The American Dream in Vietnamese

4. Consuming Transcendent Media: Videos, Variety Shows, and the New Middle Class

79 Chapter 4 Consuming Transcendent Media: Videos, Variety Shows, and the New Middle Class THE EYES OF THE SPHINX glimmer in a night filled with shining stars as dancers dressed in “Egyptian” costumes move their hands in a serpentine fashion. A contemporary tune plays against this “ancient” backdrop as Vietnamese American singing sensation Thien Kim enters the scene, reclining on a chaise carried by male servants. Made up to look like an Egyptian princess, Thien Kim is dressed in robes and adorned with gold jewelry. Her performance of a song entitled “Doi Em Nhu Cat Kho” (“My Life Is Like Dry Sand”) commences as she alights from her chaise and walks across the backs of her slaves to her throne. Three white, male little people appear, playing servants and jesters to the Egyptian princess, who is unsatisfied with the luxuries her life has to offer. As she finishes her song, the camera zooms out to reveal a colossal stage with a large television screen; then it pans across a packed and appreciative audience. The little people then escort the mistress of ceremonies, Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen, to the podium. Her cohost and master of ceremonies, Nguyen Ngoc Ngan (no relation), makes a grand entrance riding a camel onto the stage. The two cohosts joke about Ngan’s height, but the scripted dialogue quickly turns to the lyrics of the opening song. The performance allows the MCs to admonish viewers that wealth and material objects do not necessarily bring happiness. Dramatized by the figure of the lonely Egyptian princess , they point out that even her abundant surroundings bring misery. Although the musical show produces image excess—an elaborate set, lavish costumes, and a celestial ensemble of Vietnamese celebrities from all over the diaspora—such cautionary remarks are delivered to convey a simple moral lesson. Typical of the videos produced in the Paris by Night series, this opening scene trades in contradiction, exposing the complex and often paradoxical ways in which the Vietnamese experience in diaspora is mediated and showcased. 80 Consuming Transcendent Media Figure 7. The 2010 releases of two competing diasporic Vietnamese music entertainment production companies, Asia and Thuy Nga rival each other but offer much of the same forms of pleasure. Note the prominence of maps and memories in both. Asia recalls the “timelessness” of the last fifty-five years of history for its theme while Paris by Night emphatically asserts, “I am Vietnamese” in their ninety-ninth show. Author’s collection. Paris by Night is a series of commercially produced videotapes of Vietnamesevariety show performances consisting of elaborate musical and dance numbers, comedic skits, and fashion shows featuring Vietnamese women in traditional dress.1 Many Vietnamese, if they do not own the videos themselves, have seen them on television screens at Vietnamese business establishments or heard them referred to in conversation. As postrefugee commodities, these videos are arguably the most popular cultural products circulating throughout the Vietnamese diaspora. They have entertained nearly 2.5 million overseas Vietnamese audience members worldwide and 72 million via a semi-legal “gray market” in Vietnam.2 Designed to capture a wide niche of the Vietnamese diasporic audience, these colorful spectacles of song and dance offer over two hours worth of amusement for about $25 USD. Nearly 100 video sets in the series have been produced since the early 1980s, and in 2003 the introduction of the DVD format began to phase out VHS videocassettes.3 The portable forms of entertainment may be purchased in local ethnic Vietnamese-owned businesses throughout the diaspora and on the Internet. A production Consuming Transcendent Media 81 unique to the Vietnamese diaspora, these musical variety shows are often staged at theaters and auditoriums located in tourist cities, or other areas where large populations of diasporic Vietnamese reside and are recorded for wider distribution and consumption. The success of the Paris by Night series has not only generated a mass audience base for touring Vietnamese concerts but also inspired the creation of several rival production companies and video series such as Asia (Asia Entertainment), Van Son (Van Son Entertainment), and Hollywood Night (May Productions). This chapter examines the cultural and representational work of niche media and videotexts produced by and for the Vietnamese diaspora. Combining images and sounds, music videos provide refugees and immigrants much more than pleasure and entertainment in a familiar language . These media technologies enable new ways of literally envisioning Vietnamese culture...