Mio's Vietnamese proficiency is now at the level of "a 4-5 year old child speaking her mother tongue". Achieving this level is a process of effort and perseverance for this Japanese girl.
The Vietnamese man was born in 1994 and his Japanese wife was born in 1999. After nearly 4 years of making TikTok, the couple's channel now has 2 million followers and nearly 60 million views. They are Le Chieu Duc and Nakamura Mio. The young couple currently lives in Tokyo, helping the two countries' communities become more connected and closer every day with youthful, cheerful videos that are appropriate for their age.
Having studied and lived in Japan since 2014, Le Chieu Duc (HCMC) said that Japan is like his second home. Currently, he has encountered almost no barriers when living in the capital Tokyo.
Duc is working for a Vietnamese telecommunications company in Japan, while Mio does a part-time job at home.
Duc shared that he met Mio when they both worked part-time at a restaurant. Seeing that Mio was cheerful and sociable, Duc approached her and asked her out to eat. Not long after, he confessed his love and was accepted. After only 1 year of dating, the couple registered their marriage, becoming legal husband and wife even though they had not yet had a wedding. "Because of the Covid-19 epidemic at that time, we could not have a wedding," Duc said.
During their 4 years of marriage, they stayed together, adjusting to their new life and culture. Every day, Duc went to work at the company from 11am to 7pm. Mio stayed home to work part-time, then finished the housework. When Duc returned home, there was always a hot meal waiting for him.
During the conversation, Duc did not hesitate to give his wife compliments.
Although she got married at the age of 20, Mio is an ideal wife in her husband's eyes. "She is very intelligent and always gives me advice and suggestions at work. She is also very gentle and sweet."
Duc shared that one thing he realized about his wife and Japanese wives in general is that “they love their husbands very much, always think about them, and care about them every little bit.” “When cooking, she always cooks very carefully, from choosing the dish to preparing it, always following the recipe of that dish, not just cooking whatever is available, doing it hastily to get it done.”
He thinks that maybe it is a quality of Japanese people in general - they like to do things properly and are careful in everything. Even when it comes to cleaning the house, Mio is very meticulous and thorough. Duc is not annoyed by that meticulousness, but always learns to adapt and change himself to live together, because he knows that these are good habits.
The biggest barrier, if any, according to Duc, is language, even though he speaks Japanese very well. “There are issues that my wife doesn’t fully understand even though I’ve explained them. I don’t know how to explain them to her. For example, many Vietnamese people go to Japan to work and send money back to their families. She can’t understand why we can’t live for ourselves and have to take on so much responsibility for our families.”
“Japanese people live very independently. Old parents do not rely on their children, so they cannot understand the way Vietnamese people think. In Japan, it is usually only the parents who take care of and give everything to their children, and it is rarely the other way around.”
Because of situations that he could not explain thoroughly and deeply to his wife, Duc suggested that she learn Vietnamese. “One is to talk to my husband and his friends. Two is to return to Vietnam to live in the future, because we plan to return to Vietnam in a few years,” he explained.
Mio immediately agreed to her husband's request. At first, Duc intended to teach his wife Vietnamese himself. But after only 2 days of teaching, both of them realized that "the Buddha in the home temple is not sacred", the results were not as expected. After a while, about 6 months before returning to Vietnam, Mio determined to learn Vietnamese to be able to talk to her husband's family.
This time, she joined an online Vietnamese class taught by a Vietnamese teacher. Since then, Mio has been studying Vietnamese for nearly a year. According to Duc, Mio's current Vietnamese level is at the level of "a 4-5 year old child speaking her mother tongue". To achieve this level is a process of effort and perseverance for the Japanese girl. Mio said that the most difficult part of Vietnamese for her is the pronunciation of the accents, because a slightly different sound can produce completely different words.
After each online lesson with her teacher, Mio often tries to practice Vietnamese with her husband. During her two visits to Vietnam, Mio was able to communicate in simple sentences with everyone. Duc even taught his wife to talk to her mother-in-law in a Quang Binh accent.
In the couple's videos, Mio is often the "star", loved by viewers for her cheerfulness. At first, Duc only intended to make videos to post on TikTok because he found his wife cute. But after receiving a lot of attention from everyone, he worked hard to invest in making more elaborate videos recording the couple's life and the differences between Vietnamese and Japanese culture.
The couple's plan is to return to Vietnam to live in a few years. Mio was initially hesitant about this decision, but after returning to Vietnam twice, traveling and experiencing life in Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc, she feels comfortable and thinks she can adapt to life in Vietnam. Currently, the Japanese wife is trying to learn Vietnamese well to prepare for this plan.
Vietnamnet.vn
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