Ever since she was a young girl, Tu has been fascinated with ideas. Sex. Love. Gender. Politics. Anthropology. Her curiosity for other people and how they think, feel, and act in the world, knew no bounds. Nothing is ever fully off the table. Everything is up for debate.
Tu grew up an only child raised by a single mom. She admits that her mom didn’t know how to answer a lot of the questions she had then. Having said that, in an effort to satisfy her child’s curiosity, Tu’s mom turned to books. By providing Tu with all the literature she could handle, she gave her daughter an opportunity to find the answers herself. Tu was quick to fall in love with reading. It offered her an avenue to explore ideas with different vantage points, and often resulted in her having internal debates with the author of whatever title she was reading. For her, it was a way to push back on authority. While reading has served as a life-changing habit that Tu keeps up with to this day, an even more important turning point came when she became a debater in high school.
As a student at the High School for the Gifted in District 5, one of the most prestigious schools in Vietnam, Tu was surrounded by peers who were just as fascinated with debating. That said, instead of the long winded rants teenagers often go on, the debate team gave its members the necessary structure to challenge ideas effectively. As Tu explains, there are unstructured and structured forms of debate. Unstructured debates are the kind that we all experience on a day to day basis. On the other hand, structured debates have set topics, rules, time limits and result in winners and losers. Such constraints mean there is a sense of urgency to think and construct your thoughts in a timely manner. For Tu, the pressure and mindfulness needed in structured debating gave her the perfect outlet to explore all the many ideas she'd been fascinated by as a kid.
From Tu’s perspective, learning how to debate is one of best things you can do. Not only can you learn about different subjects, but debating also teaches you how to challenge other people’s ideas without playing the power game. You learn how to create space rather than just try to occupy space. In other words you seek to understand rather than just dominate a conversation. The debating environment at high school added fuel to the fire of Tu’s curiosity. Moving forward, she wanted to explore more ideas. This desire resulted in her choosing to attend Fulbright University Vietnam, a school that she’d learned was even more inclined for open debates.
Tu majored in Social Studies with more focus in Anthropology. One of the things she came to understand about anthropology was a common critique about its practices. To study a different culture, group of people, or way of life, one must travel there, speak with the people, observe, record, and lastly, document one’s findings for others to use in their pursuit of knowledge. In doing so, anthropologists often take on a role of authority. Going back to Tu’s childhood and interest in developing her debate skills, coming in contact with authority figures often became grounds for pushing back. Be it in a book or in person. As a result, Tu aimed to push back on that very critique within her own field of study. This meant instead of traveling to somewhere else she chose to study a group of people right here in her hometown of Saigon.
In one of her projects, she chose to zero in on the anthropological study of sex workers in Japan Town, an area in District 1 known for its nightlife and numerous “massage” parlours. Tu spent roughly three months interviewing people in an effort to understand how they think, feel, and act in such working conditions. Beyond that, Tu was able to dive into more taboo topics with the scope of sex work such as sex tourism and even BDSM. In this way, Fulbright provided Tu with a place to talk about sensitive things beyond sex work, but also social and political issues that affect many different groups of people. She was able to further her understanding of the various nuances making up the questions of the world when she entered a new role as debate judge.
Being a debate judge meant Tu was in charge of hosting competitions. Seated in the middle of two opposing sides gave her insight into the qualities that make up a good debater as well as a good judge. As I mentioned, Tu says a good debater challenges ideas without vying for power. Good debating is not all about aggressively attacking, it’s also about creating space for discourse between you and your opponent. In terms of being a good judge, Tu says its qualities are not as concrete. The goal is to balance skepticism and open mindedness. Or, as she put it, “act as an average reasonable person”. You don’t have to be an expert, but you also shouldn’t be ignorant of the content up for debate. On top of explaining what makes a good debater and judge, I also learned the relationship between the two. Not only does the judge give the debater feedback—for example, on their particular strategy—the debater also gives feedback to the judge. In doing so, both sides have to justify their points as means to challenge one another even further. Learning how to debate and judge well have served as a vessel for Tu’s personal growth. She says these days, she feels more mature, speaking more slowly, controlled, and with confidence.
In 2023, Tu started working as a debate teacher at eSchool in District 2 . While it can feel gratifying to reflect on your own journey, noticing all of the details of how much you’ve grown, it can sometimes feel even more gratifying to see the growth in those you teach. By sharing her knowledge and experience, Tu is able to push students outside their comfort zones, help them along their own journey, and also teach a valuable lesson about winning and losing. The pain of losing and the thrill of victory are great teachers. I learned a lot about both through playing sports growing up. While Tu knows most people don’t consider debate a sport, she still tries to approach it like one. This means sometimes she teaches students to play for fun and sometimes to play to win. “I do incentivize winning and losing,” she said. “Competitions are important. Winning and losing makes students more hooked. It also takes on a new meaning. Because it happens so many times, students realize it's just a game. It’s just a small moment in life. They’re going to keep debating the next day.”
Tu’s words offer a great lesson: conflict and disagreement can be good. She’s been comfortable with both since she was a kid, but now understands that this comfort can also be taught and nurtured. Conflict forces you to search for the middle ground between opposing ideas. More importantly, if you’re paying attention to what the other side is saying, it drives you to understand them on a deeper level. You get the most depth for ideas in the middle ground, Tu explains. It broadens your understanding of yourself and the human condition as a whole.
Outside of school and work, Tu’s also had an idea brewing in her mind for a long time now. As a big fan of drinking matcha, she’s thought about opening a cafe for years now. However, because the popularity of matcha has skyrocketed in recent years, resulting in plenty of matcha cafes opening in the city, she wanted to do something different. How about leaning into the pop up event model? Thus, Walking Matcha was born.
Teaming up with her boyfriend Kiet, creator of Tin Tin Project, as well as An, co-owner of Home Bar, the trio had their first event on Phạm Viết Chánh in October 2025. Hosted at Home Bar, Kiet made matcha noodles while Tu concocted a matcha and beer drink for guests. The Walking Matcha team had reasonable expectations for the event. With DJ’s Soju Peanut and Duy Ngo manning the turntables, they thought a small, young crowd would attend but what they got was something very different. That night Home Bar was packed with a group of older ladies—a crowd of moms, some of whom had even brought their kids. Reflecting on the opening night, Tu laughed. She said she even saw one of her students there!
The second event was the following month at Chef Chico’s phở restaurant in District 2, Chị Mơ. This time they had DJ Tommy Sarang on the decks while Tu, Kiet, and An ran the rest of the show. To their surprise, Walking Matcha was already moving towards building its community. Tu said things ran smoothly compared to their first event, but even better were the people who reached out on social media offering to volunteer. The team deemed those offering a hand the Matcha Walkers, a sign their lifestyle brand was taking steps forward. After the first two events, the team set up the first stand with IMACHA. Compared to Home Bar and Chị Mơ, operating a stand was a much more compact endeavor. It proved to be a good learning experience requiring Walking Matcha to upgrade its equipment and be more efficient in its process.
In December last year, Walking Matcha had its third event: SMASH-CHA. Hosted at PickoLand in Thảo Điền, they served matcha and hotdogs while people enjoyed an afternoon playing pickleball, all to the soundtrack of Mi Pha’s DJ set. It was another step forward for the Walking Matcha brand. After all, Tu explained she wants to lean into more of a lifestyle brand where people can explore different parts of the city while meeting new people and getting some exercise. Tu added that since her mom is an avid pickleball player, she also stopped by to help out! Following the success of the third event, the team switched things up: catering matcha for a pilates party. With Tu’s friend Somi at the helm, a group of fourteen carried on the activity forward focus for Walking Matcha by enjoying matcha in between sets of different pilates exercises.
Tu says she is excited to host even more events in the near future. Some ideas she has in mind include a book club, more sports-centric afternoons, and even a potential performative male contest. That said, beyond hosting, Tu wants to collaborate with more Vietnamese women owned matcha brands. The goal in doing so is to learn from each other's knowledge and experience but also to make matcha more accessible to others.
Later on in the conversation, I asked Tu for book recommendations. More specifically, knowing how much she enjoyed feminine studies, I asked about the subject. She responded with one word: Frankenstein. As to my follow up question asking why, Tu explained gladly. At first she laughed, saying the joke was: see what happens when a man builds something without a woman around. But I wanted to know the deeper message. She said beyond the fact that Mary Shelley, an 18-year-old debut author at the time, wrote the female character into the background on purpose, she also noted something else: see what happens as a result of loneliness. More specifically, look at how violent the monster in the story becomes because of how lonely it is without its other half.
Upon further reflection, Tu’s explanation of Frankenstein made me think about people as a whole. One of the big takeaways I gathered is how much people need each other. Some people grow up with brothers and sisters to debate with. Others don’t. Some people have lots of friends at school or work to share ideas with. Others don’t. Some people have their favorite matcha spot to go to where they can banter with the staff and even make new friends. Others don’t. If what Tu says is true—that a good debate is when people don’t play the power games—then debate becomes an act of restraint rather than dominance. People learn to create more space than they occupy. Learn to listen more than they speak. In that sense, Tu is right: learning to debate is one of the most powerful things you can do. You can deepen your understanding of yourself, those around you, and the human experience in its entirety. Will one reading of Frankenstein do that? No. Will one conversation do that? No. Will one person like a parent or a teacher fully teach you those things? No. It requires lots of reading, lots of conversations, lots of listening and working with those on the other side in an attempt to find some middle ground.
I think in her own way, Tu’s facilitating connection for herself and others. Since she was a child she sought out different perspectives through reading. In high school and college, she built connections through debating and judging other people’s ideas. Through her own research here in Saigon, she sought connection by listening and seeking to understand other people’s unique ways of life. Working as a teacher, she has fostered connections with students by showing them how to win, lose, and return the next day anew. And most recently, through Walking Matcha, she continues to facilitate connection by creating spaces where people can gather to feed their curiosity and be a part of a community instead of being left alone. Whether she’s in the midst of a debate, inside a classroom, or at a matcha pop-up, Tu’s story shows that connection doesn’t happen by accident. It takes work. And it may prove to be the most meaningful form of work there is.
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