Duong Bùi, Saxophonist

Duong, single, is 24 years old. He is from a village in Nam Định province. He lost his vision five years ago due to eye cancer, not long after passing the entrance exam to Hanoi Musical College where he was enrolled to study saxophone.

Dương had aspirations to be a professional musician and was well on his way, enrolled at Hanoi Musical College and pursuing his music studies under professor Phan Anh Dũng, one of Hanoi’s leading masters of the saxophone. Early in his studies, when he was 18, he started developing a shocking sensation condition, having what he describes as something like “sugar crystals” in his eyes.

After the surgery, he had lost ninety-five percent of his vision and was reduced to attempting to read, holding his music and his books within inches of his eyes simply to make out a few letters or notes. Though his doctors informed him that the condition was permanent and irreversible, he was determined not to give up. While Braille education is inaccessible to all but a very few blind in Vietnam, even once educated in Braille, there are very few materials written in Vietnamese Braille available to the blind. Duong pushed on regardless, taking advantage of the remarkable technology made available on his smartphone, utilizing text-to-audio apps to continue learning as best he could.

Increasingly, however, he began to accept the extraordinary difficulty of his task. At this time a friend from school told him of the remarkable training services offered to the blind by Blind-Link and their massage therapy business operation, Omamori Spa. Already skilled in the use of his hands, Duong took readily to the training and has become one of the accomplished staff. He continues his love of music, practicing often on his own and performing in public, as well as frequently joining forces with Tinh, also an accomplished musician working at Omamori. Duong also continues lessons with his teacher, Phan Anh Dũng, and has taken up an interest in piano, as well.

Aside from his music, Duong also has a strong interest in foreign languages and is a keen student of English. Surprisingly, in spite of his extreme loss of vision, he also likes to go running as the morning exercise and says he can avoid obstacles. At the time of this writing the coronavirus pandemic, however, has become an insurmountable obstacle to his running and Duong spends more of his time with his newfound family of friends and fans at Omamori. He says that his blindness has in fact significantly increased his circle of friends.

Hopefully, in addition to being the beneficiary of his talents as a masseur, you may at some point also find the opportunity to hear him perform, or to join in conversation with him and learn more about his interests.