About me

Hi. Thanks for stopping by. As you already see it on the website’s title, my name is Uyen Vo. In case you’re not quite sure how to pronounce my name precisely, or if you prefer, feel free to call me Angelique. This page may not be exactly where you’ve planned to land, but I would extremely appreciate if you could spare me a short visit.

• Being born and growing up in Saigon, Vietnam. Identified as one of the Vietnamese 90s kids.
• Coming to America for school in early 2016, pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree at Niagara University.
• Having a big heart for New York and considering it my irreplaceable second home.

When I was a kid, I did not always know what I wanted to become as a grownup. My dream has never been being a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher, or a business woman. As desirable as they might sound, none of these career types were able to amaze me, despite the fact that they were all listed as top-class jobs in my parents’ generation. For all I knew since the day I started to dream big as a child, I was clearly aware that I possessed a travel spirit and a wanderlust soul. I remember my first ever trip to a faraway land as I’d love to call it, was a trip to Da Nang, a coastal city of the central of Vietnam, and it was dated back in my second grade’s summer. I was sitting with my aunt and grandpa in a giant flying object that people called Boeing for a hour or so, observing with admirations all the pretty ladies in their red Ao Dai who’d been walking back and forth, serving food, and fulfilling passengers’ request. After we landed, everyone was picked up by an airport bus to get in the baggage claim area. While on the bus, I was standing next to a white girl who was about my age at that time. She was with her Mom and Dad, and her two younger siblings, one of which was still a baby sleeping tight in his stroller. I didn’t intend to look at the girl, but in such a circumstance where we had no choice but to make eye contact, in order to not create an awkward moment, she smiled at me. As incredibly surprised as I felt, I smiled back at her though my mind froze while my heart completely melted. In a split second, I suddenly found an urge to say hi, because that sweet smile of hers made it feel like there’s something sowing inside of me. But then I didn’t!

More than 20 years have passed since the day I stepped my foot onto a whole new horizon called Da Nang. I’ve even traveled much farther than I’d ever dreamt of in my early age, especially to destinations which are believed to be the promising lands in people’s opinion, at least the people I know. I also revisited Da Nang for countless times later in life, each left a special memory which cannot compare with one another. However, the first ever trip to Da Nang in the summer of my second grade is the only one that will forever live on in my mind, even though the image of many places I’d been to or the taste of the food I’d tried there have long faded away from my reminiscences. And now sometimes I recall it, I wish I was able to speak a bit more English by that time, so that when the little girl on the airport bus was smiling at me, I would have been brave enough to initiate a stereotyped kiddo chitchat that always started with, “Hey. What’s your name?”. If I dared to do so, at least for now, I would have remembered more about the girl, like what her name was, how old she was back then, or which country she came from, something more in details than just this vague description, “the little white girl on the airport bus in Da Nang”. Well, maybe now and then I could have addressed her as my very first foreign friend, whom I’d met in a wink, smiled back, and never met again. 

I can’t guarantee if the trip to Da Nang during my second grade’s summer did teach me anything about traveling, but I’m pretty sure the quick precious moment with my in-a-wink Western friend (a.k.a the little white girl on the airport bus in Da Nang) did plant a seed in my heart, one that have been growing to a big tall tree whose branches represent the journeys I’ve already accomplished and will be accomplishing. And if there’s one proudest thing I would love to share with you who’s reading this, that is half of my tree’s foliage is for New York, which is why I confidently wrote “A New Yorker heart inside a Saigonese soul” as a subtitle.

Ever since the Da Nang’s story, I have always been a small girl with a big heart and mind for learning and self-developing. How much mature you grow depending on how far you go is the one faith that will never die in me. That is why I never stop my will to go beyond my limit no matter how old I turn. If you somehow find my journey inspirational or feel resonated to it, I hope you stay here for a while. 

Beside my professional person which is represented through my school and job’s work, I do also live an artistic life, one that can be seen via my writings, baking, photography, and calligraphy. For whatever reasons that lead you to this website, I hope you enjoy!

Have a beautiful day.

Angelique – Uyen Vo