Cong Hung Nguyen

I have no ambition of returning to my home country like a lot of other foreigners talk about. I am 50% foreign, but only because everybody keeps asking me where I come from.

I am afraid of growing old. Afraid that my wife and I are going to feel lonely. We have just one son, aged 27, and he has not yet started a family. It is completely up to him of course, but I do think it was high time he started. He has had two Danish girlfriends. I just don’t think they were patient enough for my son. Asian girls are more patient with their men, and they are not so strict. I have advised him to find a wife who is not too beautiful, to avoid the worrying and stressing if someone else might come and take her away one day. It is certainly not easy to find a good wife.

I met my wife on the boat from Vietnam to Hong Kong. She was catholic while I grew up an atheist. So I had to attend bible school for two years before we could marry. Every day we sat and read the Bible. That was in the days when I tried to impress her. Now I am too lazy. But I do look after her. Women are like flowers. They need watering every day, as otherwise they will shrivel. I really regret that we didn’t have more children. When we lived in the refugee camp in Hong Kong, many of the Vietnamese women were offered a birth control product which was later discovered to have left them infertile. So we had to make do with one child. He is a lovely boy, and he is also handsome. He should be able to find a wife.

54 years / male / in a relationship / child / Copenhagen N / cleaner in Tivoli / from Vietnam / came to Denmark in 1992 / residence permit same year