Memoir.

Born in Long An, a province south of Saigon, I have worn many hats in my life. First, it was music that I fell in love with during the 7th grade as I joined my Taberd high school orchestra playing clarinet.


Not a good choice, so a few years later I switched to playing guitar at the time when the music of The Beatles stormed the world. With the tutoring of my friend Le Huu Ha guitarist and songwriter, I learned to play guitar and sing a la American and British groups of the early sixties. Ha and I then started a group called 'Hai Au' (Seagulls). It was the only rock group with a Vietnamese name in Saigon while others of that era called themselves by either French or English names such as: Les Vampires, Les Fanatiques, The Rocking Stars, The Black Caps...

Around early 1996, Le Huu Ha decided to replace the drummer with a younger and more dynamic one. The group, also entertaining the public at the Saigon Zoo, played music not too far from the wild animal cages.

As the Vietnam War became more intense, thousand and thousand of Americans soldiers came to Vietnam. There was a need to entertain the troop so the various Viet rock groups found themselves a golden opportunity to play the music they love and to make good money. My rock group Hai Au, then called simply The Seagulls, had a good time entertaining the GIs at their units located around Saigon.

By late Spring 1967, I left The Seagulls to form another group to entertain the Big Red One Division located in Lai Khe, this was a decision that I later regretted for leaving the group without consulting Le Huu Ha and other members of the group.

By the end of 1967, I made another tour to Lai Khe playing with another band. In the picture, my hand and foot were bandaged following a motorcycle accident. A very nice Spanish descendant G.I. of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division took this polaroid picture.

And so, I kept jumping from one group to another.

After the Tet Offensive, I joined the South Vietnamese Army in late March 1968 and spent the next six weeks in a boot camp near Ba Ria. Being in the military didn't keep me from playing music, I played music to entertain the South Vietnamese soldiers and played music off hours to entertain the U.S. soldiers and still made very good money.

The most memorable gig was with the 101st Cav. I then played with a band called 'The Mavericks'. The band traveled in a van to Di An just north of Saigon. There, a long big Chinook helicopter swallowed the whole vehicle and spitted it out at Phuoc Thanh, a gun smoke filled fire base. The sound of music was accompanied by the roaring thunders of the canons firing away not so far from the stage. The G.I.s enjoyed the gig fully and really appreciated the band for coming to such a place.
Months later, the same band traveled north to Tay Ninh to entertain a South Vietnamese unit. En route, the vehicle ran into a VC ambush. The drummer was hit and died instantly. Luckily for me, I had left the band sometime earlier to join another group.

(to be continued)

Christmas 1972.

Last gig before the fall of Saigon. As one province after another fell to the enemy, the restaurant club where I played was finally ordered to close. However, the Chinese owner still offered us musicians to come and share the meals with other employees. I didn't have the opportunity to do so and altough my equipments were still at the club, I flew out of Saigon a short time later about a week before enemy tanks crashed through the presidential palace gate on April 30, 1975.

Early Summer 1975 with the great songwriter Pham Duy and his shortened family in Fort Walton Beach, Fl, U.S.A. All Pham Duy's grown up boys were still then back in Vietnam.

Fort Walton Beach, Fl, Winter 1975, playing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with an ex airman and the young Thai Thao.

Those first gigs a year after leaving Saigon were extremely emotional, reuniting with musician friends and jamming away was so heavenly here in New Orleans around Tet 1976. The Mardi Gras festivities all over in the Bayou State further added more excitements to the new refugees. Vietnam could be forgotten for a while.

Attending graduate school at Florida State University, Spring 1978. On that beautiful sunny day, our professor had the idea to move the class to his house, there in the backyard, his students enjoyed an open air class session.

Working for Mickey Mouse at Walt Disney World, Orlando, Fl, Summer 1978. To comply with Disney employee regulations, I had to shave my mustache. Many summer job positions were offered to students like, I chose to work in the shade knowing too well that the heat in central Florida is as bad as any tropical country. The first two days were for orientation, I was toured the whole park. Big is the word, it is a city by itself. The drive was a little too far from where I stayed, so I quit the park after about a month to obtain a more relaxing summer job.

Relaxation sure is the word for my next 1978 summer job. I worked at small electronic company in Orlando taking care of phased out dot printers returned by customers. Everything was so nice and easy: the task, the hours and even the supervisor was also easy, one of my colleagues, a party guy, used to sleep late and always came in at around 11 am when other workers were about to break for lunch. One other colleague, a young Chinese-Vietnamese, didn't care to cash his paychecks, he let them pile up under his pillow. That showed that he had enough dough to go for a long time. One day, he needed to take off from work to go get his driver license, the supervisor ordered another worker to take off as well to give the guy a ride! Me, it was time to grow my mustache again.

Spring 1995. A very emotional reuhion with Le Huu Ha on the second trip back to Vietnam.

1995. Playing music with old friends at a restaurant called Cao Son in Little Saigon, Westminster, CA, U.S.A..