It’s hard to remember the first time I watched “Paris by Night.” Maybe it was at home, where my parents had several of the show’s DVDs. Maybe it was on a nondescript screen at any of the dozens of nearby Vietnamese restaurants we visited in Houston’s sprawling Asiatown neighborhood. Or maybe it was at a relative’s house, a hair salon or the Vietnamese auto shop.
In truth, I can remember “Paris by Night” playing in all of these settings. Like many other first-generation Vietnamese Americans, I grew up with the show in the background of my childhood ― its plaintive love-in-wartime ballads and campy pop numbers playing at my parents’ friends’ weekly get-togethers, and its comedic punchlines eliciting howls and cackles of laughter.
A colorful, six-hour variety show complete with folk music, modern pop, vaudeville-style comedy and fashion shows, it was, for decades, the only such Vietnamese-language program of its kind, catering to thousands of far-flung diaspora Vietnamese (called Việt Kiều) seeking a connection to their culture.
I used to think “Paris by Night” was super sến, or cheesy. I enjoyed it mostly in secret, watching from behind my parents’ shoulders and pulling up clips on YouTube. But as I’ve come of age, I have a newfound appreciation for it. After all, in that bygone era before Asian Americans, let alone Vietnamese Americans, had any sort of representation in film or music, “Paris by Night” offered a glimpse of what it meant to be Vietnamese on screen.
Now, as the show celebrates 40 years and Vietnamese talent gains a foothold in mainstream media, some are paying subtle tribute. I was recently surprised to learn that Netflix’s “Beef” cast Hong Dao, a “Paris by Night” comedic staple, as the mother of Ali Wong’s character. Meanwhile, HBO’s limited series “The Sympathizer,” based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel, cast longtime “Paris by Night” co-emcee Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen ― whose…
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