About : Hop Nguyen

Hop Nguyen is my wife. We were married on August 19th, 2005, and are having a great time living together.

Since she is from Vietnam, lots of people ask how we met and got married. I usually give the "short version"; here's the whole story.

1996

At the age of 17, I travelled to Vietnam at the invitation of my godfather, Bradley Babson. Brad was working for the World Bank at the time, and had been stationed in Vietnam for several years. He invited me out there with the goal of broadening my cultural horizons. I spent two and a half weeks in and around Hanoi, touring and meeting people. Vietnam is a remarkable country, especially if you're 17 and have never been anyplace more exotic than Mexico.

On the last day of my visit, I went out walking on my own for a last look around Hanoi. On my trip I met a young boy named Kien - perhaps 12 or 13 - who showed me around the city and took me to some places I hadn't seen yet. At the end of our walk, Kien and I exchanged mailing addresses with the promise to write.

When I returned to Maine I got involved in my senior year at high school and didn't remember to write a letter for several months. Then I found the postcard on which I'd written his address and decided to follow through with my promise. I wrote him a rather expository little letter and popped it in the mail. I didn't hear anything back from him, and eventually forgot about the whole thing.

1998

In March of 1998 I received a letter from Vietnam. I opened it up and read it; it was not from Kien, but rather from Hop Nguyen. Hop had found my letter to Kien in the street on her way to school on January 27th, 1997. She asked around the neighborhood and tried to find Kien, but his neighbors said that the family had moved away and had not left a forwarding address. Hop then opened the letter, read it, and, a year later, sent a letter back to me introducing herself and asking to be penpals.

Thus began a correspondence that lasted for seven years.

2004

My friend Ben Cote and I visited Vietnam for the entire month of June. Ben, Hop and I travelled around the country together, and I visited Hop's family in Bac Ninh for a week while Ben went to Nha Trang to see where his father was stationed during the war. Hop and I, already friendly from years of writing letters, fell in love and decided to get married. Remarkably, her family had no objections, and neither did mine. When I returned to Maine I set about filing the paperwork that would allow Hop to apply for a K-1 "Fiance" visa. (This process, if you're wondering, is long and involved.)

2005

On January 24th, Hop went to the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City for her visa interview. I flew out to Vietnam as well to be with her for the interview. (I wasn't allowed in to the Consulate, however. Go figure.) Hop was denied her visa because of some incorrect paperwork, though the interviewer also expressed unreasonable doubts about the length of our correspondence. We corrected the paperwork problems, I wrote several letters to clear up the doubts about the length of our relationship, and Hop was issued a visa later that winter. In late May of 2005 I flew back to Vietnam for a third time to pick her up and bring her back to Los Angeles for a week, and then on to Maine.

The terms of her Fiance Visa were such that we had to be legally married within three months of her arrival. We fulfilled that requirement on August 19th, in a very simple legal transaction with a lawyer who is a family friend over shepherd's pie and wine. Hop and I still plan to have a wedding ceremony when we can afford to throw a really good party - probably in 2008.

Head trip

During my first trip to Vietnam in 1996, my godparents bought me a painting as a birthday present. The painting is of a very famous and recognizable spot in Hanoi - Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature. The exact subject of the painting was a particular archway in the outer wall of Van Mieu. I took the painting home and it has hung on the various walls of rooms and houses I've lived in since then.

When I came to Vietnam in 2004, I asked Hop to show me the spot where she found my first letter. She took me to the very archway at Van Mieu of which I'd had a painting since 1996.