within just over 3 months of launching, my podcast has been featured in Apple and Spotify's Top 3 Podcasts in Vietnam with 100,000+ monthly downloads; and I also received thousands of emails/recordings from my audiences sharing about their own stories.

What I Can Share with Hosts

- My travel stories, especially if you're curious about South East Asia and/or Middle East
- How to podcasting :)
- Cooking Vietnamese cuisine

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Viet Nam