My college professor and advisor, who introduced me to the poetics and politics of anthropology, calls the anthropologist (and himself) a “lone wolf.” Now training to be a sociocultural anthropologist at Yale, I still think back to that metaphor as part of my rite of passage into the discipline.

I saw the light of day in Hải Phòng, a coastal city in northern Việt Nam. My nguyên quán (original homeland), meaning my paternal grandpa’s homeland, is the central province of Nghệ An. During wartime in the 1960s, my grandpa migrated from Nghệ An to Hải Phòng, where he married a local teacher (guess who). My mom’s homeland is Hải Phòng. Her mom’s—my maternal grandma’s—homeland is Hải Dương, another northern province.

When my maternal grandpa was younger, he motorbiked across Việt Nam—in search of work, adventures, history, poetry, and probably himself.

Perhaps as a family tradition, mobility and migration are central to my personal life and academic research, which focuses on multifaceted rural-urban relations in contemporary Việt Nam.

I was born in the winter, and as an avid reader of ancient-setting Chinese Internet literature, I love the 少年郎/狼 (context-specific wordplay) figure. A lone wolf wandering around the snow-covered ancient city (古城), a winter-born lone wolf wandering across cities, ancient or “modern,” snow-clad or sweating. Call mine the multiverse of dream-realities.

在雪漫冬城向田园春色，想一想各种现实的自己。

A college friend made me a paper wolf after graduation. Probably one of the few people who take my wolf-being seriously.

Guess you’re the next.