My first day at Papaya

May 4th, 2021 was my first day at Papaya. I'd already met and talked with Hùng the co-founder about a dozen times before we finally committed to each other. Hùng said that Tuesday morning he'd line me up to meet the company's management team to get acquainted before I actually started. There was Trâm Hoàng the COO, Khải the head of product, Hương the head of claim, and Trâm the head of sales. One meeting was booked for an hour with someone named Thùy Hương at Starbucks Gold View. That morning I was told the meeting had moved to Phúc Long at Gold View instead. My head was a bit tangled with all the contradictory info — but in the flood of energy that comes with joining a startup for the third time in my life, I didn't mind: I love American tea and Đại Việt tea equally.

After finishing my drink at Phúc Long, I still had to run over to Starbucks for my usual Venti Hot Green Tea Latte! There was still one more person waiting over here who turned out to be the head of claim. Of course — at a company that handles insurance claims, whoever builds the technology needs to be tight with the head of claim. (I'm kidding — I only know this now. Back then, what the hell did I know about claims?)

She had long salt-and-pepper hair, a genuinely kind face, flowing clothes, and an overcoat that was — if I remember right — brown. In her hand she was carrying a notebook; I couldn't tell what she planned to show me. She made small talk to break the ice and started asking about my life story. I'd just told the other guy my entire life — I figured I'd tell it again in a different, more interesting way. Suddenly the thread of the conversation led me to friends — the friends I'd only known for a few years thanks to my fishkeeping hobby, and the friends I'd known since nursery school and still called each other by the same affectionate names. I have lots of friends, from every corner of the globe, all of them loving me as they love themselves. I was proud to show off my way of friending. I'm the kind of person who wants to make friends with everyone I meet, and the kind of person who joyously welcomes anyone who wants to befriend me. Maybe because I spent so much time alone at home as a child, the drive to escape loneliness is what makes me cheerful with everyone. I want to give my friends everything I have, and then hunt down more of what they might like, just to give that too. It might only be a flower, a blade of cockfighting grass, or a blank sheet of paper for a pop quiz. Or half a ripe sweet pear, a glass of sugarcane juice, a bag of yogurt, half a candle for the Mid-Autumn lantern night, a few firecrackers scavenged during Tết... When my parents were poor and had nothing, we'd pick up a stone from the street and pass it back and forth to skip across the water. When my parents climbed out of poverty, they'd buy you all an ice cream each.

I'm not afraid of losing when I give, I went on. The ones afraid to lose never give, and they still lose. How can you avoid losing? In ninth grade, two classmates of mine named Trần Quốc Việt and Nguyễn Hồng Phước used to come to my house to study and hang out, and the two of them stole millions of đồng from my mother — enough to buy a house and stash away in savings. I don't want to settle any scores; I just want to mark it as 1998-1999. It was my fault for bringing bad friends home, and it was my biggest fault for finding the key to my mother's cash drawer and using it to play arcade games. It wasn't my father's fault for telling my older brother to call the locksmith to the house to open the drawer and make a key. It was only my fault. My mother caught me red-handed one day opening the drawer, and she collapsed and wanted to kill herself. I cried with my mother, told her I'd never dare again, begged her to forgive me. Then I threw the guilty key into the toilet. A bit later, Ngọc — my childhood sweetheart — told me Việt had brought the money to her and asked her to hold it for him, because it was too much for his family to hold. I was heartbroken. Ngọc's boyfriend got furious and said: just say the word and I'll slash him till he learns. I said, no, let it go, Út. All I need is to never blame him for the rest of my life, and never look at his face for the rest of high school — that's worth more than any knife.

Then I turned back to Ms. Hương and said: afterwards, I thought about it a lot. I didn't know whether I should give or keep. I didn't want to keep things for myself. But I didn't dare let anyone else into the house. And if I were going to give, who would I give to now? I decided I'd keep on giving, Ms. Hương. What if I think someone is bad, so I don't give to them, but in the end they turn out not to be bad — I'd feel terrible. Like the story of beggars in Saigon, or the rain-day street-corner act where on Pasteur Street you always see a little kid holding a bundle of lottery tickets wailing their head off. Some people make a living begging, and others make a living off begging. If you think about it — if that income is going back to whoever's pulling the strings, then for every ten đồng collected, the kids might get one đồng to buy a bowl of rice. If they don't bring back any money at all, the stale rice and plain water they've been eating might not even be on the table. Just give, you don't know when you'll get anything back. I gave a little and one of my friends told me that guy stole money from a man's house to build a home and buy land. Or, at the very least, now I still get to sit with friends over coffee until midnight, not wanting to go home. Another reason I give, deliberately, is to give so much that when anyone even thinks about doing me harm, they stop themselves: he's so kind, how could I hurt him?

Interesting, she said, scribbling in her notebook. "Today is the first time I'm seeing this perspective on friends and giving." I was curious what adjective would end up next to my name in her yellowish notebook, and kept happily rambling on about the fish I'd been breeding over the past few years just to give away. Give so much it becomes an addiction to raising fry, and before you know it you're quietly breeding rare species like a pro.

The light that came out of her eyes — I'll remember it forever. In my heart I felt so glad I'd soon be working alongside her. Little did I know I'd wait for her every day at the office and she'd never appear. When I asked the other guy, only then did I find out who she was. Heaven and earth! Why didn't you tell me beforehand! So that day I'd been spinning wild tales in front of the former COO of FWD! How brazen, how arrogant, how oblivious to the sky and the earth!

Even now, looking back, I'm scared by how wild Lộc used to be.

Later I found out she wasn't COO — she was CTOO. A truly brilliant person. Hearing that title alone, I was in awe. A single letter of it was something I'd never held, let alone all four. I figured CTOO was exceptional — a double responsibility few could actually carry. Then the man who replaced her, also a CTOO, another exceptional person. Not until I met someone who now provides services to him — also a CTOO specialist — did I realize this was just the norm in the industry. Only then could I analyze why splitting responsibilities this way was so sensible for an organization. I only understood these titles and their responsibilities after I'd been a CTOO myself for over a year.

So on that early morning on my way to work I met her like meeting a saint. Met her once, never reunited; I've been waiting for the day I'd get a second audience in my lifetime. Afterwards, the only way I could learn from her was through the other guy's secondhand quotes. Listening to him recount the things she'd taught, I'd take a drag on a cigarette, look up at the sky, and think. To meet a Buddha once in a lifetime is a true blessing.

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This is a letter for my teacher, meant to be sent on May 4th, 2026. Yesterday I told part of this story to another teacher of mine, and my heart became so much more at peace, I wanted to send it right away — Tết is here, the time to come home and visit grandparents and parents.