NGUYEN
ANH THU
My name was given by my dear grandfather. In Vietnamese, my name means "smart and bright woman who loves books & intelligence in general". As I grew up alongside the rich heritage of Vietnamese literature, I do start to embrace the meaning of my name more and try to live the life that I was meant to follow like that.
ABOUT
The First Light
I grew up in a quiet house where stories glowed brighter than the lamps at night. My grandfather’s voice carried the world into our living room - numbers, history, faraway lands - while I sat tracing the edges of his notebooks. Books became my playground, and each page felt like a sunrise waiting to be discovered. The house was never loud, yet it was full of life, filled with words, laughter, and the calm rhythm of people who believed deeply in learning.
I was born the eldest daughter in a middle-class Vietnamese family—a lineage of firsts where responsibility and resilience were quietly inherited rather than taught. My grandfather, a retired soldier and math teacher, was my first mentor. I can still picture him explaining addition with bottle caps, his voice calm and curious. He studied every subject—math, geography, even new English words—just to teach me, showing me that knowledge is meant to be shared.
By eighteen months, I could read simple sentences. Books became my closest friends, turning my childhood into a quiet garden of words. Raised mainly by my grandparents while my parents traveled for work, I learned independence early—ironing my uniform, packing my schoolbag, and checking every detail twice before bedtime.
At school, I found beauty not only in learning but in perfecting it. My handwriting earned a national award, and English became my window to the world. By fifth grade, I was representing my district in debates and Olympiads, later receiving recognition from the Hanoi People’s Committee as an exemplary student.
Yet behind each achievement was peace, not pressure. My parents valued effort over outcome, teaching me to find contentment in perseverance. Though our family was never wealthy, we were rich in gratitude. From them, I inherited calm, discipline, and an enduring belief in purpose.
Even now, I carry that quiet light of my childhood—built not on privilege, but on will; not on ambition alone, but on the joy of learning and lifting others.
The First Voice
Growing up, I began to understand that learning wasn’t only about books or grades. It was about finding a voice strong enough to reach others and using it with care.
If my early childhood was a time of quiet observation, my teenage years were when I began reaching outward—turning imagination into expression. Between eleven and fifteen, I shifted from reading stories to creating them, moving from a world of ideas to a world of people.
When the pandemic hit in seventh grade, everything paused. School moved online, and life became still. To fill the silence, I turned to music, then creative projects, and finally something unexpected: managing Facebook fanpages for my favorite K-pop idols. What began as a hobby soon became a lesson in communication, teamwork, and leadership—my first step into the wider world.
It began as a small fanpage where I shared pictures and stories for fun. I never meant for it to become work—but as followers grew, so did the responsibilities. Soon, I was managing schedules, responding to messages, and coordinating with collaborators—many older than me. At first, I was terrified to speak up. I drafted ideas I never sent, afraid they sounded childish. Yet curiosity kept me there.
One evening, confusion erupted over an event plan. I stayed up late creating a spreadsheet with clear timelines and task lists. To my surprise, the team followed it—and the project ran perfectly. That night I learned that organization could turn chaos into trust. From then on, I built weekly workflows, tracked campaigns, and discovered that leadership wasn’t about control—it was about clarity and empathy.
During the pandemic, I saw another side of leadership while helping my grandmother deliver food to neighbors. She never called herself a leader, yet everyone trusted her. She led with quiet consistency—planning routes, noting each family’s needs, reminding me that small, steady actions mattered more than grand gestures. “Do what’s possible every day,” she’d say, “not what’s perfect once a month.” Her calm discipline mirrored the structure I loved building online.
Books added the final piece. When I read Truyện Kiều, I saw how gender expectations shaped lives—how stories, like systems, could confine or liberate. I began reflecting on the women around me, writing about their quiet strength, realizing that literature and life both revealed unseen structures of care.
Each experience became part of one lesson: management and empathy are not opposites—they complete each other. The spreadsheets, the food deliveries, and the verses of Kiều all taught me that true leadership listens before it acts and builds systems rooted in kindness.
Today, when I organize a project or guide a team, I still carry those lessons: the discipline of a plan, the patience of my grandmother, and the awareness that every structure should serve people first.
The First Move
When words grew quiet, I let rhythm speak for me. Every step, every story, every sound became another way to understand the world.
I began dancing at eleven, quietly in my room, learning K-pop choreography through online tutorials. What started as love for the music quickly became something deeper—dance made me feel free in a way words never could. A small school talent show pushed me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t perform perfectly, but stepping on stage taught me that confidence grows through experience, not perfection.
In high school, I joined the cheerleading team, where I learned trust, teamwork, and the beauty of moving as one. Every stunt depended on everyone’s focus; every mistake was shared. Alongside dance, I began writing poetry—reflections on performance, rhythm, and self-discovery. Writing helped me understand what movement meant to me.
Over time, I stopped seeing the stage as competition and began seeing it as collaboration. Dance and writing taught me to value effort, connection, and the quiet courage to try. They shaped how I work with others: listening closely, creating openly, and embracing challenges with curiosity.
I still think of the shy girl who first danced alone. I think she would be proud of how movement helped her find her voice—and how she now uses it to lift others.
The Road Ahead
Turning fifteen felt like stepping into a wider world. The things that once filled my imagination: books, rhythm, movement, began to grow into something real. The classroom was no longer the limit of what I wanted to learn. I wanted to create something that connected people and carried meaning.
Now, I want to keep learning and building in that direction. I want to create projects that support women and children, to use media and storytelling as a bridge for understanding and growth. I want to keep exploring how organization turns ideas into reality and how teamwork can make stories reach the right hearts.
Everything I have learned still feels like the beginning of something larger. But this time, I no longer wait for the next lesson to come to me. I move toward it, step by step, with a clearer sense of where I am going and why I want to go there.