My father was a solider affected by Agent Orange, which passed to me and my sister, causing vision impairment at birth.
When I was small, being a visually impaired in a school full of normal people is hard, really hard. Sometimes you felt rejected. In class, I had to borrow textbooks and materials from friends to copy before class or regularly asked friends what’s on the black board, but I never blamed anybody because of my circumstance. You cannot prevent things like that from happening. That is why I played like other kids and made jokes like nothing happened, trying to be as happy as possible. My favorite subject was writing because even though I am cheerful and content with what I have, who wants to be a visually impaired? Sometimes, I could even trick myself into thinking I am normal. It always went away though, leaving me in the blindness, an undeniable truth.
I stayed in Nghe An province until I was 18. After high school, I entered the Tue Tinh Traditional Medicine College. I learnt well and dreamed of working as a doctor after graduation. However, no hospital of clinic offered me a job due to my vision impairment. Therefore, like many other friends with similar circumstances, I went to different low-end studios to learn and practiced massage. I was pretty good at it when I heard of Omamori Spa. I applied for a job here and entered their training process. The Spa is clean. It is professional. I get motivated when I am living and working with other colleagues. They are just like me, with some kinds of disability (mostly visual impairment).
My massage instructor is a visually impaired too and she is the teacher of all BlindLink’ students. I encouraged myself by thinking “if they can do it, why can’t I?” It helped me so much to overcome challenges in the beginning of learning new western massage techniques. I also learn English here. After I talked to so many people, I found out that I am like a frog at the bottom of a well, unaware of the world outside. I hope one day I can go abroad to work as a therapist. In the past, I never dreamed of it. But now, I believe if you have courage, integrity and high determination, you can accomplish everything.
After Covid-19, I got a promotion to work as one of massage instructor for sighted therapists of Fuji Spa in Hanoi.
