How Does Hanoi Rock? The Way to Rock and Roll in Vietnam

Abstract

How Does Hanoi Rock?The Way to Rock and Roll in Vietnam Jason Gibbs (bio) The origins of rock music are nearly coincident with Vietnam's 1954 partitioning; Elvis Presley's first single was reaching the radio airwaves as the French agreed to withdraw from Indochina (James 1989, 122). Not long afterward, American advisors and military personnel were arriving in South Vietnam bringing the latest American popular music with them. Rock was the music of the Cold War and was an often unwitting combatant in a larger ideological war. In the West it was seen both as an enemy from within and as an expression of freedom and peace. The Soviet block dreaded it because of its possible ability to focus youth and their rebellion. These confusions of cultural and ideological viewpoints have influenced the reception of rock music in Vietnam. From 1954 there was an embargo on all Western entertainment in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and its capitol, Hanoi. Rock entered Vietnam through Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam—better known as South Vietnam. Though subject to the scrutiny of a society at war, it was not subject to heavy censorship and was even incorporated into the propaganda engine of the southern state. After the fall of Saigon and the reunification of Vietnam in 1975, the victorious Communists banned the South's music including rock. Nevertheless, rock remained a part of Saigon's collective memory and its influence traveled north to Hanoi. Although it has always been a minority taste, rock has long found a devoted audience among Vietnam's elite youth attending private schools and universities. In this paper I trace the development of rock music in Vietnam, starting with its origins in the South and a similar evolution in the North. For the past decade, rock has been enjoying a resurgence in Vietnam despite being viewed with suspicion by Vietnam's communist government who have characterized it as a neo-colonial poison. Vietnam's contemporary rock musicians have tried to adapt rock music to local conditions making this music part of a wider struggle between the local and global occurring in Vietnam today. This paper provides a history of Vietnam's encounter with rock in order to provide the context for today's developments. [End Page 5] Rock in South Vietnam The earliest rock music in Vietnam was performed, often by Filipino bands, to entertain Americans and other foreigners in Saigon's nightclubs. These groups provided tutelage to the first Vietnamese musicians who eventually joined them playing in bars and dancehalls. A second stage of Vietnamese rock was a style of music known as action music (kíchnhạc). At the outset these were American and French pop and rock songs sung and played by Vietnamese bands. Beginning in the early 1960s, Vietnamese songwriters began to write Vietnamese language songs using dance rhythms like mashed potato, watusi, a go go, and especially the twist, all then current dance rhythms of rock'n'roll. These rhythms were integrated into the existing variety show and dancehall repertoire. Since the late 1940s, Vietnam's urban music markets had been organized into a Tin Pan Alley—like division of labor. Songwriters, publishers, radio and dance orchestras, arrangers, and singers all played roles in the creation, performance, and promotion of popular music. Songwriters used rock'n'roll and rhythm and blues styles to broaden their creative pallet. The twist in particular, and dancing in general, was at the vortex of South Vietnam's culture wars through the Ngô Ðình presidency (1954–1963). It was condemned and banned as an affront to morality through the energies of Madame Nhu ( Xuân), the president's sister-in-law (New York Times, "Saigon Regime Bans Songs for Twisting," April 2, 1963). The communist National Liberation Front similarly condemned the Americans for "training" Vietnam's teenagers to twist ("Liberation Radio Scores South Viet-Nam's First International Rock Music Festival Held to Benefit Families of Killed Soldiers" 1971). Owing to its drive and upbeat quality, rock'n'roll and rhythm and blues were also incorporated into the music of the Southern regime's psychological-warfare program. Action music was used...