diaCRITICS is excited to find this work by Phạm Ngọc Lân featured at Invisible Photographer Asia, a blog on street photography and visual journalism in Asia. However Phạm’s Vietnamese Chronicle series, featuring Vietnamese immigrants resettled in Siem Reap, Cambodia, is far more intimate than most images found within the genres of street photography and journalism. Instead we find an evocative and poetic glimpse into life during the darkening hours of night. “In trying to make their emotions come alive visually,” Phạm explains, ”I touched profoundly the melancholy and emptiness.”

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Vietnamese Chronicle

I threw myself into the searching adventure. I spent a lot of time with the Vietnamese immigrants, who live in Siem Reap and asked them to tell their stories about our native land. Observing how they live and listening to their stories, I realized it wasn’t as what my secondary school teacher told us – that they, the ones who left our country in the most difficult phases of history, were all disloyal and indifferent. In trying to make their emotions come alive visually, I touched profoundly the melancholy and emptiness.

These are seven of 17 pictures in this project which was inspired by the documentary film Chronicle of a Tape Recorded Over of Nguyen Trinh Thi and completed under the guidance of Antoine D’Agata in Angkor Photo Workshop 7th, Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Phạm Ngọc Lân

Phạm Ngọc Lân was born in Hanoi, Vietnam, in July 1986. He studied urban design and urban planning from 2004 to 2009 at Hanoi Architecture University (HAU). Inspired by the paradox of all living things, Lan considers himself an urban life observer rather than a photographer or an urban designer. Using photography and film as two of the favorite tools to express his ideas, his work attaches special importance to the direct, poetic and especially the whimsical respects of human life.

please like, share, and comment on this post! Phạm Ngọc Lân’s ‘Vietnamese Chronicle’: Photos of Life in Cambodia

diaCRITICS occasionally features guest blogs and reprints. This essay by lê thị diễm thúy originally appeared at Powells Books, as a feature to accompany her novel The Gangster We Are All Looking For. Her fragmentary reflections on the book’s speaking tour furthers the afterlife of her beloved 2004 novel, recently the 2011 selection for One Book, One San Diego. diaCRITICS reviewed the book in 2010 and commented upon the One Book, One San Diego selection in 2011.

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lê thị diễm thúy

The writer is 31 years old and this is her first book. When it arrives she lays it across her lap, and runs her hand across the cover. She opens it and turns the pages. Everything about the book is clean and smooth and the words themselves lay on the page like dark polished stones shining up from a riverbed.

. . .

The reader is a Mexican-American man of about 70 years old. He wears jeans and a white button-up shirt and over the shirt stretch a pair of blue and brown striped suspenders. He introduces himself by saying, “I rarely buy books and I have never come to a reading before.”

. . .

The writer has worked on the book for close to ten years. Throughout those years she has referred to the book as, ‘the work,’ ‘the pieces of writing,’ ‘the stories,’ ‘the story,’ ‘gangster,’ and finally, and most accurately: ‘the strange creature.’

. . .

The reader is a doctor in New Jersey. She says, “I feel that I am Ba. Especially during their first night in America. How he climbed out of the bedroom window and sat outside and cried like a dog.” “When I first came here to this country,” she says, “I was grateful and excited about the possibilities. But I was also like him: I was so sad. I missed my mother and my sisters. I cried like a dog. But I could not say that then.”

. . .

The writer is responding to a question about the book’s form. Why had she chosen to tell the story in this way, non-linear, fragmentary, jumping back and forth in time and place? She says, “The book is about three Vietnamese people: a man, his wife, and his daughter. They are living in one place and are haunted by memories of their life in another. The places are southern California and southern Vietnam. What lies between these two places is an entire ocean, both literally and metaphorically. The characters have crossed that ocean, but they haven’t yet found the language to chart what has happened to them. By language, I don’t necessarily mean English or Vietnamese. I am speaking of the words or forms we struggle to find to describe our lives to ourselves. As a writer, I struggled for many years to find a form that would be true to these character’s lives, a form shaped as much by silence and absence, by time seeming to stop, to halt, as much as by it flowing on.”

. . .

The reader is a black man in Chicago, Illinois. He is driving a cab along the Lakeshore at a quarter to seven on a Tuesday evening in early June. The Yankees returned to Wrigley Field for the first time since the World Series in 1938, and the Cubs beat them! Chicago is looking good; the gold light of early evening is descending on the city and on that saxophonist playing on the corner. The cabbie turns his car radio down so he can hear the man’s music. He nods in approval and drives on, his eyes smiling in the rear-view.

. . .

The writer is asked, “How autobiographical is this?” and “Are you the girl?” She says, “I was a boat child, I lost a brother, I ran away. I was born in Phan Thiet and grew up in Linda Vista. Those things are true. I traveled through a similar geography — war and its aftermath, growing up poor in America — but my body is not the girl’s body and my memories are different from her memories.”

. . .

The reader is sitting in the audience and tentatively raises his hand. He says, “I have a question and it is not at all intellectual; it is not even related to the book: where did you get that hat?”

. . .

The writer is sitting barefoot at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Evidently, because of the body lotion she wears, her shoes have tested positive for some trace elements that are also present in TNT. The police are called in and the shoes — a pair of red espadrilles — are thoroughly scrutinized for signs of tampering. None found, she is allowed to continue on her way, but only after writing her name, her date of birth, her place of birth, and current address into the officer’s little notebook.

. . .

The reader cleans offices at an American university. She is originally from a small town outside of Lisbon, Portugal. She calls Lisbon “Lisboa” and says of her town, “It is so small, you will not know the name. But oh, it is beautiful.”

. . .

The writer is ironing a shirt to wear to a reading. The shirt reminds her of shirts her mother used to wear in the early ’80s: it is silk and sleeveless and has a pattern of black and white zigzags, and over these, small polka dots in different primary colors. It occurs to her that the pattern looks like an abstract rendering of a zebra, as seen through a fireworks display. And what’s wrong with that? She can just imagine her mother, dead close to three years now, slyly asking.

. . .

The reader is an inmate at Folsom State Prison. A copy of the book has arrived for him, but he cannot receive it. A prison guard informs him that inmates are not allowed to receive hardcover books because drugs and weapons might be concealed in them. The inmate says, “You can take the whole thing apart. Tear the covers off. I don’t care. Tear the pages out. Just give the words to me.”

. . .

Born in 1972, novelist and performance artist lê thi diem thúy escaped from Vietnam by boat in 1978 with her father. They passed through a Singapore refugee camp before settling in Southern California. Her best known performance-work is Red, Fiery Summer, which alludes to the bombing of Vietnam by U.S. forces. Red Fiery Summer and The Bodies Between Us have both been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Vineyard Theater in New York City, among other venues.

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Please take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! Have you read The Gangster We Are All Looking For? What did you think?

please like, share, and comment on this post! lê thị diễm thúy’s ‘Tear the Pages Out: Fragments from the Gangster Tour’

"Vietnamese Dancers"

I became interested in art because for a long time, drawing and painting were the primary mediums through which I felt most comfortable communicating. This was especially true when my family first moved to the United States from Vietnam, when I was seven years old.I always excelled at drawing; the ability to impress my classmates by ably emulating a Disney cartoon character with pencil and paper held a special magic for me, and enabled me to make new friends. As a shy bookworm, I yearned to connect with my peers, but felt a lot of trepidation articulating my thoughts. I worried about making a fool of myself. My artwork enabled me to feel represented in a subtle but impactful manner.As I grew up, my ability to create art distinguished me from my peers. It made me feel powerful and special, unique and sophisticated, and most importantly, it allowed me to create different (imagined) realities than the one in which my immigrant family existed. In my artwork. I dwelled in imaginary worlds, full of strong-willed princesses who rode on magnificent steeds and saved their princes from roaring dragons. I also enjoyed re-creating my favorite cartoons: Tintin, Superwoman, Batman, the Smurfs, Asterix and Obelix, Garfield, and of course, my all-time favorite, Calvin and Hobbes.

'Resplendent Flight' by Quyen Truong

Art not only led me into books and imaginary worlds, it exposed me to new communities and helped me explore worlds beyond my neighborhood. In high school, I participated in a Hartford-based summer arts program called “Neighborhood Studios.” Funded by the efforts of the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the program was the brainchild of Faithlyn Johnson, who modeled the program after Gallery 37 in Chicago. Neighborhood Studios employed local artists and aspiring teen artists to learn about and create art in a variety of disciplines. The program afforded me the opportunity to indulge in my passion, and be paid for my efforts. For the first time, my interest in fine arts was legitimized. The idea that I could earn money towards my family’s income by doing what I love completely altered my world view. In addition, meeting adults who made a living with their craft, and developing friendships with other artistic teens exposed me to a completely different kind of community altogether. In all, the experience helped me understand the kind of network I need to support my dream. Finally, the fact that we created murals to beautify the city of Hartford heralded a burgeoning interest in using my artwork to leave a positive mark upon “our” city. Neighborhood Studios sparked my long-term interest and investment in community-development and teen arts programs.

Since then, I’ve worked for various teen arts programs, studied museum education via a fellowship at the Rhode Island School of Design, helped start an arts enterprise program for teens in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and, after college, worked for Artists For Humanity in Boston for almost 6 years. Currently, I am considering ways to build a network of youth arts/business programs that can work in tandem with public schools to offer teens appropriate (wrap-around) multi-tiered mentorship and educational support. The end goal is to offer teens meaningful opportunities to make intentional, informed choices in regards to their lives, for the benefit of our local communities.

"Nightmare" by Quyen Truong

What does my journey have to do with art and social justice, or about being “art-smart”? I think art is its own form of social justice. I read somewhere that teens self-actualize by testing relationships around them (Nakkula and Toshalis?). In tandem with teachers, mentors, family members, and friends, our young people intensely engage is the all-consuming process of identity-formation. How we choose to respond to that energy inherently shapes the spaces around which these teens mold the core of who they become. We all, to a large extent, for better or for worse, affect those who surround us on a daily basis. It’s easy to follow the herd, to do as we are told, to respect authority and inhibit natural impulses and step in line. And it’s easy to be a rebel, indulge in our id, rail against the patriarchy/norm/authority, and be completely subversive. What’s difficult is finding a happy medium, so that we challenge ourselves and others around us to expand our worldviews in a peaceful, compassionate manner, replete with mutual respect.

Art creates the spaces in which we can safely explore associative thought processes, lead us on journeys towards new modes of understanding (of ourselves and the world in which we operate), and engage us in topics we never expected to find interesting. Art led me from Calvin and Hobbes, to creating murals for Hartford, to building a teen arts enterprise program in Woonsocket, to becoming an educator and a social entrepreneur at Artists For Humanity, to Harvard Graduate School of Education, and now to addressing homelessness in Central Massachusetts… Oh, the places we’ll go!

Dr. Seuss once wrote,

“You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains, and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.”

This poem exemplifies how I feel about art – for many years, art was the one place where I felt completely free to do whatever I please. So many factors felt outside of my control – my family socio-economic circumstances, our beleaguered finances, my mother’s moodiness, and my complete inability to do anything to change any aspect of our access to means. The frustration gnawed at me as I lay awake at night, listening to the snores of my parents and younger brother in our one-bedroom basement apartment.Art gave me a direction. It paved the way for my journey. The power of complete control over the composition, color, mark-making, subject matter and texture of a two-dimensional image would take my mind off my adult worries, and occupy my childhood self for hours. Looking at a blank canvas to envision what it can become created both trepidation and excitement, both a desire to play and an interest in manipulating the material to express exactly how I felt. The blank canvas became a medium through which I could self-direct my life during my teenage years. Nonetheless, I continued to keep Dr. Seuss’ words in mind, as I continued on my path towards self-actualization:

“So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with you left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will indeed!”

Howard Gardner touts the idea that multiple intelligences exist to describe our individual strengths, and that we must acknowledge each of our unique students’ strength in the realm of formal public education. He says: “I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place. Knowledge is not the same as morality, but we need to understand if we are to avoid past mistakes and move in productive directions. An important part of that understanding is knowing who we are and what we can do… Ultimately, we must synthesize our understandings for ourselves. (Gardner, 1999)

The ability to organize people, to empathize, to reflect in a thoughtful manner – these types of intelligences are not necessarily valued in a school setting where there is too much of a focus on testing. The ability to gorge on information and to efficiently regurgitate it back does not equate to being “smart,” much less art-smart. Being art-smart is about becoming an independent thinker, through whatever form of intelligence best fits our particular needs, interests, modes of learning, and communication tactics. Being art-smart is about seeing the journey for what it is – and not focusing on the destination. Being art-smart is about being mindful, cantankerous, cultivated, cautious, and curious. Being art-smart is being okay with the concept that “whatever will be, will be.”

Que sera, sera, indeed!

please like, share, and comment on this post! Quyen Truong on ‘Art-Smart’ — Art, Education, and Social Justice

diaCRITIC Jade Hidle reviews the new album of Saigon rapper Nah Nguyen. With Vietrap No1tuLoveR, Nah Nguyen makes his U.S. debut.  His different kind of rap draws from Vietnamese musical traditions to comment on the social realities of contemporary Viet Nam.  With Vietrap No1tuLoveR, Saigonese Rap Royalty Nah Nguyen now begins his U.S. reign.

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As loyal diaCRITICS readers will remember, last January I interviewed the reigning king of Saigonese rap Nah Nguyen on the eve of his sophomore release, Awakening. Now, just one year later, the evidently hardworking emcee and already prolific lyricist has released his first U.S. album, executively produced by Lac Su, the author of I Love Yous Are For White People. Nah’s new album Vietrap No1tuLoveR  continues to deliver the powerful messages from Nah’s first two albums, while also tightening up the beats for an enjoyable listen.

The first track opens with airy yet mournful strings and piano that invoke the traditional Vietnamese ballads that romanticize the past and landscape of Việt Nam. But as soon as the beat drops in, Nah begins to rap about the realities of contemporary Sài Gòn, including homelessness, poverty-induced infanticide, and political corruption. Referring to the Vietnamese government, Nah raps: “They treat us every day the way the humans treat the apes/Everyday my people got robbed, murdered, and raped.” Nah’s voice cuts through the darkness of these realities, as the purpose of his music shines in simple yet powerful statements, such as “I just wanna change Sài Gòn, Việt Nam.” This prefatory track sets the tone for an album that tethers Vietnamese musical traditions and the socially conscious discourse of hip-hop. It is this combination of rhythms and perspectives that enables Nah to offer a unique view of Sài Gòn today.

Watch & listen to Nah’s “Sai Gon Dep Lam,” featuring Wowy and Thai Viet

The city of Sài Gòn is the muse of the album’s second song, “Sài Gòn Ɖẹp Lam.” It is a track worthy of serious booty-shakin’ because of its upbeat rhythms and the record-scratching reminiscent of late ‘80s and early ‘90s hip-hop royalty like Run-DMC. However, as with all of Nah’s work, this song is not merely for head-bobbing. His messages, like those of one of his major influences Tupac Shakur, run much deeper. Featuring Wowy and Thái Việt G  (who recently turned actor in Byron Q’s award-winning feature film Bang Bang), the lyrics of “Sài Gòn Ɖẹp Lam” paint the city with an unflinchingly honest pen:

Mọi người sống vì đồng tiền và mỗi người là một người lính

Everyone lives for money, and each one of us is a soldier

Các em gái nhìn trông thật xinh nhưng 12 tuổi đã không còn trinh

The young ladies look real pretty but at 12 they’re no longer pure

Các quí tử trở thành giang hồ khi xung quanh không còn đường binh

Beloved sons become gangsters when there’s no way else to go

. . .

Look careful down the alley when you’re on the streets

Người mày sợ không phải thằng cướp mà đó là thằng popo

The one you’ve got to fear ain’t the robber but the popo

Nơi bán hàng mát xa động đĩ, tao thấy nó đi ra đi vô

The massage parlors full of whores, I see ‘em come and go

Đại ca tao nộp thuế tô cũng để làm đẹp cho Sài Gòn, ơi

My big boss paying the tax also makes my Saigon fine, oh.

At the same time that he underscores the corruption, crime, and desperate circumstances of surviving in Sài Gòn, Nah weaves in a love for his city of birth and his home of District 5: “This Sài Gòn’s still quite fine because I’m used to the ugly . . . This Sài Gòn is still quite fine even though this war isn’t over.” With these threads of positivity and hope, Nah calls for change, for people to “live upright,” and for listeners of his album to not forget about the people of Việt Nam.

Listen to samples from Nah’s VietrapNo1tuLoveR

One of the most unfortunate aspects of mainstream American music today is that socially conscious hip-hop is oftentimes erroneously conflated with, and eclipsed by, auto-tuned hip-pop that glamorizes excess (during a recession, to boot) and objectifies women to obscene degrees. In this climate, I think it is important, especially for the female hip-hop fans out there, to commend Nah for acknowledging the women-specific issues in Sài Gòn. His lyrics in several tracks mourn prostitution: “Cái Chết Sau Cùng” addresses the difficulties of whether to choose abortion, and “Quá Ngấn” cringes at mothers being forced to abandon their children because of poverty. In “Nah Story,” the emcee tells a story about a girl that initially sounds like a traditional tale of unrequited love, but Nah deepens the sense of loss by singing about how the girl eventually died from AIDS. Anyone who has visited Việt Nam must remember what the postcards of the countryside do not show—the road signs that warn, through paintings of skulls and red palms, of the dangers of HIV and AIDS. As though in mourning of this loss, the track fades out.

The latter half of the album features slower jams to match the somberness of his lyrics’ recurring themes of death and loss. These tracks also show how Nah and his producers have created cleaner samples and beats as well as arranged great collaborations. In addition to the guest talents of Wowy and Thái Việt G mentioned above, the closing track features the crush-worthy Mondega, the Montagnard artist who declared himself “The Greatest Asian Rapper Alive” and whose albums are a must-listen. I was also excited to listen to two artists that I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of hearing, Cubb and Cleverstar.

Nah and Mondega collaborate on “Why”

I must note how excited I am that, among these collaborative tracks, Nah has worked in some serious saxophone on “Ngã.” This instrument brings back memories of the good ol’ days when INXS was big. Oh, the ‘80s saxophone solo is a magical beast:

The saxophone solo from the '80s vampire flick The Lost Boys is an important part of cinema and music history.

As I replay Nah’s new album and listen to the rich fabric that is his Vietnamese and English lyrics, I am reminded of one of his comments in the interview I conducted with him last year. He said that he was insecure about his accent, and “Nah Story” addresses how his accent affects certain audiences: “some people claim that they don’t understand my words.” Yet, he follows this up with: “My broken English cuts through the barrier/White, black, and yellow, Nah’s in your area.” It seems that this young rapper has grown to appreciate the power of his bilingualism in that it enables him to call for transnational, interracial solidarity in the matters of social justice around which his rhymes revolve. After a year of negotiating what protest should look and sound like in the U.S., Nah revives the tradition of hip-hop as a critical discourse through his own way of continuing Việt Nam’s proud, centuries-long history of resisting oppression.

To Nah, his loyal fans, and to new listeners that this album deserves, I have to echo that Nah’s accent is absolutely not a detriment. In fact, his voice brought me a sense of home, of being in between Việt Nam and the U.S., Vietnamese and English. His is a language of comfort and promise, the music of possibility. As a life-long hip-hop fan, I’m glad that I don’t have to mourn for what the genre used to be, but that I can celebrate what it is continuing to become. To be part of this watershed moment in hip-hop history, what Nah calls “Viet rap’s leaders’ revolutionary move,” visit blacklava.net  to pick up a copy of Vietrap No1tuLover now.

Jade Hidle is a Vietnamese-Irish-Norwegian writer and educator. She holds an MFA in creative writing from CSU Long Beach and is working on a PhD in literature at UC San Diego. Her work has appeared in Spot Lit, Word River, and Beside the City of Angels.

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Please take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! Excited to hear Vietnamese rap in English? Are you a fan of Vietnamese rap in general? What about Vietnamese American rap?

please like, share, and comment on this post! The New Reign of Nah Nguyen, Saigonese Rap Royalty

diaCRITICS has the special opportunity to gain insight into the Vietnamese American writer’s workings.  Aimee Phan, author of short story collection We Should Never Meet (2004) is about to release her first novel, The Reeducation of Cherry Truong.  With this exciting step, Aimee Phan is happy to share her own education about the writing and publishing processes in a series of posts about her forthcoming book.  Here, diaCRITICS gives you an sneak peek of The Reeducation of Cherry Truong and the first post of Aimee’s series about learning the importance of book covers.

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The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

Cherry Truong’s parents have exiled her wayward older brother from their Southern California home, sending him to Vietnam to live with distant relatives.  Determined to bring him back, twenty-one-year-old Cherry travels to their homeland and finds herself on a journey to uncover her family’s decades-old secrets—hidden loves, desperate choices, and lives ripped apart by the march of war and currents of history.

The Reeducation of Cherry Truong tells the story of two fierce and unforgettable families, the Truongs and the Vos: their harrowing escape from Vietnam after the war, the betrayal that divided them, and the stubborn memories that continue to bind them years later, even as they come to terms with their hidden sacrifices and bitter mistakes. Kim-Ly, Cherry’s grandmother, once wealthy and powerful in Vietnam, now struggles to survive in Little Saigon, California without English or a driver’s license. Cherry’s other grandmother Hoa, whose domineering husband has developed dementia, discovers a cache of letters from a woman she thought had been left behind. As Cherry pieces their stories together, she uncovers the burden of her family’s love and the consequences of their choices.

Set in Vietnam, France, and the United States, Aimee Phan’s sweeping debut novel reveals a family still yearning for reconciliation, redemption, and a place to call home.

On the Importance of Book Covers

Book covers are a big deal. It’s one of the most exciting milestones an author experiences after the book is accepted for publication. I remember reading an author’s roundtable and one author, Mark Jude Poirier, described the book cover as an author’s wedding dress: you want it to make you look prettier and better than you are in real life. And I thought, Exactly.

When my first book, We Should Never Meet, was still in pre-production, my editor asked me at the time to send my ideas in for the cover now, while they were still generating the concept. But with little experience–and zero design aesthetic–I hadn’t a clue what to say. I very much regret not giving any kind of inspiration or direction, because when the first draft came, it wasn’t what I imagined at all. After some negotiation with my agent and a few changes, I felt more at peace with their final version. But I never loved it. Eight years later, I look at the cover with much more perspective. Both the hardback and paperback covers accurately reflect the gritty, blunt stories inside. But as an author, one’s vanity always gets in the way. I wanted to be pretty too.

With the second book, my feelings for the cover are completely different. It was immediate love. When my editor first sent it to me, I couldn’t stop staring at it on my computer, the intricate detailing and lush colors, the romantic pictures of Cherry, France and Vietnam. I wanted to call the designer and thank him or her for honoring my book with such a gorgeous composite image. There was some back and forth on the original model for “Cherry” at the top: the first model was beautiful–actually too beautiful for our bumbling, naive protagonist. The agent and editor also debated how much of Cherry’s face we should see: the back of the head had been done so much in recent book covers, but did we really want to see her full-on face? The final model is appropriately Cherry–sweet, but not a temptress. She actually reminds me of a friend of mine from graduate school, who is now a published, esteemed author herself.

What have I learned with these two covers? Even though my feelings for both were so different, I also understand why these design choices were made–even if I didn’t like some of them. I feel fortunate that with this book, which I’ve spent so many years on, has a cover that I’m excited to show to my friends, family and colleagues.

Aimee Phan’s first novel, The Reeducation of Cherry Truong, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2012. A 2010 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, Aimee received her MFA from the University of Iowa, where she won a Maytag Fellowship. Her first book, We Should Never Meet, was awarded the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award in Prose. It was also named a Notable Book by the Kiryama Prize in fiction and a finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards. She was awarded a MacDowell Colony Residency in 2005. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Oregonian among others. She grew up in Orange County, California, and now teaches in the MFA Program in Writing, and Writing and Literature Program at California College of the Arts.  For more, see Aimee’s blog.

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please like, share, and comment on this post! The Education of Aimee Phan: On the Importance of Book Covers

diaCRITICS will periodically have guest blogs. Dave Lieberman wrote this post in June 2011 for Stick A Fork In It at OCWeekly. His impassioned list of six recommendations for “would-be connoisseurs of Vietnamese food” is a useful primer on appreciating Vietnamese cuisine, for those needing some gentle (if even admonishing) instruction in the arts.

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Bánh bèo, the pride of central Vietnamese food

Dear would-be connoisseurs of Vietnamese food:

We’ve never met, but I’ve read your body of work on Yelp. Some of you really get it, and I bookmark places I think look likely. The nice thing about Vietnamese food is that no matter how often I eat it, there’s more to learn–and I’ve been introduced to more than one favorite by sites like Yelp and Chowhound. Some of you are making your first forays into a new cuisine, an admirable step, made more admirable by admissions like “perhaps I don’t understand” when you are panning a dish…

… and then there are those of you who make reading Little Saigon-area reviews an exercise in frustration. Your M.O. seems to be peremptory dismissal of an entire cuisine because you went one time with firm guards up against having a good time. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that Yelp reviews have a concrete effect on businesses, and not everyone has the finely-tuned crap detector I’ve developed in years of reading that site. Following these few suggestions will make your experience better and my time on Yelp better spent.

1. Please stop with the dog jokes.

Not funny anymore. Not that it ever was. Seriously.

​”What do you call a man walking a dog in Garden Grove?” “A vegetarian.” Oh, how droll. Did you think that up all by yourself, or did it come from a time capsule from thirty-plus years ago, when ignorant jokes about Vietnamese refugees were all the rage? If the meat was poor quality, say so in your Yelp review, but don’t intimate that it might have died with a woof instead of a moo. It’s a tired stereotype, and it just makes you look bigoted and stupid when you say it. No Vietnamese restaurant in California serves dog meat. Get over it.

2. Learn to order what everyone else is ordering.

Not available in every Vietnamese restaurant--sorry.

Vietnamese restaurants are specialists, much mores than Americans. A phở shop sells beef (or chicken) noodle soup and not much else. A Central Vietnamese restaurant is going to specialize in food from the region around Huế and Đà Nẵng, which means the most likely soup on the menu is bún bò Huế. Complaining on Yelp that they don’t sell phở (or they do, and it’s bad) when they’re not a phở shop is like walking into Kentucky Fried Chicken and bitching that they don’t serve hamburgers. Vietnamese restaurants here in Orange County trumpet their specialities on the windows. When in doubt, look at what the Vietnamese families in the restaurant are eating; chances are, they’ve ordered what the restaurant is known for. If that fails, look for the words đặc biệt on the menu–it means “house special”.

3. The Vietnamese know there’s more to a cow than ribeye.

Don't fear the tendons...

By far the biggest complaint about Vietnamese food–not the restaurants, but the food–is that it’s full of scary, squiggly bits. Yes, you can get phở tái (rare slices of filet mignon) or phở chín (brisket), but you’re missing out on some of the seminal parts of phở. By complaining about it, you’re reducing your credibility–and if you really hate all those internal bits of non-steak meat, please don’t order them. Chicken with bones in is tastier than boneless chicken (and if you’re one of those people for whom even chicken drumsticks are too exotic, you are frankly beyond help).

4. Get over the fish sauce quick.

Divine elixir, given as a boon to a grateful people.

Yes, it smells awful. Yes, if you try and deglaze a pan with fish sauce, you are going to have to evacuate for 200 feet in any direction. Yes, it’s honestly made by taking a big pile of fish and salt and pressing out the resulting liquid. It’s also the backbone of Vietnamese cooking, and Vietnamese cooks know how to use it to best effect. That dish of pinkish-orange fish sauce isn’t pure fish sauce; it’s been mixed with water, chiles, garlic, sugar and limes and is the best dipping sauce on the planet. It doesn’t taste like a bottle of plain fish sauce smells. The best part is the people who whine about the saucer of nước chấm, but have absolutely no problem eating Thai food, which uses just as much of the stinky elixir as Vietnamese food.

5. Learn to love the herbs.

Rau thơm, or the "make it your own" plate.

Rare is the Vietnamese meal that doesn’t involve herbs. The French, with their love of tarragon, parsley and marjoram, have absolutely nothing on the leaf-mad Vietnamese. Plates of varied herbs, appropriate to the dishes ordered, appear on tables for the sole purpose of punching up the food to your liking. Comments on Yelp like “they forgot to dress the salad” miss the point. Some of those herbs are familiar–cilantro, basil and mint–and some aren’t as familiar. Some have an odd flavor–there’s one whose English name is usually rendered as “fish mint” for a reason–but they’re not meant to be eaten by themselves. If you don’t dress your food with the herbs, you’re missing the glory of Vietnamese food.

6. You aren’t going to change the service model.

The way service works in most non-high-end Vietnamese restaurants (which is most of them) is this: you pick what you want from the menu, you order it, it’s delivered, you get up and pay at the counter. Period. There will be no introductions, there may not be smiles, and frankly complaints about the food are not likely to result in the bill being adjusted. There may or may not be checks on your general dining welfare; if you want something, wave the waitstaff over politely. Writing screeds about how they didn’t dance attendance on you, French Laundry-style, is counterproductive. Everyone knows the rules in that restaurant except you, which means the issue is more than likely you.

And a special note to people complaining about the English skills of the waitstaff: this is a valid point to bring up in a review, but the second that’s paired with a comment about the rudeness of the service, I always have to wonder whose fault it was.

Looking for some good Vietnamese cookbooks? these are diaCRITICS certified:

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Dave Lieberman blogs about food—in his ‘Stick a Fork in It’ column—at OCWeekly.

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please like, share, and comment on this post! An Open Letter To Yelp Reviewers of Vietnamese Restaurants

Sonny Le, previously featured in his piece about his journey from Viet Nam and 25 Hawkins Road, now shares his feelings, thoughts about being a Vietnamese far from Viet Nam during Tết, the Vietnamese lunar new year.  His reflections center on the song “Xuân Này Con Không Về,” which Sonny calls the song of millions of Vietnamese.  Read, listen, watch.

Xuân Này Con Không Về

The above, my 1st for YouTube, is meant for my family in Viet Nam, who now finally has high-speed internet access at home, but hopefully you, especially overseas Vietnamese, can also appreciate it.

With the exception of the New Year’s pictures, which came from Wikipedia, all other pictures are mine, taken mostly in the early 1990s and scanned in. I decided to put this together because, for whatever reason, not being able to “go home” for New Year’s this year hit me quite hard. When seeing writer Chris Galvin Nguyen’s tweet about soaking rice for making bánh chưng, it made me realize how much these New Year’s rituals I still sorely missed. Thanks, Chris.

Xuân Này Con Không Về

This song was written in the early 1960s by the Trịnh-Lâm-Ngân song-writing trio. Over the years many have sung this song, but only Duy Khánh has truly made this his own. For millions of Vietnamese away from home, this is our song. Though it was written, and sung, from the point of view of a young soldier at the front longing to come home for New Year’s, the song has become the anthem for those of us, because of circumstances beyond our control, are forced to be thousands of miles away from our loved ones.

The 20th Century wasn’t so kind to the people of Viet Nam; in addition to the devastating war, families were broken up not once, but twice, first in 1954 and then in 1975.

"Operation Passage to Freedom" Northern Viet Nam's Refugees Boarding US Navy Ship in Haiphong, 1954

When Viet Nam was partitioned into two halves in 1954, it did not just divide the country but also divided thousands of families. Over one million moved to what-now became Southern Viet Nam from the north, and about 200,000 moved in the opposite direction.

And in 1975, once again the Vietnamese people are forced to leave behind their loved ones, marking the biggest exodus from just one country in the 20th Century. All told close to 2 million Vietnamese refugees, escaping mainly by boats or on land through Cambodia, resettled outside Viet Nam.

Leaving Home Once Again After 1975

The Vietnamese people have been scattered to all four corners of the world. Lunar New Year, or Tết, is the biggest celebration and family reunion event of the year. It’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s all rolled into one. Being able to go home for this occasion would be a dream come true for those of us who have not been home for it. The hand-to-mouth existence in the developed countries is such that when you have money, you have no time; or when you have time, no money.

Mother, I promise, I will be home for Tết one day soon, hopefully next year/ Mẹ, con xin hứa, con sẽ về ăn Tết với Mẹ và các em một ngày sớm, hy vọng trong năm tới. Not being able to join you for Tết for 33 years is long enough/Không về ăn Tết được trong 33 năm nay đã đủ dài.

Sonny Le: A news junkie since the age of five – thanks to my father and the BBC and Voice of America shortwave radio – born and raised in the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam, but home has been Oakland, California, after a stop at 25 Hawkins Road, Singapore Refugee Camp. A communications strategist with over twenty years of experience, started out with half-tone and carbon copy that actually left stains, then moved on to fax and e-mail and now happily embracing microblogging.

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Please take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! How did you celebrate Tết? Do you celebrate with family? Or are you in the same situation as Sonny, with family back in Viet Nam?

please like, share, and comment on this post! Xuân Này Con Không Về – I Won’t Be Home for Spring (New Year)

Most Vietnamese are familiar with the story of Quan Âm Thị Kính, a thousand-year-old Vietnamese folk tale, and the Buddhist chanting  Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật (equivalent to “Amen” or “Hallelujah”). For the first time ever there is an opera by a Vietnamese-American composer featuring this literary work and the celestial Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật. P.Q. Phan, associate professor of composition at Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, translated and reconstructed the libretto for his three-act opera The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh from Quan Âm Thị Kính (Our Benevolent Bodhisattva Thi Kinh), a traditional Vietnamese work that combines both music and drama. The workshop of the new opera in July 2011 was a success and the opera will be premiered by Jacobs School of Music in 2014.

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NAM-MÔ-A-DI-ĐÀ-PHẬT CELEBRATED ON AMERICAN STAGE

Anvi Hoang/Photos by IU Jacobs School of Music (IU JSoM)

(1) There is a small number of Vietnamese in Bloomington, IN. (2) Cultural, especially musical, activities here are numerous – orchestra concerts, operas, theatrical plays, musicals, ballets, Broadway shows, arts festivals, etc. Yet, hardly does one see the combined presence of (1) and (2) in public in one place. Until…

Workshop of the opera “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh”

With the largest and most extensive collegiate opera house in the country, IU Jacobs School of Music has a long tradition of new opera premieres. Many national music critics and opera producers will attend the premieres, and the Opera Magazine, the largest and most important of its kind, will also review them. Needless to say, a new opera production is the talk of the town. The workshop is one step in the evolutionary process – a learning stage where the composer, the directors, and designers, just to mention a few, have the chance to study the work in advance in details – before the full production. Needless to say, the workshop is the talk of the town. Seriously, articles are everywhere in the local newspaper and school websites.

Workshop performances were on Saturday and Sunday evenings, which meant rehearsals were going on for three consecutive weeks, five days a week, 3pm-6pm everyday, until the Friday right before the first performance. I came out for a rehearsal open to the public. As an “adopted Hoosier” (IU is my school) and a proud Vietnamese, there is no way I would let it fly; as a freelancer, I would love to cover it for The Vien Dong Daily; as an “emotional supporter” for the composer of “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh” – who happens to be my husband – I just had to be there. Well, four birds with one stone, not a bad deal at all. So, I looked for a seat, sat down and began to observe. The students involved in the workshop are from the Voice Department at Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. Many of them have had experience working and performing on professional stage. Watching them, it is difficult to tell whether they are professionals or students. They would be referred to as “singers” in this writing.

This afternoon, they worked on the scene when Thị Mầu went to the temple to look for love. The singer playing Thị Mầu began her music rehearsal first with the conductor and the pianist (one piano is common for rehearsal). She started singing. Half way through, the Conductor stopped her and said, “Could you prolong this word a little? And come in faster on the next one.” There she went, and the process of singing-correction-singing-correction continued through difficult sections of the score. Other singers in the scene together with another sixteen in the chorus took their turns going through the music rehearsal. After more than an hour, they began to combine singing and acting.

Conductor at work

Lost in a Different  World

The stage was minimal to the bare bones: a large wooden frame was used as a door into and out of the house and the temple. The Servant, Nô, entered the stage, complaining about his miserable life. He was singing and walking a few steps then the Stage Director intervened, “Stop. You cannot be so formal and rigid. You have to use gestures as if you are a servant. Indeed you are a servant here!” Everybody laughed. I felt sorry for the singers who had to deal with the unrelenting criticism. Besides the conductor and the stage director, the composer can step in at any time with suggestions as well. The singers must have trained themselves to keep their ego and spirit intact to be impervious to these instructions. It is true the instructions are part of their job package, but who would like to be criticized all the time! I came to admire their working ethics.

Additionally, by the time of rehearsal, they already memorized the music, the libretto, and then incorporated them into their singing as instructed by the conductor, and into their acting as directed by the stage director. Both physically and mentally, it was intense. Three weeks to perform a two-hour opera was mind-blowing, especially so for the Thị Kính character who had to sing in nine out of ten scenes. Normally with more time, the pressure level would be lower, but in any circumstances, just to witness the singers, the composer, the conductor, the director – those known to possess the diva attitude – working together to create the opera on stage, I was mesmerized.

"Divas" team work

I imagine if colors and shades and brushes are tools of the painter, just as words are for the writer, materials and forms are for the architect, then the musician communicate with notes. Looking at the score, the singer can already “hear” the songs in their head. Maneuvering air through their vocal cords is only to realize the tunes out for the audience. The conductor, on scanning the score, can “hear” the sound of the whole orchestra – the violin in the background, the clarinet is leading, the harp whispering on the left, the percussion pulsating in the back, the double bass puffing on the right, etc. Like a painting with details being singing notes.

On the other hand, the stage director “thinks” with images, spatial constructions, gestures, and more. For example, when Thị Mầu failed to court Tiểu Kính Tâm the monk, she returned home. As she appeared, what the director “saw” on stage was a wooden house surrounded by bamboos, with a front courtyard. She came on stage from the right, at the same time the servant Nô came out of the house from the left, and they met outside the gate. Thị Mầu started to flirt with Nô, and she had to stay close to the gate so that when they finished singing, the music moved to the next measure in a few seconds, Thị Mầu only needed to push Nô slightly through the door, and the two of them were right inside the house. Such being the situation, the director had to remind the singers at what note and in what direction they needed to move. Like intricate details in an art work. I could not help feeling “high” submerging in their magical world. My eyes and ears were all up, my mind racing, my body shaking out of excitement and thrill. On stage, the musicians were merging their own worlds into one to create The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh. For a moment, I felt “enlightened” as if a simple thing turned into a very philosophical discovery of life.

Stage director welcomed audience

The Singing of Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật

Actual performances were in Auer Hall where everybody was waiting. The light went dim. The Stage Director appeared in front of the wooden frame. Holding out his hands, he said, “Welcome to Vietnam!” The audience laughed. Well, they were going to hear a Vietnamese story, coincidently it was hot that day and the air condition was kept high to save energy (economic downturn!). It felt pretty “tropical” in the hall. So the performance commenced with laughter. The audience had many chances to laugh, especially when Thị Mầu went to the temple to court the monk. They also laughed when the servant Nô told Thị Mầu that “you are like a young squash/Lie around any longer and you will become a gourd.” Plenty of laughter, and tears as well. Some of the older ladies shed tears over the unjust life of Thị Kính. My Vietnamese friend told me his 13 year-old daughter cried a lot.

Thị Mầu about to flirt with the monk

Nam Mo-4: Thị Mầu about to flirt with the monk

One thing I was certain, that to the end of the performance the American audience was able to pronounce Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật and know what it meant, because after Thị Kính cut her hair and disguised as a man to seek monkhood, they began to hear Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật regularly. Thị Mầu Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật to wish for love in the new moon; Thị Kính Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật to shed earthly life; Tiểu Kính Tâm Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật to ponder life and religious faith; Sư Cụ Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật to contemplate justice and traditions. Oddly enough, it felt so natural to hear Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật chanted on American stage for the first time ever.

Just as Amen or Hallelujah is a chanting term and cannot be translated, Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật is kept as it is to preserve the Vietnamese flavor. Who is not familiar with Hallelujah, especially at Christmas time. Either the chorus Hallelujah from Handel’s Messiah, or Leonard Cohen’s and Bon Jovi’s Hallelujah – to black, white, or yellow, it is all the same feeling of peace and serenity, quietness and sacredness. Now imagine, instead of Hallelujah, the singing is Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật. The whole hall was attentive to the performance on stage: Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật. The chanting-singing was cheerful, melodic, earnest at times with some hint of Vietnamese chèo music, peaceful at others. The Vietnamese everywhere will be proud to hear it – something so dear to their heart, and so universal on American stage right now.

Firework ending Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật

When Thị Kính was going to Heaven in the last scene, all the singers and the chorus Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật in a most earnest and intense manner as if preparing for a firework ending – Thị Mầu’s youthful life was already celebrated, now it was Thị Kính’s sacrifice. My muscles were stretching like the strings. It was indeed music for the Almighty, there was no shame that it made humans like me cry. It certainly dawned on me that the magical power of music transcends both happiness and sorrow. I remember my friends and I once talking about the tragedy in Vietnamese history: over four thousand years, countless wars, fathomless sorrow, unspeakable sacrifice, innumerable  deaths. For a moment, all those baggage seemed to melt into the lyrical Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật. May a requiem free those spirits. I have heard Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật, I could imagine a requiem for the Vietnamese: an outdoor stage of millions, all opening their hearts in unison with the requiem.

*****

The opera The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh is planned to be premiered at Jacobs School of Music in 2014. It sounds like a long time, but two years is an average amount of time for a new production. Set designer needs to study how to “fly” Thị Kính to heaven, and costume designer to dress more than 30 characters together with the chorus. Stage director also needs to “meditate” on how to realize his concepts on stage. And so forth. Then follow auditions and rehearsals and miscellaneous issues. Time flies. In the meantime, ladies, get your áo dài ready. Welcome to Bloomington, Indiana! Jacobs School of Music is one of the most famous music schools not only in the United States but also in the world. Soon, Americans and people all over the world will hear Nam-Mô-A-Di-Đà-Phật in a full scale production, with elaborate set and costume, on a high tech stage, with an orchestra of 68, a chorus of 40, highly professional cast, well-known conductors and directors. I have begun to dream about that day.

P.Q. Phan’s bio:

Born in Vietnam in 1962, P. Q. Phan became interested in music while studying architecture and taught himself to play the piano, compose, and orchestrate. In 1982, he immigrated to the United States and began his formal musical training at the USC Thornton School of Music and the University of Michigan. He is an associate professor of music in composition at Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University at Bloomington.

Recipient of 1998 Rome Prize, ASCAP awards; grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ohio Arts Councils, Charles Ives Center for American Music, and fellowships from the Macdowell Colony. Guest composer: the 99 Asian New Music Festival in Tokyo Japan, the 99 & 97 New Music Festival at Hamilton College (New York), the ’96 residency with the Kronos Quartet at University of Iowa – Hancher Auditorium, the ’95 Asian Composers’ Forum in Sendai – Japan, the ’94 New Music Festival at UC Santa Barbara, the ’92 Music Lives in Pittsburgh. Performances by the Kronos Quartet, the BBC Scottish, Radio France, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Hanoi Conservatory Orchestra. He has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra, the Greater East Lansing Symphony, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Samaris Piano Trio, the New York Youth Symphony, La Sierra University. Work recorded by the Kronos Quartet for Nonesuch. Former Faculty member, University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana, Cleveland State University.

P.Q. Phan

– by Anvi Hoang. A version of this article was previously published in the Vien Dong Daily News 2012 Lunar New Year Edition.

Anvi Hoang is a part-time freelance writer, and full-time gardener and traveler. She makes it her aim to celebrate Vietnamese people everywhere in her writing. Anvi is currently working on a Western music series. She lives in Bloomington, IN.

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please like, share, and comment on this post! Vietnamese Opera in the United States: Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật Celebrated on American Stage

diaCRITICS has talked about actress Maggie Q in a review about Nikita and reading Nikita as a postfeminist show.  Here, Jade Hidle takes up Maggie Q again but instead, Hidle talks about her admiration for Maggie Q, not for her as an actress but more for Maggie Q as a mixed-race Vietnamese American. Reading Jimmy Kimmel’s interview with Maggie Q, Hidle raises questions regarding American narratives of mixed-race Vietnamese/Asian Americans and the complicated histories brought up by the Amerasian identity.

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Maggie Q is my homegirl. It’s not because we grew up together (in fact, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her). And, though she is a striking on-screen presence, it’s not because I’m necessarily a huge fan of her U.S. film roles as a leg-baring, gun-toting undercover agent in Mission Impossible III or her current job as the sexy yet dangerous eponymous assassin in Nikita. (I must confess that the nerd within me, not buried very deeply, was tickled that she signed on to play a vampire-slaughtering priestess in the 2011 film adaptation of the graphic novel series Priest.)

Maggie Q in the film Priest. Movie poster image from justjared.com

No, Maggie Q is my homegirl because she is one of the few mainstream American celebrities who proudly claims being Vietnamese AND mixed (Irish and Polish, to be specific). A blend of Vietnamese and Irish myself, I experience relief and pride whenever I see this sister on screen, and I follow her work in hopes that she, along with other hapa and Asian American females, will soon garner increased representation in the media—that is, beyond the supporting roles of exotic action vixen. Maggie Q herself has admitted that she aspires to break these restrictive molds:  “Not only do I not want to be stereotyped as this Asian girl who fights–gee, what a wonder–but also I have more to offer than that” (imdb.com). Over the holiday break, I slipped into well-worn sweatpants and caught up on all the pop culture I had missed during the fall semester of teaching and PhDing, and one of the programs I watched (thank you, full episodes online) was Maggie Q’s December 1^st appearance on the late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Maggie Q's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Photo courtesy JKL show website.

Now, to be clear, Kimmel is no Coco; nevertheless, I usually enjoy his humor and interviews, as they flow much more smoothly than the forced laughter, if not dead air, that creates hiccups in Leno and Letterman’s celebrity interviews. Kimmel’s interview with Maggie Q, however, was downright awkward. What was awkward about it, you ask? The interview questions written by Kimmel and his staff, though brief and tonally casual, bear the weighty subtext that, while Maggie Q’s “exotic” looks render her admirable in the public eye, a mixed-race Vietnamese individual continues to stir anxiety and curiosity about Americans’ memories of the U.S.-Viet Nam War. In particular, mixed-race Vietnamese bodies like Maggie Q’s become legible through narratives that render Vietnamese women as prostitutes. You can watch an excerpt of the interview below and then read on to see what I saw and heard in Kimmel and Maggie Q’s conversation. Use the comments section to let me know if you agree or were reading into their “err”- and “umm”-filled interview in other ways.

Maggie Q Interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Part 1

Right off the bat, Maggie Q’s ethnic origin is called into question before any discussion of her identity as an actress.  When she shares that she was born and raised in Hawaii, Kimmel jokingly greets her with “Buenas dias,” which apparently applies to any “ambiguously raced” person, and this offhand remark is undoubtedly racially and politically charged in light of current immigration debates. Kimmel oddly follows with the questions “How Hawaiian are you? Were your parents born in Hawaii?” as if calling for Maggie Q to provide a birther movement-style measure of her identity, presumably to pin down her level of “Americanness.” This comes off as unintentionally ironic because Hawaii—a complex palimpsest of colonialism and miscegenation—speaks to the fact that American history is no simple yardstick for identity, and far from being something that can be defined in the first ten seconds of an interview. As if in recognition of the audacity of this opening extraterrestrial encounter type of question, “What are you and where did you come from?”, Maggie Q seems taken aback as she stumbles over her answer: “I’m just, I’m not, I was born and raised. But I’m Vietnamese-Irish-Polish.” Kimmel attempts to make a joke about her ethnicity, which he reduces to the silly acronym “V.I.P.”, then proceeds to ask her if she had ever thought of that before. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to reduce an Asian American woman to her ethnicity. Once Kimmel finds out that she is Vietnamese, the conversation really gets awkward, and a bit offensive, as he elliptically probes her for some kind of expected confession that her mother was a prostitute. Let’s review:

Jimmy Kimmel:  And how did your parents wind up in Hawaii?

Maggie Q:  Um, well, my, my fa—[Sighs] they met in Vietnam.

JK:  Oh, wow.

MQ:  And then they moved back to the states. I guess he retired from the military in Hawaii.

JK:  Oh, okay. So your dad was in the military. And did, did your mom work too?

MQ:  Did my mom work? [Raises eyebrows]

JK:  Did she have a job?

MQ:  Yes, my mom, she was a bartender for many years. [Laughs]

Maggie Q’s telling sigh evinces her awareness that revealing her parents’ introduction in Viet Nam inevitably conjures popular American memory of the war as some sort of Full Metal Jacket-style rendezvous between good ol’ U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese whores, just as we hear Kimmel’s awed “Oh, wow.” Accordingly, Maggie Q is clearly taken aback by the implication of the question of whether or not her mother worked; she repeats it with eyebrows raised, elongating the inquiry as if to prompt Kimmel to say what he really means, “Was your mother a prostitute? Did she meet your father while she was ‘working’ the corners?” I’ve confronted similar queries, both here and in Viet Nam, when people scrutinize my face to determine if I’m old enough to be a war-time baby and then ask, “Was your father a solider?” To this, I could reply with the epic, quixotic, passionate, heart-pounding, romantic tale of how my parents met at a post office in Huntington Beach, California (sorry, Mom and Dad, but that’s just plain boring compared to the bombs-exploding-in-the-jungle story that people thirst), but why should I have to answer that question, even if to shatter the inquisitor’s presumptions? And why should Maggie Q have to do the same? Why must we put our family’s history on display to provide strangers with an artificial sense of ”knowledge” about Viet Nam and the  U.S.-Viet Nam War?

After Maggie Q reveals that her mother was a bartender, she quickly follows up with glowing compliments of her mother and notes that she, in model-minority fashion, just bought her mom a Rolex, to turn the conversation, and her family’s history, into something positive—not the “dark spot” in U.S. history that the war and prostitution would invoke. Maggie Q’s seemingly purposeful redirecting of the conversation, along with her jovial energy (she laughs wholeheartedly at all of Kimmel’s jokes, no matter how lackluster they are) speaks to me as the game that mixed-race Vietnamese Americans are forced to play:  we must always clarify and adapt who we are to make others feel more comfortable about their history. This enforced malleability is demonstrated later in the interview when Kimmel inquires as to the origin of her last name, “Q”:

Maggie Q Interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Part 2

JK:  How did you get the last name “Q”, which is just the letter “Q”?

MQ:  I was working in Asia for many years. My last name is really Iri—I have a really sort of white name. My last name is Quigley and nobody could pronounce it there so they, uh—

JK:  How would they pronounce it?

MQ:  [Laughs] Somebody had asked me, “Are you upset that they changed their name for you?” And I was like, had you lived there when I lived there and heard them try to say Quigley, you’d probably be pleased with “Q.”

At this point, I was grateful that Maggie Q refrained from performing the mimicry that Kimmel is asking of her. But that feeling didn’t last too long.

JK:  So who decided on the “Q”?

MQ:  It was the newspaper one day that printed it and I had gone through different incarnations–”quickly,” somebody said to me [Speaks with a Chinese accent], “Maggie, is it you are very quickly because you are quickly?” [Does a running motion with arms, makes confused face, and the audience laughs] Somebody said that to me in Hong Kong. No, not it in any way, because my last name is not “quickly.”

Even though I don’t necessarily blame Maggie Q for giving in to doing the accent (not proudly, I have made fun of Asians in order to feel, however fleetingly, that I fit in with other groups), I cringed when the audience guffawed in response. Yet, as if to mirror the ambivalence I was feeling while watching, Maggie Q follows with comments that speak to the identity issues wrapped up in being Asian American:

MQ:  I think they [the Asians who first referred to her as “Q”] wanted to capitalize off the Asian side too, which I think is very sweet. They just wanted to be like, “You’re just Asian and you’re just ours.”

JK:  I see.

MQ:  You know, and so the Irish bit gone. Yeah, yeah, the white side. [Makes a thumbs down motion]

JK:  So in Ireland maybe you’ll be O’Quigley.

MQ:  [Laughs]

Maggie Q on Jimmy Kimmel Live

As the interview came to a close on these notes, I heard echoes of the esteemed Asian American historian and professor Ronald Takaki who, in his examination of Japanese American citizenship during and after WWII, stated how Asian Americans are asked to choose identification with either Asia OR America. Yet, in watching this interview, I was reminded that this choice is not always ours. Our bodies continue to be read through lenses informed by skeletal histories. These are narratives that do not account for stories transcending the borders of the silver screen, for identities and kinships shaped by cultural citizenships,  for shifting terrains of self. This one is for all my homegirls.

Jade Hidle received her BA (2006) and MFA (2008) in creative writing from California State University, Long Beach, and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Literature at UC San Diego. Her academic work focuses on how contemporary Vietnamese American cultural productions, including comic books and hip-hop music, present marginalized bodies—veterans, refugees, transgendered individuals, prostitutes, and mixed-race children—as a means by which the history of the Viet Nam War can be re-remembered. On the creative front, she is working on a collection of non-fiction essays about growing up a mixed-race Vietnamese in Los Angeles. Her writing has been featured in Ethnic Studies Review, Watermark, Spot Literary Magazine, Word River, and Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry.

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And please take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! Did you feel the same unease while watching the Jimmy Kimmel-Maggie Q interview? What kind of experiences do you have when questioned about your own parents, whether they’re Vietnamese and/or American, European, etc.?

please like, share, and comment on this post! A Meditation on the Mixed-Race Politics of My Homegirl Maggie Q

Earlier last year, diaCRITICS featured Eric Nguyen’s review on the up and coming Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong’s chapbook of poetry, Burnings.  Vuong was born in Saigon in 1988, grew up in Connecticut, and was later educated Brookyn College, CUNY. Vuong’s work has been honored with various awards and has been translated into Hindi, Russian, Korean, and Vietnamese.  For today’s post, we hear from Ocean Vuong himself about his new project, the photographing the lives of Vietnamese Americans. 

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For the past two years I have been taking photos of various scenes in Vietnamese American life and I thought I’d share them with you on my blog. This specific series is titled ” Happy Nails”, a selection of shots taken at a nail salon. As you might already know, the nail salon is the unofficial hub of all Vietnamese culture in America. I remember when I was younger, my family would go on road trips, and being illiterate and not able to speak English, we always looked for nail salons whenever we were lost. The little shops, often garishly decorated with charmingly simply names like “Top Nails”, “Paris Nails” and “#1 Beauty Nails”, are the life line of Vietnamese life in America, often in more ways than one.
If you feel compelled to, please feel free to share this essay with others, on your blogs, tumblrs, facebook, etc… It would mean a lot to me and I appreciate it very much.

I will add to this series as more photos accumulate.

love and light,

-Ocean

*Editor’s Note: diaCRITICS is featuring selected photographs from the series.  See the entire series and follow Ocean Vuong at his blog.

"pick you color!"

hot, cold, and nails

morning offerings

in luck we trust...

getting ready for work

matriarch

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Do you enjoy reading diaCRITICS? Then please consider subscribing! Please take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! A poet taking photos? Thoughts about the photos of Vietnamese Americans?  What do you take pictures of if you were thinking about Vietnamese American life?

please like, share, and comment on this post! Saigon America, a photo essay series on Vietnamese American life