Failing the university entrance exam twice, Minh decided to pursue his passion for drawing. Born into a family with financial difficulties, in 2014-2015, he learned the art on the internet and opened a drawing class at home to earn a living.

After a year of teaching painting, he opened a small tattoo shop in Cu Chi district. After that, he was invited to Go Vap to teach painting to the manicurists who needed to upgrade their skills. 

“At that time, the nail industry still had not developed,” he recalled.

While giving drawing lessons, Phat was encouraged to shift to work as a manicurist. At that time, he did not really love the career, but he decided to take the job because it allowed him to pursue his passion of painting and earn a living.

Thanks to his talent for art, Phat quickly adapted to the new profession and began loving it.

“The biggest challenge back then wasn’t technical skills but prejudice and being labeled as homosexual. People believed that for many years, even after I got married recently. Moreover, back then, manicure was seen as a low-status job in society,” Phat said.

To get to where he is today, he believes the most crucial factors are love for the profession and a constant effort to learn.

Not only having to overcome gender stereotypes, Phat also had to face financial difficulties at that time.

While other learners just had to focus on improving their skills during training, Phat had to face many other problems, including a lack of money to buy tools. Often, he practiced nail art on a notebook, using children's colored pencils.

"Many people only see my current success without knowing the difficulties I went through before," Phat said.

Phat is now a busy teacher, with a working schedule from Monday to Saturday. In the evening, he conducts online classes for overseas students.

Phat believes that in drawing portraits, conveying emotions is the most difficult task. However, to effectively express emotions, one must master technique first. "Good technique is a prerequisite for incorporating emotion," he said.

His favorite nail style is artistic nails as he believes it showcases high artistic value and can change the way how people perceive the nail industry. The nail design Phat is most proud of is a hand-painted piece he created for the Nailympia Vietnam 2024 competition. 

Nguyen Thao