VietACT Website
It’s alliiiivee. After promising the folks at VietACT a new website for almost an entire year, I’ve finally gotten my ACT together (no pun intended) and worked on a complete revamp of the website. Well, after working on this for the past 12 consecutive days, I am proud to announce that the new website finally went up today. Sure, it is still lacking a lot of content, but we hope to fill it up soon. Stay tuned for VietACT's Relay Against Trafficking Campaign information.
Journey from the Fall at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
I went to the press conference of the 24th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival today to see the final version of Ham Tran’s “Journey from the Fall”. While this is the third time I am watching this movie, it’s the first time I am seeing it in its final cut, and boy, I can’t believe I am still crying over and over again whenever I see the tragic scenes about a Vietnamese family’s journey to the United States after the fall of Saigon and the reeducation camp experience. For those who haven’t seen it yet, it’ll play during the film festival’s closing night gala on March 23rd at 7pm at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF.
As a fan of independent, Asian films, I absolutely can’t wait for this festival. Check out the amazing line-up. There are two other Vietnamese-related films that will have their world premieres at this festival. Duki Dror’s “The Journey of Vaan Nguyen” tells the unheard story of Israel’s Vietnamese refugee community with a family that fled Vietnam and adapts to the land of Jews (sure sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?). At the same time, San Francisco resident Vu T. Thu Ha’s “Kieu” is a loose adaptation of Vietnam’s epic poem “The Tale of Kieu” (Truy?n Ki?u) and is setting Kieu into the neighborhoods of 21st century San Francisco. Kieu is played by Spirits actress (and Vietnamese hottie) Kathy Nguyen.
VANG 2006 – Student of the Year Award
Speaking of San Francisco, the Vietnamese American National Gala is heading westbound. It’s gonna happen this year right here in San Francisco, departing from its traditional location at the White House complex in Washington, DC. VANG 2006 is currently seeking nomination for its Student of the Year Award. It’s an award presented to an outstanding college student (senior) whose services to the community, academic excellence, personal achievements, and/or future represent the best and brightest of the next generation of leaders. See the submission guidelines.
America Online Instant Messenger goes Unicode
America Online's newest version of its popular instant messenger program AIM is finally, finally, finally supporting unicode. What this means for you with the Triton version, is that you can finally type in Vietnamese in a chat. Simply download VPSKeys, switch to the Unicode mode and start chatting in Vietnamese, or shall we say... b?t d?u nói ti?ng Vi?t di?
Bonjour Vietnam
If you haven’t heard of the “Bonjour Vietnam” song yet, then you seriously live behind the moon, because this song has been blogged about, forwarded, posted so many times on the internet. The pace of its circulation is really off the hook, as I get more emails on this song than the usual Hi-I-am-from-Africa-and-have-$20,0000-locked-in-an-account-email. It’s a simple flash animation created by Donny Truong consisting of a lot of nice Vietnamese sceneries (by unaccredited photographers) combined with a very nice melody and lyrics by Marc Lavoine and performed by Pham Quynh Anh. Sure, maybe the flash is a bit corny, but the melody and her voice sure is a beautiful combination. German/French/English translations are here. Vietnamese translation and interview can be found here.
Past Vietnamese Buzz entries: January 2006