My first impression of Lawyer Le Quoc Quan was the image of a man being "dragged away" by half a dozen of policemen in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi while shouting: "Spratly and Paracel Islands belong to Vietnam." It was on September 12, 2007, the first day since 1975 when people dared to take to the streets to express their patriotism, to protest the Chinese invasion of Vietnam. He probably did not know of me then. Later on, when in contact with him, I was surprised that he never talked to me about human rights or democracy, the values that he and I are both pursuing. I noticed another interesting trait about him, it was the fact that he likes joke stories and he told those stories very charmingly.
