Godfather of manicures

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In November 1975, Vietnamese Navy commander Minh Nguyen, left behind his macho military life and retrained as a manicurist. He migrated from Vietnam to the United States during the fall of Saigon. He went on to open a beauty school in Little Saigon, California and encouraged thousands of Vietnamese refugees to become nail technicians. Today, more than 40,000 students have graduated from Minh’s beauty schools and they have helped establish Vietnamese-Americans as the mainstay of the nail salon industry. Minh’s wife Kien talks to Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty. (Photo: Minh Nguyen. Credit: Minh Nguyen)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:08.9	With me, Anishka Matanda Dowdy.
0:12.1	Today I'm taking you back to November 1975, when a former South Vietnamese Navy commander
0:18.7	left behind his macho military life and decided to retrain as a manicurist.
0:25.7	People that he know, this was the first block in the building of his beauty school empire.
0:37.4	On the very first day he does what he does with extra morning, he drank his Vietnamese coffee.
0:43.2	He did that each day before he would leave for work or school.
0:47.8	I remember him wearing that day, the uniform that the school assigned.
0:53.0	The uniform was like a smoke.
0:55.6	It looked like something it would wear in a hospital.
0:59.1	It might even have been a scrap.
1:01.4	I remember our conversation.
1:03.4	I jumped with him when he put that on, saying,
1:06.8	Oh, you are going to medical school.
1:09.9	It looked like a doctor today.
1:12.2	He laughed and we had a good laugh together.
1:16.4	That's Ken William.
1:18.5	She's talking to me about her husband, Min.
1:21.2	It was actually his 92nd birthday when we spoke.
1:24.5	Happy birthday, Min.
1:26.8	They met as a meditation group in Vietnam and he caught her eye immediately.
1:33.0	He would always be in his uniform.
	...

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