THE NOVEMBER 2025 FLOOD
OUR BLACK SWAN - 20/11/25
5:00am, 20/11/25: I woke up to a message that didn’t feel real: our Nha Trang facility had been submerged in over 2 meters of water overnight.
This was an area untouched by floods for more than 60 years.
And just the afternoon before, we were still packing orders to ship to HCMC.
No amount of imagining the worst could have prepared me for what I was about to see.
———
23/11/25: When I opened the gate, devastation stood right in front of me.
Thick mud coated every surface.
Machines lay collapsed.
Fridges and freezers overturned.
Even our cold room had been lifted and twisted from its foundation.
Outside, the water had reached 2.2 meters.
Inside, it was 1.85 meters deep.
Even the two highest rooms were under 1.2 meters of water.
———
During the week after the water receded, I witnessed people at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
No dry clothes.
Sleeping directly on the bare ground - no mattress, no blanket, nothing warm.
No running water.
No electricity.
No vehicles to get around.
Surviving only on instant noodles or charity meals.
Everything around them had been swallowed by the flood.
But the scariest part, I think, was imagining the terror and desperation they must have felt - stranded on a sea of violent, rising water in total darkness.
Our closest neighbor waited alone on her roof the entire night, until 4pm the next day, before her brother could finally reach her by kayak.
One of our team members spent that same night perched on two 2.2-meter-high wardrobes with her husband, her mother-in-law, and their almost 6-month-old baby - until her husband managed to remove part of their roof so they could escape the next morning.
———
When I first walked in, I was completely overwhelmed.
The floor was so slippery I felt like I was ice-skating.
There was still no running water.
I didn’t even know where to begin.
The exhaustion was real - the kind that settles into your bones - but so was the resolve.
And somewhere between the mud, the silence, and the endless scrubbing, something in me shifted.
It peeled back layers of fear and taught me that resilience is not loud - it is quiet, steady, and stubborn.
It taught me that perseverance isn’t about being strong all the time, but about taking the next step even when your heart feels heavy.
If I ever have to face something like this again, I will face it head-on. Not because I am fearless, but because I’ve learned that growth rarely comes in comfort.
Sometimes it arrives as mud, silence, and a reality you never imagined - and yet it leaves you standing taller than before.
I’m deeply grateful to the kind-hearted and generous friends who helped me through those days, and to our staff who worked tirelessly to clean the facility as quickly as possible. Despite everything we all endured, they remained positive, even humorous.
In its own unexpected way, this black swan made us stronger, softer, and more certain of who we are, and why we do what we do.
From Ngan & Team Daissy