Sowing love for Vietnam in the hearts of Japanese people

(Baonghean.vn) - "I don't want to earn a lot of money or become famous. I just hope that Japanese people have the opportunity to enjoy and love Vietnamese culture and customs right in the land of the rising sun." This is the sharing of Thanh Tu, owner of Hoa Sua restaurant, a famous address for Japanese people who love to explore Vietnamese culture.

The way to Hoa Sua shop.

The shop was opened 4 years ago by a pretty Vietnamese girl named Thanh Tu. She came to Japan to study because of her passionate love for Japanese culture. After graduating, she worked for the Shizuoka City government, a very stable job.

However, with a curious personality, loving innovation in life, and above all wanting Japanese people to love Vietnamese culture as much as you love Japanese culture, for that simple reason you left your office, opened a small cafe called "Raichi hammock cafe", with a simple menu: pho, spring rolls, lotus tea, Vietnamese coffee.

Thanh Tu herself did almost all the steps from designing the shop model, painting the walls, making the doors, designing the signs and... even the tables. Everything in the shop was created by the small hands of this Vietnamese girl, so each object has its own unique features, creating a unique feature that no other coffee shop has.

After being in operation for a while, the uniqueness of the restaurant has attracted many Japanese people across the country, and has been reported by television and newspapers quite a lot, making Thanh Tu come up with a bolder idea "to promote Vietnamese culture".

"I can't just stop at letting customers enjoy Vietnamese food and see me wearing Vietnamese clothes, I also want to make customers feel like they are traveling in Vietnam," Tu excitedly shared.

To realize that dream, Thanh Tu opened a larger space than Raichi, which is Hoa Sua shop. There, Thanh Tu sells many daily necessities of ancient Vietnamese people such as aluminum kettles, bamboo baskets, plastic baskets and brocades of ethnic minorities, hammocks, lanterns, sewing thread, fabric... All of which were personally selected by Tu when he returned to Vietnam.

Thanh Tu, owner of Hoa Sua shop.

In addition, Tu also has another service, which is letting customers wear traditional Vietnamese ao dai. "I just want to let customers come here to have beautiful photos with ao dai, so that they will always remember my country," Thanh Tu said. "The price to rent ao dai is like giving it away for free. The amount customers pay to rent ao dai is only enough to pay for laundry every time they wear it."

90% of Tu's customers are Japanese, from famous artists to the most ordinary people. All are served attentively and openly. Japanese people know about the restaurant through television, online newspapers, and blogs of people who have been there.

Those who have been there all share the same sentiment: “I really went abroad without even spending an hour on a plane.” Even the TV reporter who came to film the trip joked, “It seems like we are not filming in Japan.”

"I don't want to make a lot of money or become famous. I just want Japanese people to have the opportunity to enjoy and love Vietnamese culture and customs right in the Land of the Rising Sun," Thanh Tu expressed, adding: "Most of the people who come to the shop will later travel to Vietnam to experience what they have heard through stories from Hoa Sua shop.

Some pictures of Hoa Sua shop, in Shizuoka city, Japan:

Hoa Sua shop seen from outside.

Vietnamese items are sold in the shop.

Japanese girls in traditional Vietnamese ao dai.

The restaurant received much attention from Japanese media.

Le Quyen

(Osaka, Japan)