A Return to the Motherland ✈️
Lifestyle creator Linh Truong finds inspiration abroad
blog.twenty-four // Yup, I’m popping up in your inbox this fine morning—even though it’s not Sunday.
And while it has been a lovely week of snow and sleet, the “Motherland” in the title isn’t a reference to my move back to Chicago.
Nevertheless, I’m obliged to mention that it’s been three years now since I last experienced a winter in the Windy City. I hate to admit it, but I’ve grown a little soft. Yet there’s nowhere I’d rather build Powder Blue—and I’m excited to announce that Chicago’s very own Shua Buhangin has joined our team.
Shua—better known as “Shua Films” to his fans on YouTube, and referred to as “Mr. Films” by yours truly*—is an incredibly talented filmmaker, creator, and community-builder. I’m honored to have him onboard, and he’s making his blog debut with the third conversation in our new series.
To recap: “Twenty-Five Calls for 2025” emerged from our mission to Make the Internet Feel Smaller. Through the zines we drop, the journey we document, and the gatherings we host, we’d like to extend an invitation into this little creative neighborhood we’re building. By the end of our “25C” series, we hope you feel inspired to pick up the phone and catch up with a friend, too.
You can follow along @powderblueworld on Instagram and YouTube, where we’ll be rolling out our audiovisual conversations from this project. Without further ado, let’s get into Shua’s conversation with the great Linh Truong.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we shared our convo with video journalist Daniel Steiner. We talked completing “Phase One,” prioritizing writing, and the monthly creative cycle. You can read it here.
Linh Truong is a visual artist and YouTube creator based in New York City. She’s been documenting her day-to-day with cozy, slice-of-life vlogs since high school—and has spent the last year sharing a lens into her travels upon graduating college.
The following is an edited and condensed version of Shua’s conversation with Linh.
Shua Buhangin: Hi Linh! My first question: What was your biggest win in 2024?
Linh Truong: [Pauses] Let me think about my answers.
SB: Take your time!
LT: I think graduating college was one. I've been juggling content creation and taking classes and internships for so long. So for that to come full circle was really just…awesome.
I also got to travel a ton. It's always been a childhood dream of mine to travel across the world. I went to Asia for the first time and visited the motherland, Vietnam. I went to Switzerland and met a bunch of amazing creatives; I also went on a train trip across Europe. Overall, I met a lot of cool people, and just ate so much good food.
I made a lot of memories in 2024.
What did you go to college for?
Sociology. So yeah, 2024 was not a win for sociology students. The world is falling apart with climate change and the state of politics and all that stuff.
But I'm optimistic, and I think art really brings out the human side in people. It reflects human nature. I’m happy I studied sociology. It definitely helps make my art better.
One hundred percent. I was watching this one creator recently—she went into all the different art genres of painters through World War I, World War II, and just how much it changed during those times.** It's super interesting.
Have you seen The Brutalist? I haven't yet, though there's a really ugly building on my college campus, and we all made fun of it. The inside is ugly, too, but the outside is very brutalist.
I recently just learned the historical context of brutalism, though. And it makes me really sad, especially with how many neighborhoods we've seen leveled in the past year—and then, like, the fires in Los Angeles.
I really want to see The Brutalist now. Is it playing in Chicago?***
I think s–sorry, my cat knocked something over and just keeps making noises.
It's okay.
That was weird. My cat knocked over the coffee frother, and it turned on—so it just kept spinning. I was like, What is that?
Cats, bro. I want to be a cat in my next life. That's my dream for 2025. Live a good enough life where I can be granted my wish of being reincarnated as a cat in my next.
I mean, you get everything handed to you and a warm place to sleep.
Yeah! And all you do is, like, lounge around and mess with people's stuff. And sleep.
What a good life.
You said something before about how you traveled more this past year. What was it like to go back to “the motherland” for the first time?
Visiting Vietnam was such a stereotypical, I'm returning to the land of my people moment—especially since I visited the countryside. My family's from the south, in Saigon, but my mom's side of the family is actually right outside of the city in a pretty rural area. And when I visited my distant aunt, she had a structural house.
But the last time my mom saw her, my aunt’s house was made out of leaves. So it's really interesting to go back there, to touch and see the physical remnants of my family lineage. It definitely propelled me afterwards to talk with my parents, my aunts, and my living grandparents about their oral histories in a way I hadn’t before.
A lot of it was destroyed, or left behind and lost throughout the war and the forced migration. The fact that we still have some of those physical land markers there was very full circle.
That's so cool. I still have yet to go back to the Philippines. I need to go see where I came from.
Looking ahead to 2025, what learnings are you bringing into this year?
I'm really excited to go back to my inner child. For so long, I felt like I had to grow up really quickly. A lot of the hobbies that I used to love gave me so much joy and energy and made me want to get out of bed every day.
I kind of let go to focus on more “practical” things. So I'm really excited to start making more traditional art, do some mixed media work. Put together my videos, illustrations, and see what that beautiful creation would look like.
I would love to see it all come together [motions hands connecting] Avengers: Endgame-style. All my niche interests collide and create this one compound project.
A lot of creators that I've talked to…it seems like we've focused on one thing, or maybe threw a lot of things at the wall in 2024. But this year, we're trying to figure out a structure to just have more fun creating, while also making a more substantial living from it.
Now that there’s all these other creators we know doubling down alongside us in 2025, I think it's going to be a really, really insane year.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think that's actually another big win for 2024 for me. Meeting people who are just so good at the things that they do, and being in community with one another is super duper important.
Because the reason why you create, hopefully, is because you have someone or people that you love in mind.
I really appreciate your time with this. I loved your answers. This was really fun.
It's good to see you! Stay warm, stay healthy. Bird flu is real, bro. The moment I found out that it could be in a human, I stocked up on hand sanitizer and masks. Stay safe out there.
Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.
* From my understanding, “Films” is (legally-speaking) Shua’s last name.
** Shua is referring to Brittany Broski’s “Art History” series here…but he forgot to mention the Supreme Leader by name. May the Old Gods and the New ensure that Broski Nation doesn’t come after us with everything they got.
*** Editor’s note: It is, and I really liked it. More thoughts in our last blog!
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