Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 520 - What Does It Take To Win An Emmy? - Doan Hoang Curtis

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520 - What Does It Take To Win An Emmy? - Doan Hoang Curtis · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast today.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have Duan Plan Curtis.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's a documentary filmmaker and a different thank you for coming back on the podcast today.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about a few things but first congratulations on your Emmy win.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was awarded to you on May 28th and
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's documentary, the research documentary.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I want to get started by asking you, how did you get asked on the project?
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we did talk about this on a podcast episode a year before, but just to kind of, if anybody hasn't heard that podcast, just to kind of like refresh us and talk about the project.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the project of the series, Netflix is series, turning point, the Vietnam War.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Turning point is a series of doc, it's a doc you series.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's been two before turning point Vietnam War.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this one, particularly, was a five episodes about the Vietnam War as, and the impact of it, really.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a kind of going through points
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, weren't covered in a lot of other documentaries like their or secret recordings of the presidents that had been, you know, suppressed like they were they were released after the Ken Burns series so there's things that, you know, we, you know, that weren't known before in these and we're also at a different time where you see the impact.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: of the war and how it's affected, you know, Americans' relationships with institutions.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, like the distrust of the government really came out, you know, during the Vietnam War with Nixon, there were, you know, people realized that what they were being lied to.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, before it was, you know, kind of a more, you know, perceived as a more innocent time, even though it
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like people didn't know about Kennedy's affairs until later, you know, things like that because people would hide it.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: The media was better at hiding it.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a very different media that we're living with now.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, before the Vietnam War, like with World War II and all the other wars before then Korea, people didn't see those wars.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: They weren't filmed.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: They weren't televised.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: They weren't
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: even, you know, photographs so much.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So people didn't really know what war was.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when, you know, I don't know if they thought it was like the football game, you know, what people on the field against each other.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when, you know, the Americans came home, and, you know, and I'm with Vietnam, I think they knew how to use media as well.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the first war that was televised, right?
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and, you know, lots of propaganda used on all sides.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a, there was propaganda, the North, you know, like a communist Vietnamese were just famous for their propaganda, they would use these acting troops and stuff that, to do these performances that were technically illegal in there, but they would do it worldwide to kind of bring people into the, the cause.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, like the, the southern Vietnamese,
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: film reels that they have of propaganda that more given to the Library of Congress.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, and America had its own propaganda, you know, so, and how they played with it, like we have recordings of Kissinger talking about manipulating the world to feel like it was the fault of the South Vietnamese, you know, at the end of the war.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Vietnam will be a backwater.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what he said, no one will care.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those were from, you know, we have those recordings like in the series.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what's really cool is that, you know, a lot of people who are huge fans of Vietnam more films and study it said that they learned things from turning point Vietnam more that they didn't know.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of it is, you know, hearing those kinds of recordings.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, people had ideas that they were being manipulated into thinking certain things, but they didn't know for sure, but hearing things that were secretly recorded or, you know, like the presence recorded their conversations, we have access to that now.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: of two questions for you.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: First question is, how did you get invited to become a producer on the project?
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did they find you?
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was the sort of the process of that?
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the second question is, like, if I was hiring you, I would be thinking, okay, child of the South, right?
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: South Vietnamese, well, how would dawn affect the project as a daughter of the South when I'm trying to make a docu-series about the entire story,
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what I would say about being a daughter of the South is that's much more complicated.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, my father was really a neutralist.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he just wanted a national independence for the Vietnamese.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, with my first film, O Saigon, I go deeply into the story of my uncle, my uncle Hai, who it was a communist.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: He, you know, was fighting the French when he was a child, like at 14, 15, and then he got pushed up to the north and became part of the the norths of the north.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he and I were very close.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my younger uncle, who I actually found out more about him that he didn't tell me, you know, Saigon while making this project.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was an interesting thing that I,
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, I thought he was more anti war and neutralist, which he was to some extent, but also he actively supported the the national liberation front by giving them medicines.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So for him it was like a humanitarian act of helping people.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was just tired of war.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So all of that shoots
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: who you are and how you contribute to the because I'm, you know, because we sat through this before and I understand that you brought a lot of voice to the project and the voice is not always, you know, the way I would think it would come from a child of the south.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think, honestly, every journalist, every documentary filmmaker has a bias, of course.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody is subjective, but you do your best to do the due diligence of following journalistic practices, you know, to question yourself and question, um,
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have these interview subjects, you choose them.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I've spent a lot of time in Vietnam.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am one of the organizations that helped me with receiving funding for my film was the fund for reconciliation and development.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this was a New York-based nonprofit that worked
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: that came into Vietnam when the war was over and they worked with trying to redevelop Vietnam and with Cuba.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they were trying to, you know, I guess normalize relationships between American communist countries.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I got a lot of exposure.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and help through them.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we didn't see exactly eye to eye on, on a lot of, you know, there are a number of things that we didn't particularly agree with politically, but what I got was exposure.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I got to see victims of, um, of, um, chemical poisoning.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to, you know, meet a lot of
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: in the 2000s.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The lot of them just had no idea about the South.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were just so vehemently against the war and against the South and they cheered when the South lost.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But they didn't really think about like,
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does a war actually mean?
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean on the population?
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: How does it affect people?
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is not a football game.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's many more repercussions with my new film.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: We show that repercussions are more than 50 years with this war that still are strong and lasting for people who were survivors of these traumatic events that are part of war.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, of course I grew up,
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: as someone who was raised by the South and by anti-communist, but I went to, um, I was educated, you know, um, by a lot of professors and teachers who, and I got to really look at first hand materials, that was the big thing.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, I got the, you know, um, we were the victims of the war, that's what I grew up with.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We should have won, it was, you know, America that abandoned us,
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, I get the American side was like the South lost and they, it was their fault.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, I get the, you know, the, the Vietnamese going back to Vietnam saying the Vietnamese, you know, the, the South were the bad guys in the American were the bad guys.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: spending time in Vietnam and also looking at the direct research, looking at the events and studying history.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what was interesting.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like how did brothers go against each other in a war?
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do people go against each other?
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: For me, how does family conflict and trauma happen and how where did it come from and how does it affect us today?
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's always been
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: my interests as a child is like, I think I was looking for healing.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to me, I didn't see a communist and a Republican, I saw my dad and his brother.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, so that and deep down, that's how they felt too, even though, you know, outwardly they said, you know, your dad was a trader or, you know, like, think these kind of things that they said that were in my first film.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so,
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just really interesting to reconcile when there's the personal aspect of it.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And turning point Vietnam more, the series that I worked on with Netflix, the director was the son of an American soldier.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So his bias, you know, and where he's coming from, and then we had a producer in Vietnam, Fungman Gau, who was raised under communism, and was taught, you know,
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: like the very communist way that is suppressing other information being received from from America and from the former self.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we all, that's, that was important to me as to have people represent an on different sides, doing the research and doing the writing and, and
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: and talking through the story and bringing out different subjects that showed a part of the story.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: What I wished we had more of were neutralists.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We did interview maybe one, but you know, it wasn't used in the series.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, so in a five-part series, you don't really have a whole lot of time to even just tell the story straight, much less get into all aspects.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so,
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, definitely things that were left out that can be, um, you know, touched upon more.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did they find you?
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, they...
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess Bob Covetz who was doing the research on the series originally, she was the first producer who was put on.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: She said to them, you guys need Vietnamese people on this show.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was obvious to her and they were like, oh, okay.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they went on a search to look for Vietnamese producers.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: and you know, because the things like access, language, you know, connections, all of those things, and being that I've been working on, you know, different projects around Vietnam for, you know, 20 years, like since 1997 or so, since 1998,
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: They said they found me through three different ways, and I think one was the podcast and one was You know through other producers who've heard of me and and they were looking at like films about Vietnam So they watched my film so you know like through you know different avenues.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: They came to me and and I guess
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: they decided to hire me because I had a lot of experience shooting in Vietnam and we also worked with Tommy Wang who had experience shooting in Vietnam and he focused a lot on dealing with the sensors and dealing with a government and our visas and
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: hotels and all those kind of things.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we all did research on different subjects that we could bring to the story and locations to shoot was more of Tommy's.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: direction, but I had a lot of context through my time with the fun for reconciliation traveling, so I knew people from the net, or TV networks of Vietnam, and they were incredibly helpful with finding me subjects who, you know, were considered national heroes.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's one thing to talk to your uncle about his involvement with communism, but to be straight on with somebody who like bombed Americans or said they ran over bodies of self-inemies like, you like this one, you know, general that we interviewed is kind of like, wow, you know, there was a, there was a way that my heart left when I was dealing with these people, there was like moments of fear that I had, but I had to just acknowledge like the war was 15 years ago.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, these people dealt with stuff much longer than that.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're not your safe, and you're a producer, and you're going to listen.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what you're going to do.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to open your ears and remember people's humanity.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it was more, I mean, not so much of prejudice, but like kind of a lack of exposure.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like when I first came to Vietnam and everyone called Ho Chi Minh Uncle Ho, back home, that was a shock to me at first.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what, who's uncle, who's Uncle Ho?
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the everyone was like, shhh, you know, because there was like, back alive,
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they're like, you know, so they were just ways that I wasn't raised.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then my cousin, she moved to America.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was like, oh my God, I was brainwashed in Vietnam.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea of all kinds of things.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now she's a trumper.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's like someone raised in Vietnam their whole life.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's it's interesting.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: DocuSeries, if the audience hasn't watched it, you need to watch it.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's some riveting moments in it.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The one that stands up particularly for me.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to talk to you about that is the one where I think she's a tanker.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was young and she was mumbling down.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tent killer.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she was shooting tanks.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm guessing with the RPG or rocket propelled grenade launcher that shoots in the tanks and describing what an awesome feeling it was to kill Americans, right?
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or she actually just used a Robine, like a crappy gun.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: in that firefight where she was a teenage girl.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she was with like two other teenagers.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they somehow gotten to a fight in the outside of Kuchi like with these Americans.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the Americans abandoned the tank.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't like she didn't destroy the tank or anything.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: She just managed to like somehow acquire the tank.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, so yeah, she was a really interesting character.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I talked about her a bit in the interview with you before.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The inclusion of that voice for me, or I can imagine for other children of the South when you're first hearing it, it's shocking.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then you start to think about our parents' involvement in this whole thing.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the growth that I'm experiencing
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, all these years getting to know you more is understanding there's different sides to this story and really exposing this story, saying, you know, maybe we are the children of the South, but maybe there's like these other stories that are also valid and real and we don't share.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not our story, but at the same time,
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It should be told just like the decision that you make to put her on a platform to kind of talk about the story.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, she wasn't my choice for sure, but I, she was one of my favorite interviewees because not your choice.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, some, um,
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: the Netflix executives were asking, can we get some female snipers?
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was kind of shocking to me because I was like, are they trying to show aspects of full metal jacket, you know, to be true, or we actually didn't find any snipers, but we found her as a bomber, you know, she made bombs by hand.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: She lost her arm.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was being beat up in a south-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-eastern-
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: jail and she was a teenager and she was doing some bad stuff, you know, she was killing and bombing and setting off bombs They let her go, but they beat her.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's like two things, right?
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, okay, so They knew she was doing terrible things and they beat her and she broke her arm and then they set her free when it started to gangrene so there's like
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of people who think she should have been executed or something like that being, you know, caught doing these things, but she Americans would capture her constantly and she just had the funniest story.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: She talked about once being taken on You know, like this American guy like called her baby son or something
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And why they use these Japanese, you know, names and yet not over fun.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, for more or two.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, then you would give her candy and like bought blindfold or anything.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was actually quite sweet to me.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you talk she talked about how, you know, the difference of treatment she would have where.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like one American guy took her flip flops and like put them on the helicopter for her and like was really kind to her to keep her flip flops Is there on a helicopter and this other one comes on just for was them out, you know, like immediately so she's just kind of laughed at like the difference in and treatment from different people
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like I mentioned before her story that she, you know, she still have a lot of empathy for Americans.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: She saw them crying.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the night when she was a little girl, she like would climb up to like the encampments and just check them out.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, she was like mesmerize.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, they, they, you know, she would say, and she's like, she didn't know if they'd lost friends or they missed their girlfriend or their families.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But she didn't be for them.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then she was orphaned because of
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't remember exactly what, but I think her parents were killed by, um, blast, you know, and then she was raised, who was going to raise her, but the, the NLF raised her, so they used a lot of children, which is really, you know, messed up in many ways and and effective and, you know, like,
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But also at the same time they were raising her.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's so complicated.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what can you say about that?
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they took in these children, but they used them in this way and also, you know, it's it's very complicated and also like the south enemies by beating her like that that is against international law.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know and Vietnam was like a new republic.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were just forming
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: their ideas of, you know, what does Vietnamese democracy look like?
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I got to really look into that.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was something I hadn't thought about that it was a very new country and that they were still, you know, like you think of the declaration of independence and, you know, the articles of the Constitution, how long that took for America.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Vietnam was in the process of that.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, and we're just getting there in the in the 70s.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's something to, you know, I admired them for trying to, you know, because, and then they would make these methods of, you know, kind of, like, rigged elections and stuff like that at the same time.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the attempt to democracy and then also like strongman politics, you know, at the same time.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, you know, how everybody has their way of doing government.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's government is real democracy.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's government is real communism.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was interesting to see this interplay of a country fighting off their colonists and then trying to form with different ideas.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And here we are, we're kind of in a, we're not in a similar place because America has been established for 200 years, 250 years, but we're having those differences in how do we govern this country like what is our ethos.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: While most people just want to live their lives.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: have food on the table, have enough to live and eat and take care of their children.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's like most of the people and get for me to be and do what they need to do to earn money.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like that's what most people want.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then you've got these like kind of to me like high ideals on either end of like, you know, it's everyone should be equal.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, everyone should just get what they get, you know, like.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that makes total sense.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm raised with America, so I understand the American totally of two, so it's like I've spent time in, you know, all the different countries I lived with, or a lot as well, so I know, like European understanding of the armholes is different from American, you know, being the less involvement directly and more criticism, so, you know, I think that's the thing about being a doctorator leader is that, um,
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: you do have to lay your bias aside, and what's great about it is the process of doing the word makes you less biased, because you meet with people, you hear about your whole life, you do very long interviews with them.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, some interviews done or been like four hours or so, so you learn a lot about someone's life and you can't stop feeling their humanity.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: so I became so much more empathy for all of them doing will work, which is something I was looking for.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to know, like why that was what drove me in the beginning, why did my uncle fight against my father?
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that was my first why and film.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And another why in my work is all the way through from the child that I wrote, my first autobiography of the Vietnam Mortgage 9.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I did my first film at age 12.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was also why, why are we here?
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why are we in this country?
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why did we lose the war?
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why is our home God?
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why am I separated from my sister?
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, like why am I parents so unhappy, like those were my original wise.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, you know, why are we different than everybody else?
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why do we think differently?
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've got to ring up here.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so what do we look different?
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's just so many questions as a child going into it that, um, you know, some people, I think to remember these people with the trauma differently, like my younger sister, she's most concerned about safety.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, I want to have enough money so I can do everything, you know, she's a child of refugees.
• 24:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was born here and you know, we work for her.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: at first, and so she was more focused on that track, but why was more focused on how did the staff that you know?
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my brother spent more time in Vietnam than I did in my older sisters spent more time in the arm.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm coming to understand how that time or lack of time in Vietnam is a real influence on each of our views of the ruler of ourselves, of our relationships, basically.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's way more higher for the whole time.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: We smell Vietnamese, so people leave a lot in like, you know, they're the other sister you have to talk to me in this way.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my younger sister was born here.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hasn't her moved that?
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, she's like, but whatever.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: She calls, you know, it's called that her first name.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't give anybody more respect for being older.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then I'm in between them.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to switch over to this whole statue at here.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not a whole lot of Vietnamese people were in these things.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not a whole lot of Vietnamese women when the M.A.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: or an Oscar or a Tony.
• 25:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you see this coming?
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And how has it affected your life?
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been almost two months now.
• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well first I will say that I was looking into it to see, you know, what Vietnamese American filmmakers have won Oscars and Emmys and her friend Tom Cross was the first Vietnamese to
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw that there was one Vietnamese woman, unfortunately I don't remember any in the moment, who won the Emmy a daytime Emmy for costume.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the one, babies I know, who's won the Emmy for the first time.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a news anchor, we know when.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're talking about, like, national Emmy or, like, I don't know what that is.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, there's, there's, like, different kinds of Emmys.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, there's, like, the statuettes, you could look different.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, this, you know, you see some of them, and they're smaller.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those are, like, they have local news Emmys, and they have, like, L.A. has.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That are poll and memes.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like California has, it's all in them.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's basically, it has a tsunami.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't know this.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's the prime time in these when the day time in these, there's a news and dark in these, such as what I want in them.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so those are like the big trophy of the national in these for like national production.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is something like that.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you have all the local arts.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's some people say that they've won Emmys, but they actually won, like, local Emmys.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those are easier to win, which I wish I had known before.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of them, it was a joke, because I would try and done some sort of local thing.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there's many ways that people play the game, too, like a matter of one of them this week, I was at a documentary, a film conference, and she talked about how,
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: She had a program on Netflix that won a daytime and for series.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was a case at a daytime early if it's on Netflix because that's not particularly good.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like health related.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we've seen this subject that they deal with in daytime.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And someone else I met said that he...
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: need you know he didn't have a chance to win like best documentary um so he got into best sports documentary category because you can apply for different ones and turning point being on more actually got not made for best documentary which is very rare for series usually it's just a single film
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, we did one of the one and best historical documentary, those, I was in those categories, and then those, and I researched documentary, and we're also not being for lighting, which, for, you know, individuals, players of our team.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's like the levels to this.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean it's not like the Oscars of Toys, right?
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, any self-like different levels.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, well, there's student Oscars.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you have that student attachment.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel good.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of our friends, the student, is a friend of Tom Cross.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, the student is also being the means of being a student.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a totally different category.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's also Tech Academy Awards, and they look different.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I have a friend who's one, two posters, but they reflect that.
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're in a totally different ceremony.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: They get the Statue of Ed looks different.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it's like a smaller, or a mirror with like kind of a fork to the side or something.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like a plaque.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's different ones, but this is like the statue.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, the national statute.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I've seen the long-distance before.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's been as easy as it is.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've seen Instagram posts where you were in the self-loaded of this.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like a New York thing to do.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, the funny thing is, you know, I have Netflix, you know, with all the the streamers that are in the world, like, you know, when we were young, they were, you know, three and four channels.
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, full the money went into all those programs.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: But,
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now there's so many streamers, so many channels, YouTube, all this stuff, and Netflix didn't, that guess they used to cover flights and hotels and cars for people when they were not made for Emmys and Austrians and things like that in the courts.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But they just don't have the budget.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's so many programs that they have.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we were told, I, what I understood is that we had a one-way cab ride.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it turned out it wasn't true.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, to the $72 cab ride into Manhattan from Brooklyn, staying with my friend, Sam Fullmaker, Sam Fullmaker.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's also an Emmy winner, an Oscar Noney.
• 31:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't paid for so on the white hall and we looked at how much the mover was going to be and You know, it was a lot.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was, you know, like the dollars or something like that.
• 31:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're like, okay, we're taking this on the way and we're on the subway and Part of me, you know, we had a carry bag for this is the case.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's huge and, you know, we're carrying it in this bag that's specifically made for a decent Elvis thing fifth into this and it's like velvet.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, when part of me wanted to like, because New Yorkers are so fun, you can just like sing Like, hey, hey, and a lot of people and I told them, hey, I wanted Emmy, everyone was like, oh my god, it's so cool
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think LA people are a little bit more days about it, you know, like, oh, whatever, you know.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, like, I wanted to tell people business like near city at night, it could be dodgy, and I wouldn't be like, hey, I wanted to know me.
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, thank you.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for your own means.
• 31:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, and then at the end, I thought, well, I'll do it right before I get off the train.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And by the time we got to Brooklyn, I mean, it was super late.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got to an after party at the hands of our aunt's old.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And everyone was passed out.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: to like guys sleeping and I was going to like, I'll get her back.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds like a lot of fun.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what was incredibly cute was um, I...
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I visited, I did a shoot in DC just at like right after like two days after and I met up with my mother-in-law, my husband was with me, and we were meeting at the restaurant and she said, where's the Emmy?
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, it's in the car and she said, can I see it?
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, okay, so I went to the car, got it.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And next thing you know, the wait was like, can I, can I, get my picture taken with you?
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can I move the Emmy?
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like a whole restaurant.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you know, everyone was like, hey, come over here.
• 32:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was incredibly sweet.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of like, I didn't realize how exciting an amy is for everyone, you know, that it's not just the person who wins it.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just kind of like a special thing that not everybody, you know, like, I've had people who've ratted started waving and like putting their fist in the air.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, thank you, thank you, thank you, and the whole time when you, you know,
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a significance for me by sitting here talking to you because I used to be in the window cover and business for 25 years and I would do this whole film store, all the stars and LA, the scrammies and hospirs and enemies, I'll never really share all these stories.
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember that experiencing, like, I'm so close to these people that you can't talk to them.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like physically close to them for you're not able, but I consider you a friend.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm able, this is the first time I've been able to touch and I mean, I've seen them in so many of the homes that I've done.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you have.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it is really a...
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: in honor, you know, and I'm privileged to be able to sit here with you as a winner.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm willing to do that.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not taking pictures because I love taking everyone's picture with it because it's just like you.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, because it doesn't feel like it's just mine.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, in another part of that was, um,
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we got nominated for the five Emmys, I texted the Marines from the fall site on organization that I met a year ago at the 50th anniversary before the second part was my current fall that I'm working on, oh America, 1975.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they, they, you know,
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: They really took to it, and they were so excited for me.
• 34:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were on a thread together, and one of the wives said, what do you know where?
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't know.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And next thing you know, all the Marines are like, you should wear an alia, like they knew what I was called.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: They'd been stationed in Vietnam before.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then a couple took me aside and said, we want to buy an alia for you.
• 35:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was so incredibly moved.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't believe they were just going to contribute to your dress and your trip to whatever you want with the money.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And next thing we know, they have been going with the money.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they went down to Bullseye Goans, my friend Drang's shop.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: She has a total ton of junk.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I took all these fabrics and different dresses and sent them pictures for all the Marines.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: They all, um, there was one I particularly wanted and it was maroon and gold and, uh, they, they all love that one and didn't think about the fact that maroon and gold is the color of the marines dress color right flag and, uh, and so I just sent them a picture marines shirt back then coincidence, like the colors scheme.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, they, they're like, what are the chances of that?
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was, it's really cute.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then they heard that my husband goes and go like to the AMAZE because a ticket is $700 and so they,
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They sent us all we've got together and sent us money.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: They proud funded without in one after a new.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was about to leave the next day and the next thing you know, they said enough money for a plane ticket and a ticket to the L.E.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when my husband and I had just managed to get him all the same flight as me.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a really special experience, and they were watching the whole time live and just texting me.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just texting them in the audience.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just so much fun, and you could just see how excited they were from me.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just a really beautiful experience to have them with me.
• 36:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like they took me out of Vietnam and they took me to the gangs.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there is a reason why I think that they did that for you.
• 37:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: you affected my life in ways that you've introduced me to so many guys, you know that early years and you didn't even know me, but you didn't even know who I was.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as I'm sitting here touching the Emmy, I remember you actually gave me the job to translate.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: provide me to English in this documentary series.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you so much for that, too.
• 37:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you've touched a lot of our lives.
• 37:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a US Marine, what is a US Marine, too?
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we have a lot to thank you for.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you've really touched a lot of our lives.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not just me.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know it's a lot of our cement in this business.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you.
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It means a lot, because you do the thing that you need to, and you feel as writer,
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: or you know, the universe is tapping on your shoulder and saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know, or you got the questions in your heart, you know, you do what you believe in, but you don't realize that so much of it is energetic connection, you know, that, um,
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You meet people that you're supposed to meet.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're connected with people you're supposed to connect with.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I hear from younger filmmakers how my work influenced there.
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like a playwright named Vivae Thai said that when she saw my film, she was inspired to make a woman show about her family's escape.
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she did that at the Hollywood film, French Fest.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it got really great reviews.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a great play.
• 38:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's, that's amazing that you just be you and I'm sure you do that every single day with this podcast.
• 38:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: You get, you're going to do so many people to all different sectors where Vietnamese people are working.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And,
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: inspiring.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know my niece has listened to the program watch it and, you know, that it that affects a whole another generation.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it is amazing through like all of our connections and all of our, all of the things we do for, we kind of do for ourselves, we affect everyone in it.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, we don't exist in vacuum.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, we don't.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's your next project?
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to show to you that this was the dress that I wore at the fall of summer and I took it with me during my amy speech and it was like part of the speech was about the dresses and the whole audience you can hear them just go like, oh, like when I said this is the dress I wore during the fall of the second on, you know, there was that tiny you're holding them in one hand probably for the other, yes, like this.
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so my next project is, you know, oh, American 1975 and it's about 50 years later, the false icon.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is my third and hopefully final, false icon film.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I was,
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I started this project as you might remember my brother and my cousin who were four and six during the fall of Cygon they were airlifties in the planes and helicopters and they knew what was going on and there's you know another Vietnamese American who famously was photographed on the
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: with the yellow flag and the three stripes atop the capital.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was also an air-lifting from the false icon and they all were at the capital in January 6.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: During whatever some people call an instruction, plus some people call it a rally.
• 40:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: My brother had a very different description
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but that is what started me on that project and then I'm when I was interviewing people for, um, you know, um, like I filmed Fiat Town Wing and, uh, laying at Prince wife laying at your house.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's another guy named Nick Wang who was also part of the year left.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was on the very same ship as me, the Hancock.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And his father was one of the people who the helicopter pilots who landed in the ocean.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he was three.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were all three and four.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we were just.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: We, none of us remember the false, I got like little moments of it, you know, that none of us clearly remember the way my brother and cousin do they have like what you call implicit number explicit memory we had implicit memory which was like the feeling that you get that I remember the feelings but not the actual things even though I remember implicit stuff before and after that week I don't remember anything.
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so interestingly, with all of us replay the false icon over and over, I work like in the synthesizer, he's in the false icon.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like he's replaying something that he had forgotten.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like all of us touch on so much on Vietnam and our work.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I found that really fascinating.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then when I met the Marines in the false icon,
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: They, you know, number of them were like, you know, obsessed, like, you know, more filmed with films and a lot of them, you know, just carried the same sort of PTSD as me and, you know, there's this thing with the Marines of like no no one's left behind, right, you don't leave anyone behind and yet they left 400 people in the roof of the embassy and that guilt.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: like 10% of them to commit suicide, well, no.
• 42:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, they know that's a high number.
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it's weird because it's in grain in US rain.
• 42:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like two things.
• 42:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mission accomplishment and then, you know, leave no one behind or true welfare, right?
• 43:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 43:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like encoded in this entire time that you're training to become a marine, and while you're in the fleet, that's what your,
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: genetically like programmed to think about.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you leave an evacuate and you leave people back, it's, I can't imagine.
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the last two American soldiers who were killed, were not collected for a year.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were at a hospital, like an Adventist hospital, and psyched on.
• 43:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: They left them behind, you know, and so they, and even though it wasn't their fault, they were like most of them were 18 years old at the time.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 43:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I went to the funeral recently of Juan Valdez, who was called Top Veldez, he was a very last Marine to get on the very last helicopter to leave at the fall of Saigon, so he was very last American in the war on Vietnamese soil.
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he was Latino.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's not a whole lot of acknowledgment of that.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the very first prison war was Latino as well.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's all of these.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I'd like to talk to me quite a bit more is that we have people like that in our series.
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had black soldiers, Asian, Asian-American soldiers, people were Japanese who were drafted.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's the kind of representation that is not the ones that keep being done over and over again.
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That I really enjoy seeing.
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to show an aspect.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, also there's, you know, like CIA agents in my film and, you know, people were part of organizing the air left.
• 44:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the effect on them 50 years later, and the effects on their loved ones too.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, because war doesn't end just with one's experience, you, you know, you can't help but affect the people in, you know, if you're wanting to commit suicide, you know, or, you know, which I think many people who, um, survived from the false I unfelt, there was a lot of, you know, like I had a number of attempts in my family, including myself.
• 45:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was, I didn't understand it as a,
• 45:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: as a four-year-old child, I would go to the Nitro and want to stab myself.
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't my fault that my older sister was left behind, but there was this, like, grief that, like, can't be contained in a lot of ways to witness the chaos, like that, and the pain of people being in danger in such a way, people dying, like, people
• 45:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: getting hurt, people getting trampled on and fighting for their lives to get out and not being able to, and, you know, I think witnessing the fall on the part of a, you know, one's country like that and, and the, the entering of, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the losing your home really, that that was a hard for everyone to win this except for the winners and even the winners, I noticed like when we interviewed a lady who had been a spy.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when she talks about the false icon, she says she feels both grief and victory, you know, like that feeling of like so much pain, all your holding back and holding in, even though she, you know, her side one, just the grief of everyone who has lost.
• 46:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think about how it has an effect a long term effect for everyone.
• 46:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: She died, unfortunately, after filming,
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so, um, all I have for us that interview, you know, um, but, um, how and probably special it was to get to meet the other side who, uh, and see that it wasn't easy for them either, you know, it wasn't very painful road for everyone involved, which is what, what was our, you know, all America sounds very complex because now it's like shifting different perspectives within your own family, your, your perspective, um, when does it come out?
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm still working on it.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm funding, trying to fund the editing of it right now.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've had some people offer.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So hopefully that will come through.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm always with still been shooting.
• 47:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just been a beautiful process of getting to know how other people lived after the war and how long it affected them.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, as a filmmaker, I don't think I intended to heal myself in the process of making a film.
• 47:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that that's what I was trying to do under me, for all, you know, I just thought, well, I'm just curious.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to know how to do this.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: This hasn't been covered.
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: This point of view hasn't been covered, so that was the journal aside of me.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then this, but what I didn't realize is that,
• 47:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: being with these people who suffered in many ways in different ways and similar ways to me has made me really feel healed, and love and connected in this way that I have never been.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, it's an after-fact that I didn't expect.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And beginning to understand that this obsession that we have, you have your obsession with this part of history, I have an obsession with the migratory sort of development of Vietnamese people who globally.
• 48:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a gaping hole that we have, these wounds that we have, these core wounds that we have and we can't explain.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the obsession,
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: it involves healing and for me it's podcasting it's writing parts of me have that filmmaking side and now recently painting all of these things are just to really settle my my soul about
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I live in my brother and I eat so angry, I'm like, you got to be born in Vietnam and I didn't and then he's been looking there for 24 years and I never got that chance and it's nobody's fault.
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, he didn't want that, you know, he just, you know, he just, you know,
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I always wanted it, and it just never happened.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm here for another reason too, in America.
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's things that I have to work on to really work on this obsession too.
• 49:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like, like, if I moved to Vietnam, I'd be able to fix this, I'm fixing it and healing it just the same way that you're doing it, making movies and, you know, answering to the call of the wild of this obsession.
• 49:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Luckily, I got to interview you for the film, even though you weren't even born yet.
• 49:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 49:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You still feel the trauma that your parents get from it.
• 49:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 49:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I understand that implicit, explicit perspective when you were talking about it right now.
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for you, you weren't even alive yet.
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, you carry this weight of what your family went through, you know?
• 49:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this anger of like,
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, one might not part of that tribe.
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, formal, lifetime of a formal existing human being who's just constantly going like, but when I recognize you, I recognize I hear you, I see you because you're like, it's a kinship that we share with the succession.
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But maybe that that formal that you had
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: makes you serve a very specific purpose that maybe someone else would have because you have such a hunger to understand Vietnam that you're asking these questions of everyone, you know, several times a week.
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you need that kind of, you know, like, and if I hadn't been traumatized
• 50:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, had family disconnected and the war through, you know, my sister being left behind, my uncle being on the other side, all those things.
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I wouldn't have the need to like hear all the sides, you know.
• 50:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like that it's like, maybe the trauma is the set up for what the universe asks each of us.
• 51:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the payoff
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: is we spend time setting up, but the payoff really is the healing, and it completes these cycles of woundedness.
• 51:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I'm here for now.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I used to be so unhappy with this feeling, but now I can now, I'm with the help of charging BT, it really opened at my eyes.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really?
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I started to like say, why am I like dragged into this that painting and
• 51:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then touch your disease like, okay, we're here to be breaking down.
• 51:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's not the medium that's important yes that's right yeah and i was saying to fill that i wanted to do a painting series you know like uh... after all i'd like to do a comedy you know just switch into other things but there's so much ways so he was to express me you know we talked about the stand of the yes yes i'm like why am i like get you pulled that way but yeah
• 52:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there is so much that's funny that you need to release everyone means to laugh about this.
• 52:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's always just a die laughing when there's like, you know, like those Vietnamese videos on Vietnamese parents that all recognize or like, oh my god, yes, that is my parent.
• 52:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's the same everywhere.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I look forward to having you back on in a few short months.
• 52:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, once you're done with it and it starts to tour with the film festivals and all that, we'll have you back and we'll catch up.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, obviously, we go to dinner quite often.
• 52:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I look forward to that as well.
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Kenneth.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
• 52:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
• 52:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 52:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.