Dinh Nguyen's Draw My Life

Transcript
[Dinh draws Vẽ cuộc đời tôi, Vietnamese for Draw my Life]

Dinh: "Hi, guys, sorry if my writing is in Vietnamese, I cannot write in English too well, so bare with me!"

[Dinh draws Vietnam and an arrow pointing to Hanoi]

Dinh: "I was born in Hanoi, Vietnam in 1997 as Nguyen Xuan Dinh, I had three sisters and one brother, I was the youngest out of five children."

[Dinh draws his family]

Dinh: "My dream one day was to become an actor and star in movies, my dad was a restaurant owner and my mother was a dancer."

[Dinh draws himself at age 3]

Dinh: "When I started nursery, I pretended to act out characters from movies and I told my teachers I wished to be an actor."

[Dinh draws his elementary and junior high schools]

Dinh: "My elementary school, I met many good friends and went there until I was 11."

[Dinh draws himself at age 11]

Dinh: "When I was 11, I moved to Canada, and since Vietnamese was my first language and my school was one of the few schools that had very little English teachers, It was a huge language barrier, especially with my neighbors, first language Vietnamese, plus, an Hanoi accent, plus inability to speak English too well, equals a lot of bullying."

[Dinh draws his school in Canada]

Dinh: "I was bullied a lot at my new elementary school, I could not write or read in English, but today, I can read English but still cannot write it, and I had to have my worksheets printed out in Vietnamese, and it made cheaters in exams harder to copy down my answers, which was extremely common, much to my amusement."

[Dinh draws his bullies]

Dinh: "My bullies were stupid, they call me Charlie, Victor Charlie, VC, G**k, Viet Cong, and yes, my family did have a history with communism, which was even more popular in my family than democracy, but today, my family likes America and forgives it, I tolerated it all year, but once kicked one in the testicles, with hilarious results."

[Dinh draws him singing]

Dinh: "In high school, at the age of 15, had a very good singing voice, and could sing pretty well, and girls and by that time, my English improved, but still couldn't pronounce certain words correctly."