My Story From Bucharest 🇷🇴 to Beer 🍻Factories in Hanoi 🇻🇳, and Eventually, Teaching the World 🌍 Online!
Hi! I’m a trilingual teacher, MC, model, actor, entrepreneur, and influencer. Which sounds like too much—but trust me, it all happened by accident. Kind of.
I was born in Romania, raised in a strict family where fun was considered a suspicious activity. I graduated from one of the best high schools in the country. Life was planned: go to a good university, become a respectable adult, maybe buy a Dacia (the one and only Romanian car) someday.
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But then my uncle—who had been the Romanian ambassador in several Asian countries—told me about a study scholarship in Vietnam. At first, I said no. I mean, how was I supposed to learn a language that doesn’t even use the Latin alphabet?
“Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet,” he said.
Well...
GAME. ON.
I’d already been obsessed with Vietnam’s history: small country, constantly attacked, always fought back—just like Romania. Also, I was convinced I’d learn kung fu and become some kind of Eastern European Jackie Chan. Spoiler: that did not happen.
Anyway, I applied. But the scholarship results would only come out in August. And back then, Romania still had mandatory military service. The rules were clear:
Get into university? Six months military service as an officer after graduation.
Don’t? One full year immediately—as a soldier, with terrible conditions.
So to avoid potential conscription misery, my mom convinced me to apply to a university too. I got into the Robotics Faculty at Politehnica University of Bucharest. Not just got in—first place, record-high entrance score. They even gave me a tuition scholarship. During the exam, I finished early and helped a bunch of panicked students cheat. True story.
But Vietnam called—and off I went.
I landed in Hanoi at 19, ready to hit the gym, master kung fu, and study like a beast. Instead, I ended up living in a dorm full of Russian party girls and right next to a beer factory that sold draft beer by the liter for the price of a sandwich. As you can imagine, my kung FU dreams quickly became kung...WHO? 🤣🤣
Despite skipping half my Vietnamese classes (I was too busy living my best life), I somehow learned the language faster than anyone — just by hanging out with locals and talking non-stop. I finished that year top of the class. Go figure.
I love to "NHẬU" with Vietnamese people 🍻
Then university started. Everything was in Vietnamese: politics, Marxism, economics, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology... I understood none of it. I spent the first semester wondering if I had actually gone insane.
But I pushed through, graduated, and got my diploma. Along the way, I started teaching English—my first job ever. I applied honestly: “Hi, I’m 19, Romanian, and have no experience.” The center’s manager said, “Yeah, that won’t work. Too young and too non-native English speaker to be a teacher. Make up a story." So I became Canadian, 25, and a graduate from the University of Toronto.
So I became Valentine Constantine, Canadian intellectual. I lied for survival. Taught hard. Built a rep. Eventually dropped the act once people saw I actually knew what I was doing.
Soon I started my own English classes for adults—found the students, grouped them by level, and taught them myself. My older and younger brothers joined me in Vietnam and followed in my footsteps: teachers by day, party animals by night. Meanwhile, I also managed bars, worked as a trilingual MC, modeled, acted in local movies, and appeared on national TV.
Oh—and I sent money home every month to support my parents, who were drowning in debt. Did I mention I opened Hanoi’s first Vietnamese language school, too?
In 2016, I met the love of my life. Two years later, we were married. We moved to Saigon continued with my private English classes and opened a business: La Vita Canina, the best pet hotel in the city. Everything was going great.
Dragging my super introverted wife on stage with me 🤣 - she married me, not the spotlight, but... here we are 😜
LA VITA CANINA - the best pet hotel on the planet!!!!
Then COVID said, “Hold my beer.”
We had just opened the pet hotel one month earlier. We pivoted fast—on top of being a pet hotel, it also became a bistro, a shisha lounge, and a small event venue. We hung in there… until the 2021 lockdown wiped us out completely.
During the pandemic, my younger brother and I brought our parents to Vietnam—it was cheaper, and we wanted to keep the family together. My wife and I lived with them in Saigon for two years before relocating to Da Nang, while my brother stayed back to hold the fort.
In Da Nang, I launched OLO (Online Like Offline) classes, a teaching method I developed where online classes are more interactive and dynamic than any in-person class you’ve had. I also wrote my own English textbooks, tailored specifically for Vietnamese learners—based on 20+ years of teaching and translating experience, cultural insight, and trial-by-fire.
Since 2021, I’ve also been an influencer on TikTok and Facebook, sharing what it’s like to be a foreigner in Vietnam—who's actually lived there most of his life and speaks the language at a native level.
In 2025, we decided to chase a lifelong dream: travel the world with our 6 dogs and 2 cats. Yep, the whole zoo. In March 2025, we packed up, left Vietnam, and started our journey through Europe—filming everything for our social media channels.
And here we are now. On top of travelling and shooting content, I continue teaching my OLO English classes, and I’m writing Vietnamese and Romanian language textbooks for foreigners. Because when you’ve lived three lives before 40… you might as well help others level up too.
Thanks for reading this far. Now that you know my story—let’s write your success story next!
You can check out all my channels here ⬇️
You think language is just grammar and vocabulary? You're wrong. A new language is a new world. Pick one. Change your life.
Tiếng Việt 
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