beYOUtifulVietnam – Camellia Dinh's World

The Little Bang Theory

It is said that a woman should never wear her hair over her forehead. God can grow hair wherever he likes, but no hair grows on the forehead.

I wish someone had told me this sooner because I used to wear a bang to cover my forehead all the times. As I was made to believe that I was not a pretty child to start with and not with a nice forehead so I would need to cover my forehead. Not until my teenage years, I came to the realization that I was actually not an ugly child of whom thought I was. And I as I grew a little older, I’ve been getting more and more comfortable with my own skin, the way I carry myself and the way I dress.

About over a year ago only, I have the feeling that I no longer feel comfortable for having to go to the hairdresser from time to time just to get a little cut on my bang to cover my forehead and I started to question myself:

1. Why do I keep doing this?
2. Do I feel confident with this look?
3. Do I want to change?

And here were my answers:

1. It was a long-term habit caused by my own perceptual adaption since my early childhood
2. No I am not
3. Yes

A woman should never wear her hair over her forehead. God can grow hair wherever he likes, but no hair grows on the forehead.

📷: Camellia Dinh

What about this “𝐿𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑦”? Although this theory came to me a bit later, but it proved me that I was quite right in a way. And here is a short description:

“A woman should never wear her hair over her forehead. God can grow hair wherever he likes, but no hair grows on the forehead. The forehead bone, the sinus bones or the frontal bone, is porous so it can function to transmit light to the pineal gland in the brain. When Ghengis Khan conquered China, he issued orders that all women must cut their hair and wear bang over their forehead. He knew this would keep them timid and subjugated. Believe it or not. The point is, you have a choice”!

Dimples

There are certain things in life that you think you can not explain… Perhaps you will know it later but maybe you don’t want to know. Sometimes you simply don’t want to get to know too deep or too much of anything in order to keep its beauty…

I’ve got to know a lady for, let’s say… 12 days and I can’t help thinking of her with lots of admiration and curiosity at the same time…

I’m trying to picture a 33 years old woman, who is the single mother of 2 kids… But that’s not what I’m talking about… She had got married when she was 20 and divorced 5 years later…

She had lived 3 years in Singapore where she worked for the world’s largest networking and marketing organization but doesn’t speak a fluent sentence of English… And as a Vietnamese to Vietnamese I could easily pin point some of her pronunciation mistakes that she often makes…

Then I wonder how could she become who she is today? She has her own business, her own house, her own car with her own driver… She does seem to own a lot of things and I have no doubt that she knows a lot of people too…

But and can’t seem to connect these dots no matter how hard I am trying to connect them. Perhaps, as we get closer, I will understand about her little more about this woman but for now, it’s all good things…

When I can’t think of a good reason to explain her success in life, I am thinking of the sparkles in her eyes while talking to her about anything in life – work or random things. Just be very careful because even though I know I am a 100% straight woman, it is still easy to get lost, either in her pretty eyes or her adoring smile with charming dimples on her cheeks, which I must say, one of the sweetest smile that I have ever seen in my life…

Rachel Zoe

For those who do not know Rachel Zoe, she is an American fashion stylist – For what I know of, she has her own fashion brand and a number of other related beauty businesses, a long list of A-list clients and she is a working mum.

Anyway, lovers are gonna love and haters are gonna hate her so what does Rachel has got to do with me while she doesn’t even know me?

Rachel is a *MAJ inspirer to me. So I’m saying right now as I am still on my full-time job – if I quit my job tomorrow and someone needs somebody else to blame you can blame Rachel for having inspired me to do something else (And obviously she will never know unless my post will be 1000 times or more reposted).

Right, so what’s about Rachel?

(*MAJ is short for major by the Zoe’s speak)

Once upon a time, when I was almost in the middle of nowhere – It appeared to me that I had absolutely no idea about what I wanted to do for my future then I ‘met’ Rachel on StarWorld Asia on her reality TV series: The Zoe Project. I think it was just funny for me to capture the picture of a pregnant blonde woman who never stopped complaining about the fact she was at her month #8 of her pregnancy and at the same time still working as a crazy person as a fashion stylist.

So nothing much really but I don’t know why I keep watching that show from one to another season and to see how she has been through with her family and businesses. And obviously everybody in the fashion world would know how great Rachel is, together with her husband and the team, she’s done a massive job over almost 2 decades.

What I like about Rachel is not only the fact that she is one of the most influential people in the fashion industry – I was impressive to learn that she has not done any formal fashion training into order to get into the position that she is today. Rachel just has a natural talent for fashion and I’m sure there are numerous factors that got her to the top level. I heard Rachel said ‘If you let passion guide you, you can’t fail’ but I don’t think this is the case; passion alone might not make you successful. There are a lot more, especially in this modern era… What can I say here? Your degrees? Appearance? Finance? Networking? Surprisingly, I’ve found that many people in the world also have almost the exact same things for everything, even if it comes to the look (thanks to some certain beauty standards and plastic surgery) and same whatever that can be bought. Therefore, you gotta be D I F E R R E N T if you want to be I R R E P LA C E A B LE so I think it is important to have some certain levels of knowledge, attitude & experience. To cut it short, you need to create your own style – and what is style by the way – it is defined by RZ that: “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”.

Or I like very much what Yves Saint Laurent said: “Fashion will fade but style is eternal”.

Both I totally agree – and perhaps you need to be a little crazy as well. I think RZ is psycho in a way… I think I am psycho too as I even remember too much of the Zoe’s speak already (It happens when people like something so I hope that’s not just me). Not that I believe in everything about what people put on magazine or reality shows but RZ should anyway be the one to decide what she wanted to put on her TV shows. And in one of the episoles when she tried to dress her ‘poor’ little kid Skyler and her former style assistant Joey – She literally admitted: “My purpose in life is to dress everybody” and that she can’t stand it to see somebody who appears to be undressed. But come on Rachel, I hope life is not all about dressing, shoes, maxi or mini dresses, bags, make-up and how to impress people. Or maybe it’s her job to say so in order to sell or whatsoever that really is…

Afterwards, I still like Rachel and her style but I slowly started my own ‘Beyoutiful’ project as well so I really did not have time for her reality shows anymore. I’ve got to get real at some points. So I’ve watched and learned about Vietnamese women as much as I could with people coming from different demographics and to see different factors that effect their lives and behaviours. And there is one thing I realised that apart from the beautiful nature appearance that many Vietnamese women have been so fortunate to be given by mother nature, I figured out many issues that we are facing with in this modern society that actually make us less beautiful, I think I know what they are… And whatever they really are, they will never be accepted…

22

One friend of mine gave me this book as a gift once we went to a bookstore together, by the time I was 22 years old and a few months.

I did not believe in this book – like many other cases I often read on the newspapers as I think the authors simply select some special cases and coincidences then trying to relate them into reality. Brad Dunn’s When They Were 22 tells stories of many famous celebrities and their fateful events and choices that they made at all important age of 22. It was when Oprah Winfrey dropped out of college to become a newsreader in Nashville, and at 22 she moved to Baltimore to work at a station where she started her own talk show. Or like how Jack White had his own upholstery business at age 22, but while practicing the guitar he asked his wife, Meg, to try the drums and because he liked her playing so much, they began performing as a two-piece band, the White Stripes.

Brad concluded that most of us can point to one or two moments in our lives when everything changed, when a stroke of fate forever altered the future, or a single decision sparked a lifetime of consequences. It happened to many of those famous people when their lives changed forever at 22 than any other age. I did not want to believe in that, however, I am here today, one day before I turn 23, I have proved myself wrong and yes in the 22nd of your life, there is so much to talk about.

It’s the age that I realised there is no right – no wrong – no rules for me, I will just live, learn, work, love and experience. And I realised that:

Everyone crosses your path by a mean, not by accident. And I am so glad that they’ve come to be part of my life – Many have cherished me with joy and love – I think of them as the greatest gifts and some gave me the lessons.

It is so important to have faith in life and in people just to make it easier every time you breath. I know it is not easy to trust people and trust is not something that you can easily give to everybody. But I also know, if you don’t trust anybody, never expect yourself even once to be trusted by other people, either. It was the first thing I learned from my Business Ethics class: Treat people the way you want to be treated, it’s simple as that.

I learned that escaping is never a solution. It has come to time that I think I needed to walk away from my home country; from the company that I am working at; from all the dramas and chaos of life that I have created myself. I just need to face it, every single one.

I don’t need a master’s degree. I know it’s always good if I have one – but what if I don’t? I guess it doesn’t really matter. It will only be dangerous when you stop learning… On top of that, I’ve still been applying almost every single lesson that I learned from my bachelor studies into my work & life and still have not been able to use them all yet…

ROE (Return On Experience) can be far more important than ROI (Return On Investment), and I am at the age that I will just need to learn, travel and experience.

Always tell the truth, so that I won’t have to remember what I said yesterday or the day before…

Everybody can be replaced so don’t ever take things for granted.

Breathing is important. Sometimes I know people are too busy and forget to breath.

At the age of 22, I am proud that:

I can live in almost entire areas and I know I will be fine no matter what I do. I accept me for who I am, and I am glad of the person I have become. I don’t compare myself with anybody, I don’t compare my job to other people’s jobs. I know I am beautiful the way I am.

I might not be the smartest one in love, I’m not sure if we could find someone who is, but I do believe that no matter what decision I make in life, as long as I am an independent person and have a good will to live, I am always going to be okay.

I have decided what I wanted to do when I am 23, 24 and maybe for the rest of my life: