Ái Vuong tries to live a life outside of the system that society dictates, to describe herself with verbs not nouns, to have a community impact, and to embrace joy. Born in Vietnam, but raised in Texas, Ái has always wondered what life would have been like if she had stayed — and in her early 20s, she set off to discover the land of her parents. Ái’s been on quite the journey so far, but the biggest lesson? Allowing space in your life to be surprised. Tune in for the full story.
Ái Vuong tries to live a life outside of the system that society dictates, to describe herself with verbs not nouns, to have a community impact, and to embrace joy. Born in Vietnam, but raised in Texas, Ái has always wondered what life would have been like if she had stayed — and in her early 20s, she set off to discover the land of her parents. Ái’s been on quite the journey so far, but the biggest lesson? Allowing space in your life to be surprised.
Ai is a Vietnamese-born, Texas-bred image-maker + educator. She is the co-founder of TAPI Story and Director of Creativity for School of Slow Media.
The Whole Damn Pie: Ai Vuong Interview
Ai Vuong: I don't think that you can plan life. I think that you can create conditions for yourself, but allow space to be surprised.
Amalia: Welcome to The Whole Damn Pie. Today I'm talking with filmmaker, writer, and founder of Copy Story, Ai Vuong. From her early career as a director of a non profit in Vietnam to establishing a film production company here in the U. S., we discuss what it means to be a human centered storyteller, how to live and truly thrive in a system where our personal beliefs are out of alignment with what society values economically, and what it means to have community impact while embracing joy and fulfillment personally and professionally. You know, just the light stuff.
Born in Vietnam but raised in Texas, Ai always had a longing to return to Vietnam to immerse herself in language and culture, and to better understand her parents. And through that exploration, find a deeper understanding of herself. So she moved to Vietnam.
Ai Vuong: I started my quote unquote career as a full time volunteer in Central Vietnam working at a children's shelter. And after a year of working at the children's shelter, I somehow became the executive director of that center. And thought that, that, that was it. Like, this is my life's mission. This is my work. I'm going to work for these kids. I'm going to live here. I'm going to focus on creating different curriculum and programs for these kids.
I'm really passionate about creativity and like rethinking how we educate, um, children and youth. But, you know, that kind of work is really hard. And I, after a few years, I just. I was so sick and I think I, I just worked too hard and I was really young. It was in my mid twenties and just didn't have an awareness of my body and what I could handle and, and how stress impacts the body.
Amalia: Yeah.
Ai Vuong: So I, um, I had to take a break and then I, um, Thought about moving to Paris to be a writer because that's what one does. And, um, eventually I, I met my partner who's, um, had been a filmmaker, but also had worked in international development and it just kind of worked out that we got along and then our business skills and our interests got, um, melded. So we formed our company and we moved to the U. S. Start over and start from scratch. And we've been in the U S five and a half years with our company.
Amalia: Living in Texas, something always felt slightly off for Ai, as if she wasn't really on her own land.
Ai Vuong: Even though I grew up here and I, I speak the language and I understand the customs, but it still felt like I was living abroad and trying to navigate the cultural cues and, and everything, particularly because I feel like my parents really taught me to be proud that I'm Vietnamese.
But as soon as I stepped out of my house, I never really felt that. So I always had this longing to return to Vietnam, to relearn my language, and also to, um, understand my parents in a, in a way that I never felt that I could living in the U. S.
Amalia: That's so in tune for being so young. I feel like I'm just now trying to like, understand my mother.
Like, what? Like, as I am getting older, I'm trying to understand maybe like a little bit more of where she was coming from at certain times in my life. But you have that intuition really young.
Ai Vuong: You know, I think all the time, what would happen, what would my life be had my parents not immigrated, and, you know, they grew up and they lived through the end of the Vietnam War in 75, and things were really difficult in the 70s and 80s, and we were able to immigrate in 1991 on an official visa, so we were the lucky ones, um, but I always, always think, um, What my life would have been had my parents stayed.
And, you know, I would walk through my parents hometown, or what I would call my hometown, and think, oh, these must be the streets that they walked on, and this is the grass that their foot stepped on, and this is the air that they breathed. So it feels like it's a very somatic and visceral understanding of, of where my parents may have come from versus trying to understand them as aliens in a foreign country where I have more understanding than they do.
So I just, I just felt like it was something that I needed to do to not just understand myself, but understand myself through the lens of my parents.
Amalia: Wow. I mean, that in itself sounds like storytelling, right? Like you're storytelling their experience. Do you think that really translates to the work that you do now in telling other stories?
Ai Vuong: That's a great question, and I don't think I've ever actively reflected on that, so I will do so right now, live.
Amalia: Just a really easy question to answer on your feet.
Ai Vuong: I think the desire to understand. And to, I would never say to, to empathize because I think the word empathy has been used quite often, but I think to have, to have a modicum of lived experience.
So like I said, to feel, to feel the air that they may have breathed and to eat the rice from the rice fields that are, you know, a mile, a kilometer away from where they grew up. I think. is really such a privilege to be able to understand. And I do think that that is what film and storytelling can do. And I do think cinema is the closest thing that we can get to having almost a visceral understanding and feeling and rush of emotions for somebody else's story. And to be able to experience it that way is almost asymptotic relationship where you can never really feel and experience somebody else's life, but you can try to get as close as possible in order to, to understand, or to have the possibility of understanding a person's experience.
I make film because I, I hope people can see the green lush mountains of the Andes and feel the mountains that they came from or the land that they come from or see these similarities between different cultures and different people. And I think that's how we can come to more understanding as, as communities these days.
Amalia: Yeah. I mean, there's so many stories to tell, right? And there's such a responsibility in showing up and. trying to, to do it authentically and with respect, honoring the storyteller. And I'm wondering, how do you choose? I mean, I'm sure a lot comes at you because you're so good at what you do. Is there a way, is there a process you have to like, say, this is the one we're gonna go with?
Is it a gut reaction? Because I imagine if you choose one, it means you can't necessarily Do another, right? And just in that choice is maybe some conflict sometimes?
Ai Vuong: This is such a nuanced question because on one end, we do this for a living. So we work with clients and we work with organizations that bring stories to us. And because we live in a marketplace and a specific kind of economy, there, there are times where we have to say yes, because we, we also need to make a living and trying to make a living as an, as a filmmaker is really hard. Yes. And, um, or as an artist or, or any, any. Any person trying to explore a different way of living, I think is, is really, really commendable, but we are trying to have a video production company as our business and trying to find clients with whom our values align.
That's how we choose the commission projects. And through that experience, we've been able to work in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea and Ecuador and Peru and, um, Malawi and a lot of different places because we believe in the organizations and the institutions that are working with us. It's never pure and it's never 100 percent clean, but there, and, but I think ultimately we believe in the work that they're doing.
For our independent projects, this is such a big question because in a lot of independent documentary, there's always that question on grant applications and everything that I think every filmmaker should wrestle with, which is why are you the best storyteller to tell this story? What is your connection to the community?
Ultimately, why, why are you doing it? Why are you choosing to pursue this project?
Amalia: Yeah. What's your motivation?
Ai Vuong: I am still struggling with that question now because I don't, some of the stories that we've told, I don't know if I'm necessarily the person or the only person to do it. I know the approach with which I would like to tell this story and how I will try to do it with as much collaboration and partnership and ownership of the project within the community as possible.
But I also know that I don't have the right answer. And I have actively not pursued any Vietnamese stories or any Vietnamese American stories because I think that's something that I'm still wrestling with.
Amalia: Oh, that's really interesting.
Ai Vuong: And I haven't found in my heart the thing that I would like to pursue within the Vietnamese American context.
Amalia: Maybe you'll know it when you see it, like something will spark and you're like, that's it.
Ai Vuong: I hope so, but you know, it's interesting that the stories that I'm, the one that I'm, I'm really developing and really wanting to tell is the one of the children sheltered that I lived in, um, in my early 20s. I don't, I find that I have less stories desire to tell Vietnamese American stories, particularly in the U. S. because a lot of my experience was in Vietnam in my 20s. And I feel like there are a lot of wonderful storytellers who can tell, um, that story better than I can, but I know that I, I know what my experience was in my 20s and I would love to return to be able to share, share that. And, um, I lived in Hue, Vietnam, which is my favorite place in the whole world. So if anybody ever goes to Vietnam, please visit Hue.
Amalia: Hue. Okay.
Ai Vuong: Mm hmm. It's in central Vietnam and it's the ancient capital. And it's just such a magical place in the world.
Amalia: So you're in your early 20s. You go, back to Vietnam to volunteer in the shelter and you end up becoming the executive director. How does that happen? First of all, that's very brave. Um, but how does that happen? What does it feel like?
Ai Vuong: It happened because, um, the, the chairwoman at the time, her name is Jenny Do and she, um, passed away last year. So, um, this is a little bit in her, in her memory and her honor, but, um, she just, she came and she visited and she said, do you want to do this?
And I said, I don't know what you're talking about. And so she basically just said this, this, the shelter is yours. Please work on it. Like, please do it. And I thought, oh my gosh, what am I getting myself into? And I just found at 20, 3, 24, I was leading these like staff meetings with elder Vietnamese people and in Vietnamese and I was like, what is happening?
But it just felt like that, that was what I needed to do. And, and I loved it so much. I think I loved it too much. I fell in love with the kids, first of all. And I think when you are able to form such unbelievably strong bonds with the people that you're working with. It really motivates you to, to continue.
But like I said, Amalia, I was so young at the time. Had such a strange view of, I don't know, my purpose, my, what I needed to do. I didn't know this term at the time, but I just burned out so quickly. I was just worried about the kids all the time. I worried about the shelter all the time. There was a point where it's like, I'm not going to wear any makeup. I'm not going to wear any jewelry. I'm not going to do anything. And I think I just, I went a little too far into the extreme. I just think I had an inflated view of what I could do.
Amalia: Right.
Ai Vuong: And, you know, it took some falls and it took being really sick for a long time to, to realize that I needed to step away and to, and that it was okay for me to step away. And, you know, the kids all, um, grew older, you know, I say kids, but the kids that I, uh, they're now in their, you know, mid twenties and they have families and babies, so they're not kids anymore. But, you know, I had to step away and learn for myself just what it meant to, what it meant to take care of myself as the way to, to then do better work for others.
Amalia: Well, I can imagine the amount of pressure, stress, obligation, you know, just taking it all on in your early 20s. Something so big. And it's interesting sometimes when we have something so big, we get so small. We, we, you know, at least that's been my experience in life. Like when something is overwhelming to me, I don't get bigger.
I kind of get smaller in order to absorb it all. And it sounds like that's what you were really struggling with. Kudos to you for knowing that you had to take care of yourself, right? Especially being so young, I don't, I don't know that that's always intuitive, right? So, so knowing that something's not right.
I don't know, have you read the book, The Body Keeps the Score? It's like one of my favorites.
Ai Vuong: Yes. Yes. And I think everybody should read it. Me too. It's so funny because at that time that language wasn't available to me.
Amalia: Yes.
Ai Vuong: And I wish that it had been because I wish I had understood the language of trauma and what the body, how to listen to the body because the body is so unbelievably wise.
Like, and I've been in some training, somatic trainings where your body is older than your prefrontal cortex, like it is more developed. Your prefrontal cortex really comes in, in your, your early twenties, but your body is your body and your, your skin, like it inputs so much data. And as young children, we're taught to learn, to listen to our bodies and what it's telling us.
And I, I, just completely ignored my body for, for all, for my whole life. And it's only been in the last few years that I feel like I've really been able to unlearn a lot of the learnings that, that we've been taught, particularly in American Western society and educational system of, I'm not behind. This is what my body can do today and that is fine and that is perfectly capable.
Really the body needs rest and the way that our quote unquote hustle culture and grind culture is so harmful and the roots of where that came from is actually oppression and not meant for us to thrive. And I feel so grateful that I came into filmmaking later in my life. I've really been pursuing this for the last six years and independent documentary filmmaking truly only in the last two years.
And I feel as if had I not had all of those learnings prior to entering into the film world, which is already so taxing and difficult to try to make it and learn a whole new industry and particular as creatives, you're taught that you need to, you need to just work harder and your successes and is dependent on you.
And all you have to do is to work those late hours to post. Then you have to market yourself. And then you have to market your work, and then you have to learn the system, but then you also have to be a good business person and, and all of that, and have the right
Amalia: circle and show up and network and, yeah.
Ai Vuong: Which is already in itself an incredible, it's all about access, right? So, you know, as an artist, it's like meet people and get yourself there. It's like, well, how am I going to get myself there? You know, you're not paying me to be at these events, but I have to pay my own ticket. I have to pay my own way.
And I have to have my portfolio and I have to be there so that you can meet me and you can think that I'm interesting or that you believe in my work. Even as we're talking about it, I feel exhausted.
Amalia: I feel exhausted too. Yeah.
Ai Vuong: You know, I reflect a lot and in the last few, particularly because these are the kinds of conversations that I have with my partner and I work with my partner.
So, you know, both of our livelihoods are tied to this. And so we have these conversations with our friends all the time of just like, what does it mean to try to live as much as possible according to our values when it feels like, it feels really contradictory to the values that society espouses.
Amalia: Ooh, tell me more about that.
Ai Vuong: You know, you and I met at an entrepreneurship fellowship, which I'm so grateful for. The Tory Burch Foundation has been really, really pivotal in a lot of my learning, but I, at the heart of it, I try to wake up every day thinking about how do I live, how outside of this economic and social system that is really so harmful to all of us.
Aside from a very small number of people, I don't think that many of us are truly thriving, thriving in the way of being able to live as freely as we would like to, and our environment is suffering as a result, our connection to land and nature is suffering, our connection to ourselves. And each other and as a community are truly suffering.
And that's really hard for me. I think I wake up thinking, how do I try to live a little bit outside of the system while also understanding that my livelihood is still dependent on the system. Like I still have to run a business and I still have to sell my product. And I still have to value my time according to a specific number and try to meet goals and try to profit and have my business be profitable in a certain way. And it's, I don't have an answer, but those are the questions that I struggle with.
Amalia: Yeah.
Ai Vuong: A lot.
Amalia: Yeah. I mean, it's the water we swim in, right? And we have to keep swimming in that. I've struggled with this too, because I don't come from money and I don't understand the systems of personal wealth, of generational wealth, of even like highly profitable, successful business.
Like, I feel like I am drinking from a fire hose at all time. And I, I want to learn. them, but I also don't want, I don't just adopt them because it's the way it is, right? I find myself with this conflict in a lot of entrepreneurial organizations that I'm in. It's like the end game for most is just like wealth, right?
Like just wealth or cheating the tax code in some way that it's going to make them more wealthy. And I, I am so interested in like how we can build business for good that helps community, that centers community. We do a lot of community centered work. So, you know, not like patronizing helping community, but like, how do you actually build an economic system through the vehicle of a business?
Because this is the water we swim in, right? This is where we are. That's going to provide good beyond just the business owner, the shareholder, right? Like, how do you, I don't have the answers either but these are the things that I also struggle with. But really early on in my career back in those days of like the hustle culture and the networking all the time and people telling you just like it's all about timing just keep showing up and when the timing's right it'll be your turn right like without like acknowledging all of the systematic things that are actually working against you, somebody told me listen nobody cares if you eat. Really, like there's very few people in the world who care if you eat.
That stuck with me for so long that I remember like, okay, nobody cares if I eat. Like, all right, it's going to be up to me, but not at the expense of myself.
Ai Vuong: Yeah.
Amalia: You are running a successful business that does beautiful work and you are having this inner conflict, which I completely understand. How do you continue to care for yourself with those considerations?
Ai Vuong: That's a really beautiful question that I would like to get, but first of all, I do want to learn about you and I want to learn where your desire to, to do community work comes from. Cause you said that's a big part of your business and I would like to learn why that's such a big part of your business.
Amalia: That's a great question. Um, so I grew up as the only person of color in my family, you know, it's pretty blue collar, Catholic ish family and a lot of the conversations that we would have around the dinner table I think I realized, you know, they're talking really about me, but not about me, right?
They're talking about them, but not about me. They're not seeing me as them, right? Seattle has its own, it's not the South, but it has its own reckoning with, with race and class. And this was definitely a class and race thing. So when I grew up in the Seattle public schools were bused. So we were, you know, there was forced busing to integrate the schools.
So if you lived over here in one neighborhood, because all the neighborhoods are pretty segregated, you would be bused across town as a way to integrate schools. But my, my family, like my mom's side of the family, was in a pretty affluent area, but on my school records, I was a person of color, right? So I would be bused to the other, so I went to school with a lot of people who had access, people who had all the systems, had all the money and the power and the way that they saw the world and the way that they could access resources, you know, was so easy.
And so I think I was always in a place of wanting to understand why their experience was like that and mine is like this. And why does it take a special program for me to even like be able to touch it? You know what I mean? Like It's not like, because I went to that school, everybody was like, Hey, welcome, open arms. Here are all of my Right. Just 'cause you have a program in place doesn't solve like the root social problems. But I now I look back and I'm like, if I hadn't had that touching, just that access, I probably wouldn't have X, Y, and Z. Right. You know, you start deconstructing your life. So that's, we do a lot of work in the public sector.
These are public funds, they're public dollars. I feel like there is an obligation for us to help our clients, center communities who have been historically harmed by a lot of the policy choices that are coming out of these institutions, but not in a transactional way. So, that's what I'm always pushing back on.
I want to build a system that has a legacy that can systematize some equity in the work that we do instead of being so transactional. When I say we center community in our work, our customer on paper might be this person but our customer at the end of the day who we're trying to serve through our work is, is the, the community, whether it's a specific minority community, ethnic community or geographic community or, you know, whatever it is that I tried, that's part of our company philosophy is to keep that, that core customer at our center.
Ai Vuong: I think that's really beautiful and I feel, I was reflecting a lot on this conversation because I was reflecting on what does it mean to have the whole damn pie? And I wrote down two things. I wrote communities of care and communities of practice, because I think that care is one of the things that is truly missing as a pillar, I think, in the way that we measure success.
And I feel like the only way that we can truly thrive as individuals and as businesses and as families is if we have communities of care around us. And I do think that includes businesses and organizations like yours that are trying to center communities in a way that is fueled by love as opposed to fuel by transactions or even, you know, quote unquote, services that are still at the end of the day, still transactional.
But I don't think we can do that without also communities of practice. And I, you know, I want to live outside of what the capitalist market deems a success, which is, I don't want to think about profit just for profit's sake. And I don't want to think about profit without understanding the harm that it causes, the environment, and what are ways in which we center community, what are ways in which we center our relationship with land and other species?
And I think that's really difficult. And you can't do that without a community of practice. And I love that it's called practice because it is a practice. Like there is no perfection. There is no one way to do it. And there is no, like you said, destination or end goal, but we're all trying to live. And practice it in small and large ways.
Amalia: I love that. I want to go back a little bit to your total 180. I want to talk about your professional stuff because I think when I talk to young people today, there's so much, uh, deliberate calculations, I guess, right? Like, here's my calculated career path. How do you go from being an ED to a filmmaker?
Like, how do you make that pivot for yourself? How do you give yourself permission with all of these things that you're, you're thinking about and grappling with and trying to navigate in life, giving yourself permission to change course and to pivot and to find new ways. I would love to hear how you do that for yourself.
Ai Vuong: Hmm. I think, and I'm speaking about this as someone whose value and worth was always tied into my work. I think I've started trying to introduce myself less with nouns, which is I am a filmmaker, or I am a ED, or I, you know, I am quote unquote this position, but more to think through what I do as a person.
So for example, I've never been an athlete, but I have been running for years and I did a couple of 10ks and a half marathon and it was only after the half marathon that I thought, Oh, am I a runner? And it's like you run and which makes you a runner, you know, I don't like what are the metrics to say that you are X, Y, Z, right?
Yeah. When you allow yourself to, it's funny that you use the word permission because who is the person that's not giving you permission? It's you, you give yourself permission to do anything that you want. And it's just to say, I'm doing this. And I'm going to do this for X number of years until maybe I reached this goal, or I'm going to do this until it doesn't make me happy anymore, or I'm going to do this until I have accomplished what I wanted and then I can turn and do something else.
And because you do something else doesn't negate what you had done in the past, and it doesn't mean you can never return to it in the future. So that very circuitous way of saying I give myself permission because I feel like I hold it all with open hands and trying to live my life as a way of practice.
Like I'm practicing filmmaking. I don't know if I'll ever be. My friend asked us this, just yesterday, and he said, what is your definition of success? Like, what is your ultimate goal as a filmmaker? And I said, he's like, is it the Oscars? And I was like, Oh, please. Like, I don't, I don't have any ambitions of anything like that. But I feel like if I have made a film that moves people and hopefully it creates some sort of impact and is an expression of myself as an artist, then I think I would feel good. And if in five to 10 years I turn around and I do something else, like maybe I become a, you know, I start writing more full-time or I do something else and that, then that's also okay.
I don't know if I've answered your question, but I don't think that you can plan life. I think that you can create conditions for yourself, but allow space to be surprised.
Amalia: Wow. I, you not only answered my question, you inspired me because never in my life have I said to myself, I'm going to do this until it doesn't make me happy anymore.
I didn't, that's never been a thing I thought I could do. So thank you.
Ai Vuong: Yeah. What I'm, I'm so excited. I mean, I know that you love the work that you do now, and I think that you are doing it because you care, but there's also so many infinite yous and so many different manifestations of what could make you happy or light up or find a different way to serve your community.
Amalia: Yes, I think I am just getting to that part of my life, honestly, to know like, I think I've come from a place that's always very scarce, scarcity mindset, you know, you're just not sure. And so I'm always at that anxious place of like, I don't know, is it going to work? Am I going to get there? So the thought that I could center my happiness into a choice that is my day to day is pretty radical.
Ai Vuong: That's so exciting!
Amalia: It is exciting! Damn it, look at all these things I could be doing with my time.
Ai Vuong: So I've been reflecting on a lot since our pre call. My thought on the whole damn pie is, I'm always thinking Is it a pie that's being given to me and then I accept it, or is it a pie that I'm creating, or is it a pie that is wholly my own and then other people have their own pies, or is it one whole pie that we all have a hand in?
And so I, I can't in my head visualize, because I don't think that I have a singular pie, because my pie is so intertwined with other people's pie. So many other peoples. All that to say, I don't know I have a singular conception of what my whole damn pie is. And I know that I didn't have that in my 20s, and I know that I will probably continue to figure out what that, that is because, you know, maybe this, maybe I want pumpkin pie today, but in 10 years, I, my, my taste is going to shift and I'm going to want cherry pie or I will never want pecan pie, but you know, apple pie.
Amalia: We're all hungry at this point.
Ai Vuong: What if we want cake?
Amalia: That's a whole other show.
There's never one version of the whole damn pie. It's subjective and it changes throughout our lives, but there's such value in stepping back and really thinking about what it means to quote unquote, have it all.
I love that Ai is in a space of fluidity, open to adapting her career based on what makes her happy. I mean, imagine that! Framing decision making, especially in career, in terms of happiness seems so obvious, and yet it's so rare we actually step back and ask that of ourselves. And what a privilege that is.