My name is Daniel Hoang, I am a seasoned management consultant specializing in organizational change management and an entrepreneur for a life-sciences startup.

And my name is Hoang Nam Duong.
I was born in a refugee camp in Ga Lang Indonesia.
My parents got into a wooden riverboat, sailed to sea after the Vietnam War ended, where more than 400,000 lives were extinguished at the bottom of the sea. Prior to seeking refuge, my dad was a prisoner of war after the Americans withdrew.
Prior to this, the Vietnamese people were colonized by the French for 100 years and 1000 years by Chinese rule.

In 1975, the Vietnamese elite, those with connections, were airlifted out of the country. They set roots all across the globe.

We were the wave of impoverished where there were no other choice but to abandon home and sail out into sea. My dad found the picture. This was the boat. The Vietnamese people built these wooden boats to travel the many rivers of the country. It was long and narrow to navigate straight flowing water. They took the wrong boat out into the open ocean, where many lives were lost.

Out at sea, they faced an unfamiliar path, were attacked by sea pirates, the horrific stories would be buried within, or in the sea.

And yet, somehow, we made it. In 1980, I was born in Ga Lang refugee camp. My mom was three months pregnant with me when she got into that boat, and out at sea for seven days. Her husband had just got out of “re-education camp” for three years, and life was made.

I am a baby born of war, of a people that have been oppressed and annihilated for 1000 years. In my bones, in my flesh, and in the fabric of my being, I remember, all of it. In future letters, I’ll share my therapy stories on how I found this.

I shouldn’t be alive. I should be here, in a castle built on top of modernity. I shouldn’t have survive this.

Yet, in the middle of the war, in the middle of colonization, and in the middle of the impossible journey, life was made. Life was created. I came to being.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been working on myself, with the same conviction and haste that got us here, to survive, to not die. I hurt myself along the way, I pushed myself too hard, and yet my survival mechanism allowed me to push beyond my limits.

This newsletter is my story, my journey, and the healing I’ve done to myself, for myself, and for you.

I’m now doing soul work. In this deep vast darkness of this space, I find myself intertwined with beings and spirits that are familiar. I keep coming back to I’ve been here before. This life, this moment, this being has been here before. Maybe this life, this vessel was created for a purpose.

What you can expect

I’m sharing these stories so that they don’t get lost, that it becomes the medicine for you. My healing is your healing.

I’m going to bring my experience in video, audio, and visual communications to add dimension to something that can’t be explained in just words.

I’ve found a mountain of resources that have helped me, and I’ll share them with you.

Together, we feel. Together, we grieve. Together, we expand our compassion.

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