I was an abandoned baby left to die on the side of a street in Vietnam. I underwent several surgeries as a child, and now I will be graduating (for the second time) from a University in Canada. AMA.

What is the biggest / most common misconception formed about you?

The biggest misconception is people assuming I'm able bodied since I'm young and have a baby face (I still look high school age). Then they ask what I did to get my accommodations that I either had to pay or fight for.

An example would be when I lived in a Uni dorm and I got one out of the two studio apartments. I'd often have parties and invite people over and they'd be amazed at how I got it and one guy assumed I was "the top dog" or something lol. I actually had to pay a significant amount more because I needed my own bathroom and shower since I can't share easily.

I also get shamed for using accessibility parking spots but that's a whole other can of worms.

What would you say to you biological parents if you could meet them?

I lived, surprise!

Oh also, can you speak Vietnamese?

No, my adoptive family is from Europe so I only speak English. I did try to learn from cassette tapes when I was 8 or 10 but it was difficult.

do you ever feel phantom pains?

I don't get a lot of phantom pain, but I do get a lot of phantom sensations. They seem to spike when I've been on my feet all day.

I notice that if you put pressure on certain spots on my residual limb then it triggers phantom sensations.

My most common ones are feeling like my toes are in a clamp that keeps squeezing them, I've stepped on a lego through my heel but softer, and feeling like my leg and foot is full of sprite - it feels all sparkly and bubbly, almost like pins and needles but softer (it is as annoying though).

As proposed in the letter, have you ever attempted reaching out to the farmer?

I haven't yet, I do plan to in the future but at the moment I can't afford to search since I'd most likely need a PI or something plus a translator.

Do you ever want to meet your biological parents?

I'm definitely curious as to who they are and knowing their reasoning but it's not something that keeps me up at night. I've been lucky enough to have a reasonably good family growing up and knowing my bio parents wasn't a big priority to me.

I probably would meet them if I had the opportunity just so I wouldn't regret it later on down the road.

Do you have other siblings? What degree are you graduating with? What languages do you speak? (You are soo pretty!) :)

Hi! I have an older brother that I'm somewhat close with. I just got an accounting certificate and last year I got a diploma in costuming. Unfortunately I only speak English fluently. I do know some phrases in French, Korean, and Japanese. I did try learning Vietnamese when I was younger but it was very difficult and gave up lol. Thank you!

Cool! I just graduated with an accounting degree 2 weeks ago. Thanks for doing this AMA. I had a classmate learning Vietnamese too and she said it was difficult as well lol

Congrats! That's great!

What did you study in/for in University?

I’m a bit curious.

Accounting and Costuming! A weird mix I know lol.

It’s okay! I’m glad to hear you will graduate! What matters is that you wanted to learn and you did!

Yes! I'm lucky to graduate this spring. I had to change careers because entry level costume jobs are often on your feet for long hours and I learned that it wasn't for me. I still love to sew though.

Very cool...is costuming a program to help you prepare for theater/film/television or does it have other applications that most people would not consider?

It teaches you to sew and draft patterns so you could branch out to specific things like millinery, tailoring, or corsetry. We also learn basics of continuity for film and how to conduct ourselves professionally on set and with theater. There were also a lot of people who had cosplay backgrounds.

Costuming!

Is costuming a term that I don't know or is it literally the discipline, science and art of making costumes? I didn't know they had higher education on stuff like that. Not bashing it it sounds really interesting!

Or is it just a term that's come to mean something like "fun/wacky outfit" colloquially but essentially just means the making of clothes, or something more specific in a particular field of study?

Just ignore me if I'm being dumb, just curious.

edit: Thinking about it I'm not sure why I find this surprising, there are plenty of things that require those sort of skills, TV, movies, stage productions and theatre etc etc. If it's not something completely different that is lol

The broad term is Costumer and there's a lot of different sub-titles within, like set costumer, background costumer, dresser. There was a blog I found years ago that had definitions for all the terms and titles but I don't remember it now.

We do a lot of things from sketching a picture of a costume to actually drafting a pattern and building it. There's also breakdown artists who make clothes look worn/ not brand new/damaged. It's quite fun.

Do you feel traumatized by your experience in your first few days of life or were you too young for it to effect you?

I don't know if you mean if I remember anything from when I was a baby that traumatized me, but I have no memories of it. My parents were always open about my history - my mom did give a censored version of it though since I was so young.

There was a time when I was seriously questioning my identity and coming to terms with the reasons why I was abandoned. (Born female, birth defect, etc)

It did make me a little insecure about relationships with friends, family, etc. because I probably do have slight abandonment issues.

as a vietnamese fellow, do you try to understand the history and culture of vietnam? have you visited vietnam after the incident? how did it make you feel? also, great job :D im proud of you

Thank you! I wasn't interested in finding out who my birth parents were when I was younger and that also translated to not learning the history or culture. I lived in a predominately white neighborhood and my family is from Europe so I have't been raised culturally the same, which is something I do feel regret not learning.

My parents did try to keep some of Vietnamese culture around like keeping two traditional outfits for me and gave me books to try and learn the language.

What is your ethnicty breakdown from the test kits?

I only did the AncestryDNA kit and it came back as 87% Vietnam and 13% Dai (The website says it's primarily in Myanmar). However, I also got a breakdown from MyHeritage using the DNA for AncestryDNA because I used the website Promethease and they say I'm 69.2% Vietnamese and Chinese, 22.3% Thai and Cambodian, and 8.5% Filipino, Indonesian, and Malay.

A lot of people ask if I am Filipino and only a couple so far have guessed correctly.

You have a great story. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your accomplishments. Do you know the identity or fate of the other children or woman in the shared photo?

The woman is one of many who took care of the kids. I think she may have been the one carrying me around most of the time since I also have another photo of her carrying me. Unfortunately I don't know what happened to the other kids. There were quite a few being adopted and I stayed friends with one girl and her family until I was around 5 or 6 because our families lived near each other.

Have you been to visit Vietnam since?

No, but it's on my bucket list.

I'm really happy that you were so lucky. Congratulations on graduating soon. I'm wondering if you've been in touch with the farmer or his family?

Unfortunately not. I do want to try in the future.

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Hi! Added a link to google drive with pics of proof. Thanks!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/117aEU1wcWAumHXTa69dR7XnBKh6obPKe?usp=sharing

The drive link requires an email address to view. Can you adjust the privacy settings?

yes! just did

If you were to find your real parents, would you be angry? Would you curse them out or ridicule them for their decision?

No, I don't feel resentment towards them. It would undo all the work I've done on my mental health if I kept on letting it get to me. I can't control what happened but I can make peace with it and move on.

Kudos to all good people who supported you and helped you to grow in a person capable of talking about such sensitive things.

It's amazing how sometimes people's fate changes drastically, because of painful events.

Wish you all the best!

Actually, I would like to know have you ever faced problems in love relationships because of your lineage and heritage, and an injury? I do understand that it might be sensitive and private topic for you, so feel free not to answer it. I'm just a curious fella on the internet, heh.

No problems here! I do have funny stories though of people not realizing I'm a leg amputee and then freaking out about it after. I don't let it define me and most people accept me for who I am because it's a fact about me, not my defining principle.