He was a cosplayer in Japan; his OVFRIENDS profile was filled with pictures of him transformed into anime characters. I was in Hanoi, passionate about collecting ancient traditional musical instruments. On the surface, we had nothing in common.
We were in the same OVFRIENDS chat group called “Cultural Storytelling.” At first, we simply listened to each other’s stories. He talked about the meaning of each costume, and I talked about the history of each instrument. Gradually, we realized that whether it was cosplay or ancient instruments, both were ways of retelling forgotten cultural stories.
Three years later, we launched a cross-border pop culture podcast together. OVFRIENDS proved that friendship isn’t built on similarities, but on respect for differences.