Walking around Shoreditch when I first came back to England in January, I stumbled on a silhouette artwork Paper, Rock, Scissors. It stopped me in my tracks, made me think of this strange, fragile world state we’re living in and the innocent children. I was curious who the artist was.
In Social Work policy and legislation sessions, we spend time each week unpacking the news: how laws are shaped by tragedy, how systems respond, and how often they fail to reach the root causes. It’s a lot to hold, especially when public conversations about war or conflict feel disconnected from the human cost. Listening to a recent interview about the Iran conflict where Trump compared timelines to the Vietnam War, I found myself face-palming and cringe at how he casually shared that.
So it made me smile when I later discovered that the artist behind that Shoreditch piece was Otto Schade, a friend of Bep, the same artist whose new work now hangs at Bep. I love the ideas born from a casual chat at the bar about Vietnam: what it means, how to honour its culture, and how to offer more than just food, but a feeling to customers when they visit.
We talked about war and peace, the modern Vietnam, about the street vendors, the nón lá, the lotus, our national flower and how every culture carries its own symbols of resilience. Otto’s circular frame reminded me of the Zen enso, and suddenly Thích Nhất Hạnh’s teaching surfaced: “Peace is every step.”
@thichnhathanh @plumvillagefrance
Speaking of Vietnam, I couldn’t help sharing about Thầy, my idol, a peace activist, a teacher, and to me one of the earliest social workers of Vietnam, alongside Sister Chân Không. Their inspiring work is part of why I’m here, training to become a social worker.
Somewhere in that conversation, we joked about swapping guns for lotus flowers. And honestly, that small imaginative shift made me hopeful. Conflicts won’t end on the timelines anyone predicts, but I hold onto the belief that we can still walk toward peace, step by step.
Maybe that walk even starts by walking to Bep and enjoy a bowl of phở at
@bep.house 😝🔥
