Tributes to Two Eurasian Performers of Vietnamese Folk Opera

With the recent passing on July 10, 2015 of Phuong Thanh, a very handsome German-Vietnamese Eurasian actor of traditional Southern Vietnamese folk opera known as "cai luong", made me think of another legendary Eurasian French-Vietnamese actor, Dung Thanh Lam.  But let's not drift away from the topic of Phuong Thanh's recent passing just yet.  Afterall, he was a tremendous talent in his own right.  I've had the chance to meet him on one occasion when I was over in Paris a few years back.  I met him through singer Tuan Hung's mother, "cai luong" actress Kieu Le Mai, who is also Eurasian of French and Vietnamese decent.  I found him to be a very lovely man, as he was quite humble.  And despite how he was of advanced age during the time of our meeting, I can still see very visible remaining traces of him once being a very handsome man.  Now that I think about it, I do remember watching him on those "cai luong" video productions from Thuy Nga Paris back when I was a kid.  Phuong Thanh had starred in a series of those "cai luong" video productions during the 1980s and costarred with the likes of Huu Phuoc, Thanh Duoc, Huong Lan, Mong Tuyen, Phuong Mai, Phuong Hong Ngoc and Kieu Le Mai.  He sure was one very handsome devil.  I guess a lot of folks don't know this about me, but I've been a huge fan of "cai luong" ever since I can remember.  I guess that's an innate trait for Eurasians.  Looking back at the history of performers of Southern Vietnamese folk opera, there have been quite a few of us Eurasians like Phuong Thanh, Kieu Le Mai, Phuong Hong Ngoc, who is a quarter French, Bich Ngoc and of course, Dung Thanh Lam.  Phuong Thanh will definitely be greatly missed.

Phuong Thanh (1948-2015)
Eurasian Actor of Vietnamese Folk Opera Stage Known as "Cai Luong"

As I mentioned earlier, the passing of "cai luong" actor Phuong Thanh made me think of Dung Thanh Lam.  Besides having watched Dung Thanh Lam perform live in an all-star cast which included Huong Lan, Huu Phuoc, Thanh Duoc, Viet Hung, Phuong Mai and Bang Chau in Tam Long Cua Bien at the Anaheim Convention Center back in the 1988 and one other time later that same year in Nua Doi Huong Phan at the Valley High School auditorium in Santa Ana, California, I had also gotten to know him on a personal level when I became an adult sometime in the early 1990s.  Where shall I begin?  Alright, I'll start with when I first started singing for the Vietnamese community back in 1993.  One of my first bookings was an engagement at the Normandie Casino in Gardena, Southern California where I would befriend a Vietnamese celebrity by the name of Kim Qui.  Believe it or not, but Kim Qui was actually one of the first Vietnamese celebrities I had become friends with when I first started out as a Vietnamese singer.  If her name happens to ring a bell with a bit of uncertainty, just disregard any uncertainty because it is who you think it is.  Yes, that Kim Qui!  The one and only Kim Qui, Saigon's legendary, most celebrated performer of burlesque.  Or shall I say, the famous striptease artist?  She was actually one very cool lady. Anyway, she had been booked to perform on that same engagement with me at Normandie Casino.  At that time, I guess she was trying to pursue a career as a singer.  But on the night of the show, somehow her segment where she was supposed to sing a couple of songs got cut out altogether and was only able to perform her burlesque act.  So to make a long story short, she and I had become friends during rehearsals for the show.  One day she invited me over to her place for dinner.  That's when I found out that her "husband", or the man in her life at the moment, was none other than Dung Thanh Lam.  Upon meeting him for the first time, we instantly clicked.  I guess there's something about Eurasian-to-Eurasian interaction.  Like I said, we just clicked and talked to one another as if we had known each other our entire lives.  After that engagement at the Normandie Casino, I would see Kim Qui every now and then.  But we really didn't remain that close simply because we didn't have all that much in common to really sustain a close friendship.  I did run into her one night at the Ritz Nightclub in Anaheim some months after the Normandie Casino show and while she and I were sipping on some cognac, she revealed that she and Dung Thanh Lam had broken up.  I could tell she was really saddened.  That made me feel bad for her.

I hadn't seen Dung Thanh Lam for years until the beginning of the year 2000.  It was during Tet season.  I had been booked on a show in Pomona, California at the Tet Festival for the Vietnamese community there in celebration of the Vietnamese New Year.  Since Pomona has a rather small Vietnamese community in comparison to Little Saigon in Westminster, California, you could imagine how much smaller their Tet festival gathering would be in comparison to what we're used to seeing in Orange County year after year.  I think that was actually the very first year that the Vietnamese community of Pomona held a Tet festival.  Only three performers were scheduled to appear at that show.  Can you guess who these three were?  They were Dung Thanh Lam, Dai Trang and myself, Thien Phu.  Blown up photos of all three of us were so exaggerated on the flyers that had been made to promote the festival, it looked as if it were an advertisement for some really major event.  But in all reality, the total number of people who ended up attending the Tet Festival in Pomona that year only came to just slightly over 300. I didn't realize it until Dung Thanh Lam had pointed this out to Dai Trang and myself when all three of us were hanging out in the dressing room before the show began.  Pointing at the poster he said, "It's rather odd how they would book all three of us Eurasians for this show, don't you think?  The flyer says that these three singers will be performing for the Vietnamese New Year's festival.  What if someone who wasn't Vietnamese saw the flyer?  Seeing photos of the three of us, they would probably think, 'Why are these three Mexicans performing for Vietnamese New Year?'"  We couldn't stop laughing the whole night over what he had said.

Dung Thanh Lam (1942-2014)
French-Vietnamese Eurasian Actor of "Cai Luong" Stage and Films in South Vietnam

Unfortunately, that was the only time I ever got to work with Dung Thanh Lam.  Two years after that one time we had worked together, I would hear through the grapevines from others in the Vietnamese entertainment world that he fallen ill.  No specific illness was ever revealed.  All I would hear was that he was in poor health.  The next thing I know, a couple of years later he was dead.

It turns out that what had taken Dung Thanh Lam's life so prematurely was cirrhosis of the liver.  I wish I had visited him in the hospital while he was still alive.  I know that there was nothing I could have done to help save his life.  I really wanted to see him so that I could tell him thank you for all of his accomplishments in his career as a Vietnamese entertainer and how he being Eurasian, an "ethnic minority" in the Vietnamese culture, had really set a good example and had opened a lot of doors for other Eurasians of future generations to come.  Dung Thanh Lam was truly a pioneer for Eurasians in the Vietnamese entertainment world.  He was the first Eurasian to grace the "cai luong" stage in South Vietnam, the first Eurasian to appear on national television in South Vietnam and the first Eurasian actor to appear in Vietnamese films.  For such unprecedented accomplishments and contributions,  it is my pleasure to salute, celebrate and honor the memory of Dung Thanh Lam.

Mong Tuyen and Phuong Thanh in Mưa Rừng (1991)

One final note, in the early 1990s the overseas Vietnamese production label, Thuy Nga Paris, had released on video a reprisal performance of the classic cải lương play, Mưa Rừng, starring Mong Tuyen as the lead female character and both of our late Eurasian fellas, Dung Thanh Lam and Phuong Thanh.  For some reason, Mong Tuyen has always looked as if she was Eurasian, to me.  I've read biographies on her and from I've read, both of her parents were Vietnamese.  But how did she end up with such apparent European features on her face?  That's just something I've wondered about every once in a great while.  

The First Amerasian Singer in the US

Tuan Kiet

Ever since the Vietnamese music industry has been established here in the United States, Amerasian and Eurasian singers have definitely played a viable part.  Among the Eurasian singers worth mentioning, of course, are Luu Hong, Julie Quang, Marie Louise, Quoc Anh, Christiane Le, Dung Thanh Lam, Pauline Ngoc, Jeannie Mai and others.  Among Amerasian singers, we have Thanh Ha, Phi Nhung, Randy, Lilian, Dai Trang, Jenny Trang, Phuong Thao, Danny Tuan and Thien Phu, myself even, and countless others.  But there had to be someone that was the very first, or the true pioneer Amerasian singer that really started it all for us in the Vietnamese music industry here in the United States.  That person happens to be a good friend of mine, an Amerasian singer based out of Minnesota by the name of Tuan Kiet. 

I first met this lad about a couple of years ago when he traveled to Southern California to perform for a show put together by my friend, Thanh Le, to benefit the disabled.  But we had become friends years before that.  It was kind of unusual how we became friends.  Sometime back in 2009, both he and I had been invited to perform for some show in Memphis, Tennessee.  Somehow the show never came to fruition.  That happens in this line of business.  Every once in a while we run into show promoters that can be rather flaky.  They'll call up a bunch of singers, print up the posters and then cancel on us right before the day of the show.  Like I said, it happens.  That's just the way it goes. 

Another singer that was supposed to perform on that particular that never happened in Memphis, Tennessee was my good friend, Jenny Trang.  It was through Jenny that I got to know Tuan Kiet.  We were on the phone one day and she put Tuan Kiet on and the three of us were talking on three-way calling.  Soon after, Tuan Kiet and I became friends as we would contact one another often.  I later found out that his aunt is the legendary Vietnamese singer, My Hang, whom I adore and have met quite a few times through Julie Quang.  Actually, I even worked with My Hang once at some show put together by Linda Go-Go and her husband down in San Diego.  I also would learn through the course of our friendship about Tuan Kiet's impressive long resumé as a Vietnamese singer.  Since he had first arrived to the United States in 1979, one of the first Amerasians to come over under the Amerasian Homecoming Act, he became the first Amerasian singer for the Vietnamese community here in the United States when he started his singing career way back in the early 1980s during his years in college.  That's another accomplishment of his, Tuan Kiet is also a college graduate with a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota.  As a Vietnamese singer, Tuan Kiet has worked with an impressive long list of some of the best among overseas Vietnamese singers including Huong Lan, Khanh Ly, Ngoc Lan and Cong Thanh and Lynn, just to name a few.  I just couldn't wait to meet this guy.

Tuan Kiet and I had developed a strong friendship through our telephone conversations through the years but had yet to meet.  We both had tried on several occasions to meet up.  It was either I would have to meet up with him over in Minnesota or he would have to travel over here to California and meet up with me.  Of course, we could also meet up during a show if we were to be both booked to perform together.  Tuan Kiet was sweet enough to try to get me booked on a few shows in Minnesota, but through no fault of his own those bookings didn't end up happening.  I also did the same for him, vice versa, on shows that I had been booked on for Gia Dinh My Viet to benefit Amerasians in Vietnam.  We also had no such luck through my attempts. 

It got to the point that we both realized just how awkward it was how we both had considered ourselves to be such good friends, yet we hadn't even met in person.  Finally at the beginning of 2013 after all those unsuccessful attempts we had each made to meet up by trying get the both of us booked to perform on the same shows, we both decided that no matter what we would meet up in the summer of that year.  Tuan Kiet agreed that he would come to California during the summer to see me.  I was really excited.  But then as luck would have it, sometime in the spring that year Tuan Kiet called me up one day to let me know he had just been invited to perform out in Southern California at the Saigon Performing Arts Theater on a show put together by Thanh Le to benefit disabled people.  That's when I found out that he, himself, was also disabled.  It had never occurred to me to ask before.  But in fact, my friend, Tuan Kiet, had been stricken with polio at an early age and resorts to the usage of crutches in order to walk.  Just by talking to him, nobody would ever even think that he had any physical handicaps.  He's just so positive.  And when he sings, he just puts everyone into a trance with his magnificent voice, I would later discover. 

The day that Tuan Kiet arrived here at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, I had promised to pick him up.  When I got to the airport, despite how we each had seen photographs of one another, we still had trouble spotting each other out among the crowd of airport travelers.  From what Tuan Kiet said, he saw me pass by him several times but at first glance thought I was some Caucasian guy.  According to Tuan Kiet, I don't even look one bit Vietnamese at all in person.  Finally, I had to use my cell phone to call him up to see just where he was at the airport.  After I dialed the number, I could hear the phone ring somewhere nearby, which means Tuan Kiet was standing within my proximex.  When I heard him say hello, I turned to look over and there he was.  That's when he told me how he had seen me all this time, but didn't approach me because he thought I was some White dude.  Now, even I thought that was funny. 

At Thanh Le's show at the Saigon Performing Arts Theater, out of all the singers there such as Thanh Lan, Quoc Anh, Lilian and Phuong Thao, it was Tuan Kiet's performance that really stood out for me.  He really impressed me.  He performed a medley of French songs together with Thanh Lan and Quoc Anh.  Of course, Thanh Lan and Quoc Anh both did a fine job.  Afterall, they are veteran performers who have reached legendary status.  But when Tuan Kiet started to chime in with the first few lines of Viens M'embrasser in his duet with Thanh Lan, I was completely in awe.  This guy's voice is just beyond breathtaking.  And his pronunciation in French, well, uh, coming from such a critic as myself, it is quite a compliment for me to say that I was truly impressed.  Like Khanh Ly had said once about Tuan Kiet, "When you listen to him sing, his voice just makes you forget that he is disabled.  I'll have to agree with her. 

After his performance at the Saigon Performing Arts Theater, I took Tuan Kiet out and spent the night carousing around various hangouts around the Little Saigon community.  We had a blast.  Every bar we had hit that night, both he and I would get up and sing.  Audiences just loved his voice.  Together, we were a hit.  Yes, even I got a few compliments for my singing that night, as well. 

It has been almost two years since then.  We still keep in contact through our telephone conversations.  He's really an all-around great guy.  At times I feel as if I've known him all my life.  I really look forward to our next meeting together, which I'm hoping will be sometime in the very near future.