Living a Dream: Love Story in Vietnam

Chapter 1 - The Beginning of a Great Adventure

So, veering from my Elvis story writing for a moment, here's a cute story that I wrote up that goes along with a movie that I became pretty obsessed with. You see, I love the Asian culture (I've been to South Korea and lived there for year-and-a-half back in 2014), and I loved how "A Tourist's Guide to Love" focused on Vietnam and introduced the beauty of it. If you haven't seen the movie or don't want to, then this will just be a cute story about a Caucasian woman finding romance with a hot Asian actor on the set of a movie in a beautiful, exotic country. Enjoy!

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The cityscape in Vietnam was more spectacular in person. The pictures on Google Images didn't do it justice at all.

I stood on the balcony to my hotel room on the seventh floor, and I had a grand view of the city, on to the horizon. This was truly a dream come true. For ten years, I never used my BA degree in film and drama... until now. And it brought me to Vietnam, an Asian country that wasn't as popular as the others, like Japan, China and Korea. It was one of the odd ones, like Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan. Well, maybe Taiwan was farther up the list since many Asian dramas were made there, like in Japan, China and Korea, and Singapore had a film made there: Crazy Rich Asians. Well, it was Vietnam's turn.

A Tourist's Guide to Love certainly wasn't as top-notch as Crazy Rich Asians, but it would still be a movie that would put Vietnam into people's view, and it would show them that there was more to the country than the war. That was one of the main purposes of making this movie—bringing Vietnam more to the top of the list, along with those more popular Asian countries.

And I would be a part of this venture. Thanks to my degree, as well as my minor in Asian studies, I was able to land my dream job of being a part of the film crew. Since I had a background in theater and film, I was on the set production team, meaning I, as well as my team members, would be in charge of putting together the sets before the shooting would start, and I would be able to advise on where good camera angles would be. Also, I would be able to put in some input as far as the culture thanks to my minor. Others would help with that as well, like the main male lead who was born in the United States but was raised in the Vietnamese culture. Well, as far as what I was told. I hadn't met him or the other actors yet. I was looking forward to meeting Racheal Leigh Cook. I had seen her in She's All That, He's All That and Love Guaranteed. The latter two were Netflix original movies, and this one would be as well.

Hopefully we would be successful in bringing more attention to Vietnam, even though this movie would go straight to Netflix, not theaters. Well, millions of people had Netflix, including myself, so that was millions of people that would at least see the ad for the movie on there. For those girls out there who liked those cute Netflix romances, they could be the only ones who watched this movie, as well as people who loved the Asian cultures like me.

My heart jumped when my purple phone suddenly started ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket and put it to my ear. "This is Sophia O'Shea."

"Hey, we're down in the lobby now, ready to head out."

"Oh!" I checked the time on my phone quickly and put it back to my ear. "I'm sorry! I was daydreaming just now. I'll be right down. See you in five."

I hung up on my fellow team member and quickly went into the bathroom. I had all my perfume, hair products and makeup on the counter. I would be here for close to a month for the film, so I made myself at home. I only wore mascara and eyeliner on my face since my face had freckles, and any foundation would cover them all up. I applied my simple makeup then squirted a huge glob of mousse onto my hand and ran it through my wavy orange hair that went down to my waist. I really needed it cut. I was going to do that before I left LA, but I never got around to it. Hopefully some Vietnamese hairdresser wouldn't mind tackling my mane.