Adventures in TV Stardom

Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, but in Vietnam, if you are a foreigner who speaks Vietnamese, you can have a whole hour of it Tuesday night at 8:05.

Yes, I have now made my debut on Hanoi TV Channel 1's "Tuesday Night Talk Show."

In case the name isn't clear, "Tuesday Night Talk Show" is a talk show that airs on Tuesday night. The general premise is, get 10 young foreigners

together with 5 moderately famous Vietnamese celebrities


and have them discuss different topics. The topics I participated in were:

1. Your most embarrassing moment
2. Your best friend
3. Breaking up
4. Understanding American Culture

Because people from all over the world participate, you get quite a range of views on each subject, generating some pretty interesting conversation. For example, in the "Breaking up" session this young Chinese girl insisted that if your parents don't like your boyfriend/girlfriend, that's a good reason to break up.







When you throw a few comedians into the mix, the dialogue gets even better.











Then of course since this is Vietnam, where karaokes outnumber dance clubs 100:1, we just had to have some singing.




And then they had us tell all of North Vietnam our most embarrassing moments, breakup stories, etc.



And at the end we danced.



All in all, it was great fun. Plus it was a great opportunity to learn words like

"makeup" (trang điểm)


"lighting check" (kiểm tra đèn)


"cute MC" (MC dễ thương)


and most importantly, "totally wonderful friends who came to support me and to whom I am very grateful" (các bạn cực kỳ tốt bụng đến cổ vũ em, và em rất cảm ơn)


A very special thanks to Mr. Long, my boss, who took all these pictures.