The West's Songs, Our Songs: The Introduction and Adaptation of Western Popular Song in Vietnam before 1940

Abstract

In her study of Vietnamese refugee communities in the United States, Reyes relates several occasions when her respondents identify songs performed in a Western popular idiom as authentically Vietnamese music (1999: 63; 94). On my first trip to Hanoi in 1993, I encountered a similar situation. When I let it be known that I was interested in learning about Vietnamese music, ordinary showed me Paris by Night videos - taped variety show programs featuring popular songs performed by overseas Vietnamese in Las Vegas-style stage shows. This was a different reality than I was prepared for by reading the literature published on Vietnamese music. With coverage devoted almost entirely to traditional music, a standard reference work like the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Trin Vain Kh8 & Nguyen, P. T. 2001) offers little insight into this music. Yet the authors of the New Grove article acknowledge that traditional music no longer corresponds to the needs of the media or urban Vietnamese people (597). While traditional music is undoubtedly valued by the Vietnamese, the music that most of them listen to and think of as Vietnamese music comprises works written in Westernized song forms.

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