At around 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, Tran Hoang Phuong, 38, the owner of a fruit shop on the island’s Tran Hung Dao Street, saw a distressed South Korean tourist run over and ask for security camera footage.
The man, on a trip to Phu Quoc with his mother, son and daughter, was shopping at a nearby supermarket when the woman suddenly went missing. “He was very worried because his mother suffers from memory loss,” Phuong said.
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The 70-year-old Korean woman with a cane seen passing by Hoang Phuong’s store on Tran Hung Dao Street in Phu Quoc on Nov. 2, 2025. Photo courtesy of Phuong |
After checking the camera footage for 15 minutes, Phuong spotted the elderly woman walking past his shop, a cane in hand. He immediately posted a notice on Phu Quoc Facebook groups asking for information and drove the Korean man around the area to search for her.
After asking various street vendors and shopkeepers along the road, they received a tip that an elderly woman matching the description had headed toward the Suoi May area about an hour earlier.
After nearly two hours of searching, they found her walking on the road, some four kilometers away from his shop. He then drove the two back to his shop, where the daughter who was waiting. “Despite the language barrier, I could feel their great joy and happiness,” Phuong said.
Footage shows Hoang Phuong bringing the lost woman back to her family on Tran Hung Dao Street, Phu Quoc, on the evening of Nov. 2, 2025. Video by Phuong
The tourist then offered Phuong $500 as a token of gratitude, but he gently declined. “If I can help someone, I will without expecting anything in return,” he told him.
The story of Phuong’s kindness was reported by South Korean news agency Yonhap on Nov. 6. It quoted the tourist, who recounted the moment he realized his mother was missing. He praised Phuong for willingly checking the camera footage and driving him to around to search for her without expecting any money.
Other major Korean newspapers and television stations such as JTBC News, SBS News, and Chosun Daily soon picked up the story, attracting thousands of comments.
Most readers expressed their appreciation and thanked Phuong for his generosity. A person called Yoon Jong-shin commented: “If you live in Vietnam, you will quickly realize how kind Vietnamese people are. “They are always ready to help others without needing any reward.”
