2019 · Saigon
A Saturday film class
My arrived ten minutes late and took the only empty chair, next to a guy loading his film backwards. Khoa asked her for help. After class they shot the rest of the roll in the alley behind the school. They had it developed three weeks later; half the frames were burnt out. Neither of them minded.
2021 · Đà Lạt
Our first trip, in the fog
On their first trip together they got up at four to catch the fog on the hills. It was colder than they expected; Khoa gave My his jacket and shivered all morning. At seven the fog lifted over a whole valley of pines. My said that if they ever married, it would be here.
2023 · Saigon – Hà Nội
Seventeen hundred kilometres
Khoa took a job in Hà Nội. Two years apart meant midnight calls, day-and-a-half train rides down the length of the country, and a shared notebook sent by post: each wrote a page and mailed it back to the other.
24.12.2025 · Đà Lạt
A promise among the pines
On the morning of 24 December, Khoa asked My to go back to that hill. No ring hidden in a cake, no band. Just the old film camera, the roll left unfinished since 2019, and a question he had practised in the mirror for a week. She said yes before he could kneel.
20.02.2027 · Đà Lạt
The next journey
After Tết, while the cherry blossoms are still out, we are going back to Đà Lạt with our families and the friends who have been with us these six years. We hope to see you there, among the pines, on a lovely afternoon.