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They Call Us Viet Kieu

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30/06/2016

BBC Radio 4 - They Call Us Viet Kieu

Anna Nguyen journeys to Vietnam rediscover the war-torn country her parents fled in 1975.

Anna Nguyen, a second-generation British Vietnamese theatre producer, grew up fearing the country her parents fled in 1975. Now she returns to rediscover Vietnam for herself.

Anna Ngyuen, a second-generation British Vietnamese theatre producer, has always associated fear and unexplained inherited traumas with Vietnam. Her parents fled the war-torn country in 1975, as part of the mass exodus, and were resettled in London along with 20,000 other Vietnamese. 

Forty years later Anna returns to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to rediscover Vietnam and its vibrant arts scene for herself.

She finds out that the local Vietnamese call people like her, ethnic Vietnamese born or living abroad, Viet Kieu. And she discovers that many of those who have returned to Vietnam are on a similar journey - to find out who they are. Foreign but not foreign, Vietnamese but not Vietnamese. Among the burgeoning creative community they are using art to make sense of their identity.

Does the Vietnam her mother feared still exist? What are local Vietnamese like her doing? And what would the Vietnam Anna be like if her parents hadn't left? 

Producer: Fabiola Büchele
A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4.

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