Calgary Paris By Night And Its Influence On Vietnamese Culture | HuffPost Voices - Action.News ABC Action News WestNet-HD Weather Traffic

Its hard to remember the first time I watched Paris by Night. Maybe it was at home, where my parents had several of the shows DVDs. Maybe it was on a nondescript screen at any of the dozens of nearby Vietnamese restaurants we visited in Houstons sprawling Asiatown neighborhood. Or maybe it was at a relatives house, a hair salon or the Vietnamese auto shop.

In truth, I can remember Paris by Night playing in all of these settings. Like many other first-generation Vietnamese Americans, I grew up with the show in the background of my childhood its plaintive love-in-wartime ballads and campy pop numbers playing at my parents friends weekly get-togethers, and its comedic punchlines eliciting howls and cackles of laughter.

A colorful, six-hour variety show complete with folk music, modern pop, vaudeville-style comedy and fashion shows, it was, for decades, the only such Vietnamese-language program of its kind, catering to thousands of far-flung diaspora Vietnamese (called Vit Kiu) seeking a connection to their culture.

I used to think Paris by Night was super sn, or cheesy. I enjoyed it mostly in secret, watching from behind my parents shoulders and pulling up clips on YouTube. But as Ive come of age, I have a newfound appreciation for it. After all, in that bygone era before Asian Americans, let alone Vietnamese Americans, had any sort of representation in film or music, Paris by Night offered a glimpse of what it meant to be Vietnamese on screen.

Now, as the show celebrates 40 years and Vietnamese talent gains a foothold in mainstream media, some are paying subtle tribute. I was recently surprised to learn that Netflixs Beef cast Hong Dao, a Paris by Night comedic staple, as the mother of Ali Wongs character. Meanwhile, HBOs limited series The Sympathizer , based on Viet Thanh Nguyens Pulitzer-winning novel, cast longtime Paris by Night co-emcee Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen whose father, a former South Vietnamese general, inspired the books antagonist alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Oh.

All of this to say: As much as Paris by Night was created by and for our parents generation, its lasting presence and salient nostalgia in the collective memory of young Vietnamese people, both abroad and in Vietnam, offers some hope for its future staying power.

To tell the story of Paris by Night is to tell the story of the Vietnamese diaspora. The show was the brainchild of the late T Vn Lai, a onetime schoolteacher and member of the artistic avant garde in Ho Chi Minh City, also referred to as Saigon, in what was then South Vietnam. His wife, Thy, ran the couples record store, which was named after her.

A lover of music, T produced beloved records for Vietnams iconic Southern divas Thi Thanh and Thanh Tuyn. According to Saigoneer , their music resounded in every bus that ferried people to and from their hometowns in the countryside and floated down the streets of Saigon.

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