Lam Triet Gets Inspired By Angkor Wat

I have to admit that I'm a little envious of people who can do things like paint and draw - because all I've ever been able to do is put together some stick figures, and even those don't really even look like anything.

I guess I could lament about it and hang my head in shame, but what fun would there be in that (and truth be told, I really like making stick figures and think they're kind of cute)?

A better use of my time would be to highlight someone like Lam Triet who's a real artist:

Triet first visited Cambodia with HCM City’s Committee for Overseas Vietnamese as part of a programme to donate medicine and food to poor Vietnamese living in the country.

"I was deeply impressed with the sculptures carved on Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat hundreds of years ago," Triet said. "I wanted to express part of that beauty in my works."

He said he was especially struck by the depiction of apsaras, considered to be heavenly nymphs in Hindu mythology, on Cambodia’s temples.

The 36-painting exhibition An Tuong Angkor (Impressions of Angkor) includes depictions of apsara dancers and stone figures on the Bayon temple.

Triet was born in 1938 in Binh Dinh Province and studied painting at Hue and Sai Gon Fine Arts schools.

Read more about Triet at Viet Nam News.

Vietnam, Past and Present

This sounds pretty cool. Check it out:

Six Vietnamese artists will leave Vietnam for Denmark on June 6 to participate in the "Vietnam, Past and Present" show in Copenhagen as part of Deputy PM Nguyen Sinh Hung’s official visit to Denmark from June 9-16.

"Vietnam, Past and Present" is an outdoor show that will be held from 3-7pm at the Nytorv Square in Copenhagen, organised by the Vietnam-Denmark Cultural Development and Exchange Foundation and the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry. The show was developed based on Vietnamese folk music like Cheo (traditional operetta), Xam (beggar’s songs), Quan ho (Love duet) and Cai luong (southern folk opera) and performed in World Music style.

Vietnamese folk music will be mixed with modern music to create a special kind of art.

"The show is a meeting between Vietnamese folk songs and modern western music, between traditional and electronic musical instruments to meet the strict requirements of European audiences. Through the show, European audiences will learn about a traditional, renovated and integrated Vietnam," said musician Quoc Trung, the show’s art director.

Read more down at VietNamNet.

Friendster Goes Vietnamese

Capitalizing on their large presence in Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea), and adding to their support of seven languages, social networking site Friendster recently came out with support for Vietnamese to make the experience easier and better for people that wanted to join up in Vietnamese and to hopefully tap more into the growing Internet users in Vietnam (18+ million).

Cool.

What Do You Expect?

I was reading about the deportation of an American pro-democracy activist and all I could really think of was simply "What the hell did you expect was going to happen?".

What do you expect?

I know this plays into the hands of the "Asian people work really hard" stereotype - and you don't need to look any further than myself to break that stereotype (because I'm kind of a lazy S.O.B) - but in all reality, after you fled your ass from Vietnam, get stranded for six months, and then get imprisoned for another four, creating a company that's a top 10 finalist among the 50 Fastest-Growing Asian American Businesses should really be just like dusting some dirt off you shoulder (sorry, I couldn't resist - I was having a Black Album flashback):

As a teenager in the late ‘70s, Tran and his sister Thu-Hong fled Vietnam on a commercial ship from Panama that took 2,500 refugees to Hong Kong. Stranded in a Hong Kong port for six months and imprisoned for another four, the brother and sister finally got to the U.S. with the help of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and lived in Fort Collins with a foster family.

They spoke no English and had few possessions, mostly the clothes on their backs. In 1981, Tran's sisters, Thu-Van and Thu-Nga, also made it to Fort Collins. In 1992, Tran sponsored his parents, Be Tran and Ngo Vo, his older sister Thu and brother, Mai-Quang, so they also could come to the United States.

Since then, Tran, his family and co-founder Bruce Hottman, have worked 70, 80-hour weeks to build ITX, a successful software and network support company that continues to grow.

Read the full article at The Coloradoan.

Technote Warning: Firefox Vietnamese Language Add-On Has Virus

Just a note for any Firefox users who have added in the Vietnamese Language Pack Add-On, that according to a Wired article released at 8:00 PM on May 7th that the add-on has a known trojan horse attached to help files which could end up running malicious code (the actual name is called the Xorer Trojan).

So if you've installed the add-on it would probably wise to un-install it.

Biloxi: Asian-Americans for Change

This is a good story on Gai Kaitlin Truong who's starting up the non-profit Asian-Americans for Change in Biloxi:

"When it deals with family, I get emotional about it," Truong said. "So many people have lost so much."

That sense of loss and love for her community, motivated Truong to do more to help Vietnamese families that are suffering. So she formed a local, non-profit group called Asian-Americans for Change.

"We know that a lot of the non-profit organizations are not going to be here for the next five years," Truong said. "So we're grass roots, to bridge the gap between the Vietnamese and the English-speaking community."

Read more at the WLOX-TV.

YouTube: Go go communitychannel

Off for a couple of months without any videos, communitychannel (aka 21 yr-old comedian/photoshop/imovie Vietnamese Australian vlogger Natalie - who's had over 2 million views and has 51,000+ subscribers) has gotten back into the YouTube seat with almost famous - not quite virgin...!? spammers and thewinekone. OH and my dress! - but still a good watch.

View almost famous



View virgin...!? spammers and thewinekone. OH and my dress!

Interview: Bich Minh Nguyen

There's a good article and interview on Vietnamese American author Bich Minh Nguyen, who wrote Stealing Buddha's Dinner, down at the Miami Herald:

Bich (pronounced Bit) Minh Nguyen doesn't remember fleeing Vietnam with her father, sister and grandmother during the fall of Saigon; she was only 8 months old. But her memories of growing up in frozen, foreign Grand Rapids, Mich., remain clear and powerful, centered on the delights to which her classmates seemed to have effortless access: Pringles, cherry-flavored Luden cough drops, Doritos, Little Caesar's pizza, Bubble Yum, Kit Kats, Sugar Babies.

Read the full interview here, and check out more about Nguyen's book down at her site.

Boston, Vietnamese, and looking for burial plots

Boston.com has an interesting, and somewhat sad article on some of the Vietnamese population there who are looking to gain access and get proper burial plots where they can be buried with others who've had the same shared experiences, but because of financial constraints are having a hard time:

Statistics show that 46 percent of Vietnamese in Massachusetts are living on low incomes, says the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass-Boston.

Nguyen says he receives a senior benefits check of $578.46 a month. Even if he could afford to have his body shipped back to Vietnam and buried there - a package that some peg in the $10,000 range - Nguyen says he would not do it.

He does not want to burden his three children who live here now with such a long trip to visit his grave. Besides, he says, "I'm US citizen."

Having already reached other markers in their new home, such as learning English and registering to vote, many Vietnamese seniors are anxious to account for their final touchstone: getting buried here.

Read more from the article here.

Vietnam: Get those rice cookers ready

It's about time the streets of Vietnam got safe as the 21 million motorcyclists, under a new law enacted, will be required to wear helmets - affectionately known as "rice cookers" - and the new law couldn't have been enacted sooner as 1 in 4 Vietnamese now have a ride and sales are on the rise - fast.

Vietnam: Past, Present, and Reclamation

There is an interesting article in the NY Times on a Vietnamese woman, adopted as a young child - who thirty-seven years later is still searching for her history and trying to find the truth from her father, who served in Vietnam:

My dad had been serving his tour of duty in Vietnam when he’d decided to adopt. He and my mother had already had two boys and wanted a girl. In 1970, toward the last six months of his tour, he’d come across me in an orphanage and taken me home. At least, that’s what I’d been told as a child.

It's an interesting look into how decades later, the war in Vietnam still has a riveting effect on not just politics - but real people - Asian children transplanted, now grown.

Read the full article here.

Hung Huynh wins it all and becomes Top Chef

Chalk up another win for another cool Asian-American male on TV.

In addition to not only smashing stereotypes as previously talked about here on Slant Eye (see previous post Add Top Chef 3’s Hung Huynh to the list of reality-tv stereotype smashers) now Hung Huynh the 29 year-old Vietnamese-American can add the title of Bravo’s TOP CHEF to his resume as of last night.

And a cool $100,000 as well.

Top Chef Hangs Title on Hung (E! News):

Never underestimate a finely prepared piece of raw fish.

Buoyed by his delightful hamachi appetizer, not to mention his meticulous attention to detail, 29-year-old Hung Huynh was named the winner of the third season of Bravo’s Top Chef on Wednesday. The Massachusetts-born Las Vegas resident looked beyond thrilled when host Padma Lakshmi informed him that his knives were there to stay during the live finale in Chicago.

“I am so excited!” Huynh exclaimed. “I worked so hard to get here and prove myself…I’m speechless, but I’m sure you’ll hear more from me later.”

More on Hung and his Top Chef win:

• Hung’s MySpace page


• Bravo TV’s Top Chef Bio


• BuddyTV article where Hung talks more in-depth about his family and getting from Vietnam to here


• Reality TV Magazine’s coverage

Mover over Criss Angel, meet Andrew Ngo

18, Asian - and the best damn stage magician in San Francisco.

So maybe he has a few more years until he starts competing directly with Criss Angel - but his future is looking bright:

Ngo, the youngest performer there at age 18, won not only the title of 2007’s “Best Stage Magician of San Francisco,” but also the People’s Choice Award, voted on by the 500 members of the audience. For the past four years, no one has won both simultaneously.

Ngo’s confident persona and sharp, quick moves wowed the audience at Noe Valley’s James Lick Middle School when he made two 15-inch umbrellas appear out of one. Clutching his trophy, Ngo stepped off the stage grinning from ear to ear. “It’s a dream come true,” said Ngo, a San Francisco native of Chinese and Vietnamese descent. “I’ve worked so hard for this. Everything’s fuzzy right now.”

Tradgedy claims more victims in Vietnam

The news out of Vietnam isn't looking any better from the terrible bridge collapse:

As of Thursday noon, death toll in a bridge collapse in Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta rose to 64, Vietnam News Agency reported Thursday. The collapse of a 90-m section of an approach ramp, which is over 30 meters above the ground and leading to the six-lane Can Tho bridge, with length of nearly 16 kilometers, the longest and most modern one in the delta under construction, on Wednesday morning also injured some 180 others.

When the accident happened, some 250 workers of the contractor TNK comprising three Japanese firms -- Taisei, Nipponsteel, and Kazima--were working at the construction site.

Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet and Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai have come to the incident's site, instructing rescue work, visiting injured people in hospitals, and asking localities and relevant agencies to support families of death victims.

Vietnamese fisherman’s death labeled a hate-crime by Asian-Americans, but not by authorities

Even though John J. Haley, 31 - who was charged with the murder of Du Doan, 62 in Chicago - is reported as having previous altercations with other Asian-American fisherman, including being charged for battery and assult - the police are still being cautious about calling the murder a hate-crime.

But that’s not stopping those around him from saying different:

“There were a lot of people out at the harbor early that morning from different backgrounds. Why did the alleged perpetrator pick on those individuals?” said Ben Lumicao, an adviser on the city’s Commission on Human Relations. “Everyone in the Asian-American community had the same reaction: That could have been me or my uncle or my grandfather.

”We do think this should be labeled a hate crime,” said Myron Dean Quon, legal director of the Asian-American Institute. “Our organization has gotten lots of calls from concerned residents. This has left the Asian-American community on edge and wary.”

Read more here and here.

Indie Film Watch: Never Perfect By Regina Park

Whether or not you think plastic surgery is fine for anyone and everyone, or you think those who do so should realize their own unique and inner beauty - plastic surgery is here to stay and director Regina Park (a second-generation Korean-American) takes a further look at it through the life of a 27 year old Vietnamese-American woman who is looking to redefine her life.

Here is piece from the film’s synopsis:

NEVER PERFECT explores the complex journey of a young Vietnamese-American woman’s struggle with popular perceptions of beauty and body image as she fights the stigma of racial self-hatred in her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery.

In 1982 her family left behind a tight-knit Vietnamese community for the suburban sprawl of California , U.S.A.

Now 27 years-old, having been reared amidst a backdrop of American malls, movies and magazines and living in the same suburban house in which she was raised, Mai-Anh challenges her self-diagnosed “quarter-life crisis” by way of “new location, new lifestyle, new look.”

She begins a literal and symbolic transformation and reinvention of herself: a relocation from quiet suburbia to the heart of urban Los Angeles, a new lifestyle defined by living on her own for the first time, and finally, a new physical makeover: double eyelid surgery only days after starting her new life.

But will she find the answers to her crisis on the operating room table?

View more information at the film’s website here.

Floods kill 32 in central Vietnam and submerges 48,000 houses

There hasn’t been a lot of good news coming out from Vietnam about this:

Floods have killed at least 32 people in central Vietnam, displacing thousands and cutting the north-south railway, officials said on Wednesday.

The floods triggered by a storm that weakened into a depression since the weekend have isolated many areas from emergency aid, said an official in Quang Binh province. Quang Binh is the hardest-hit of the central coastal provinces with about 40,000 houses submerged. The government said overall more than 48,000 homes and 65,700 hectares (162,300 acres) of crops were under water.

Let’s just hope those who have survived but displaced are in contact with their families and the other people that have been reported missing are alive. Read more at Reuters everyone affected by this in your thoughts.

Vietnamese Traffickers Get Nabbed….

Check it:

Six jailed for selling Vietnamese girls to Taiwan, Malaysia

A Ho Chi Minh City court sentenced Thursday a Vietnamese woman to 12 years in prison and her Taiwanese husband to seven years for selling 126 Vietnamese girls to Taiwan and Malaysia.

Tran Thi My Phuong, 35, and her husband Tsai I Hsein, and four accomplices who all got five to ten years were convicted for “trafficking women”.

One of the accomplices, 35-year-old Phan Thi Hong Yen, got 10 years.

They were also fined VND10-50 million (up to US$3,125) each.

The ring was busted after a victim, who managed to escape back, complained to Vietnamese police who arrested Phuong and Hsien in March last year.

For several years the gang cajoled young girls, mostly from rural regions in the Mekong River Delta, to go to Taiwan for marriages. Once there, they were sold like chattels.

In 2005 it switched from Taiwan to Malaysia where girls the fetched $1,500-2,000 each. Their Malaysian suitors, mostly disabled or old, could ‘return’ the girls if they were not satisfied after a week of living with them.

The gang even sold the women publicly at bars for 17,000-25,000 ringgits (up to $7,285).

At the hearing, the traffickers claimed to lose money from most of their transactions.

From victims who either managed to escape or were released after they paid off the gang the court learned that those who refused to marry would be beaten or kept in isolation.

Many were forced to work in brothels until they were ‘registered’ by a suitor.

Many escaped by walking to Thailand and were arrested there for illegal immigration.

The court rejected the defendants’ request for leniency based on the fact that some of the victims had themselves desired the marriages.

This is one of the biggest trafficking cases busted in Vietnam.

Jesus. While you’re definitely glad that these MFs got their due and you know doing time in a Vietnamese jail isn’t like a country club here in the U.S. - 12 years and a fine? PLEASE. I know it’s difficult to catch these MFs, but when caught - they gotta be harsher with their penalties….

The Weinstein Company picks up rights for the Vietnamese actioner "The Rebel"

From Kung Fu Cinema:

“Vietnam will soon be on the radar of martial arts movie fans in the west, if it hasn’t happened already. Home video rights to THE REBEL, a Vietnamese action drama from emerging action star Johnny Nguyen have been acquired by The Weinstein Company.”

….

“Nguyen, who not only stars but co-wrote the script and co-produced the pic with Jimmy Pham, has already gotten his feet wet in world action cinema by co-starring opposite Tony Jaa as a martial arts-fighting villain in TOM YUM GOONG (aka THE PROTECTOR), another acquisition of TWC that was released in theaters and on DVD in 2006.

Although a drama, the pic is heavy on martial arts action, which we all know sells well internationally. It appears geared as a breakthrough film for Nguyen as an international action star and for his homeland, Vietnam.

Although born in Vietnam, Nguyen has grown up in the U.S. where he trained in kung fu, tai chi, aikido, and wushu. After having been a member of the U.S. Wushu Team, Nguyen began working his way into the film industry and had his first real break when he was cast as a hitman in CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE, starring Jet Li and Mark Dacascos.

THE REBEL takes place in 1920s Vietnam. The long standing French colonization over the country has inflamed anti-French sentiments. At the height of the conflict, rebel forces emerge in many forms to disrupt the foreign occupiers. In response, the French employed elite units of Vietnamese agents to track and destroy these rebels.

The film follows the journey of Le Van Cuon (Johnny Nguyen), a French-cultured undercover elite. Although branded with the perfect track record, Cuong’s conscience is troubled by the sea of Vietnamese blood he has spilled to uphold a French washed ideal.”