Transcript

Diana Nguyen

This most first generation refugees have come to a new country and Vietnamese mentality was like, "All right , we did the boat thing. No one needs to know about it. Everyone just keep working. Let’s sew for 15 hours of work in a factory, let's get our kids to school. Let's forget about that journey."

Jay Ooi

What is it like growing up as the daughter of a single refugee mum, and why is remembering our heritage so important?

On today’s episode, I chat with actor, comedian and MC Diana Nguyen. A daughter of refugee parents from Vietnam, Diana sort of fell out and then back into celebrating her culture and heritage, and ended up creating a web series about her mum. But we’ll get into that a little later.

Can you tell me a bit about your background, where you grew up, what your childhood was like?

Diana Nguyen

I grew up in Springvale, which is a Vietnamese Mecca in Melbourne. And the reason is because, there was a hostel for refugees to settle and that's where my parents met.

So, they met at this hostel and they had three beautiful daughters, which is myself, my two little sisters. And I basically grew up in Springvale all my life and I'm still there. I moved back home only a month and a half ago, so I'm still a Springvale girl. But I went to primary school there, went to high school. Springvale road is very part of the central nervous system of the Vietnamese community

Mom came here and she decided to name her three daughters after the royal family. So I'm Princess Diana, Princess Anne, and Princess Sarah Fergie.

Jay Ooi

But things changed early on for Diana when her dad left.

Diana Nguyen

so when I was about seven and eight, I had to take on the role of dad and I had to grow up very early. So I was like mowing the lawn. I was caring for my sisters like a mother instead of a sister. So my sisters and I, we have, my sister's clung to me very much and they had a hard time disconnecting from me, especially when I got kicked out of home when I was 18.

Jay Ooi

That’s definitely not a phrase you hear often when it comes to Asian families. Most kind of want you to hang around until you get married. 

Diana Nguyen

So the kicking out of home, I give a bit of context, my mom found my first love in the wardrobe when I was 18 years old and most western parents just going to go, all right, you're punished. But my mom's idea of punishment was to kick me out.

So all my belongings were in the backyard when I got home from university.

So it kind of fractured not just with my mom but with my sisters because they felt it was a betrayal. But we are a very close knit family because mom came here by herself and we got no cousins we grew up with. So we grew up with each other. So we were very close, intense family.

Jay Ooi

Did you take on that responsibility of the sort of carer all by yourself or did your mom sort of impress that upon you?

Diana Nguyen

It was put on me because I was the eldest and that because mom was a refugee and it's traumatic for her with the war and be now being alone with three daughters.

And I felt my mom, and I'm saying this is the most nicest way, my mom kind of punished me for being the eldest unintentionally. So I lost a lot of my childhood and my teenage years and I think when I got kicked out of home. 

Jay Ooi

Tell me more about what your mom's sort of parenting style was like with you and your sisters.

Diana Nguyen

Oh, it was brutal. Very brutal. 

If you misbehave, you are smacked or whipped. So I got a lot of the physical anger from my mother's transfer of the war because we, I think also war is a very, it's traumatic, but also if the Vietnamese, first generation are unable to articulate what happened to them, they then put it through violence in another form.

And so I think a lot of us, second generation young people particularly Vietnamese young kids, we received our parents' misunderstanding of how they were feeling. Yeah. So now being 34, I don't resent my mum for doing that cause I understand why she did it and I guess it made be very resilient.

Jay Ooi

So Diana copped it a little bit from mum growing up, but she also had a bit of a cultural awakening, or maybe the opposite.

Diana Nguyen

In grade six, I was 11 years old Pauline Hanson came around. 

Pauline Hanson

I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.

Jay Ooi

She’s an Australian politician who founded the One Nation Party, known for the populist views and stance against multiculturalism.

Pauline Hanson

I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed, and that of multiculturalism abolished.

Diana Nguyen

It was 1996 epic time. I was hitting puberty and Pauline Hanson was talking about Asians and the swarming. And I thought that my mother was going to be kicked out of the country. I can still remember that moment when I was in the shower and I was thinking in my head, "Oh my God, what would I do without my mom?" And then I realized the way to fix that was to become Australian so that my mom could stay.

Jay Ooi

So this one politician who shot into media spotlight changed the way Diana viewed her culture. All of a sudden, Diana didn’t feel like she could embrace her Vietnamese background, and felt the urge to adopt more white Australian traits.

Diana Nguyen

So I watched cricket. I loved cricket growing up. Very Ozzie, no “I’m an Asian girl” say they watch cricket, right?...I was a fanatic football supporter and lost Vietnamese.

So I was forced into Vietnamese school and there was so many fights with my mom not to go. To the point where my mom thought I was being abused at Vietnamese school. She was like, "No I'm just against Vietnamese." And yeah, and that disconnect from this 11 year old girl has continued to now because I still can't communicate the way I would like to with my mom in my native language. So it's really interesting how a woman who doesn't know me, her name is Pauline Hanson, could affect a young girl like me to my mid thirties. And I don't think she understands what she's done.

Jay Ooi

So because of that, you sort of felt like you needed to deny your Vietnamese.

Diana Nguyen

It was uncool. Vietnamese is so uncool. Áo dài is the attrition outfit is uncool. Like why would I want to be part of the uncool group? Yeah.

Jay Ooi

That's really sad. How has that changed today for you?

Diana Nguyen

I've said to all my friends who have children now, make sure they go to Vietnamese school early. Like, don't you lose a skill. Language is a skill and if you are the look of that culture but can't speak the language, it's such a huge breakdown on who you are. 

My sisters speak better Vietnamese than me because my mother realized that she put me into school too late.

Jay Ooi

Learning the mother tongue - this something Diana values a lot more now. Growing up in Vietnamese Springvale, Diana had a lot of exposure to the arts. She learned piano, did ballet, was in school productions and the school band. But her mum definitely didn’t embrace every artistic pursuit of hers.

Diana Nguyen

There was like I loved in year 9 Britney Spears. I should've been a pop star. Like I'm a triple threat. I'm all three. And Britney Spears was my idol. And this is a funny story. Phiona Chow, who's the co-creator of Phi and Me, one day at lunchtime she looked at me and said, "Oh my God, your eyebrows are like Kevin Richardson from backstreet boys." And Kevin Richardson had like John Howard eyebrows, right. And 14 year old girl. And I was like, "No." So I went home, got a Britney spears poster and start plucking my eyebrows. Came out of the room and my mom was like, "What did you just do Diana?" Because, and I, why reason why I talk about Britney Spears is, my mom would see me watch Britney spears on video hits now back in her day. And she was like, "You want to be a slut? Huh? You want to be slut like her?" So that's what my mother thought the arts was - slutty and and you're selling your whoring yourself out. So that was always video hits or rage. I'm a slut.

It's very funny. So mom had disapproved of my acting career, ever since I was in year 10. So I was one of the leads in school production. I was a lead in year 12 and mom had a habit of walking out at the interval. And that really did hurt me a lot. So I never invited to see any of my shows. But she did come and see Miss Saigon and that's when she, I think she really realised why I was an actor because she saw her coloured skin person telling her story. 

Jay Ooi

Miss Saigon, the musical set in Saigon at the time of the Vietnam War - this is what slowly started to turn her mum around to her work. Diana always knew she wanted to perform, but it wasn’t always easy.

Diana Nguyen

Yeah. So, fresh out of university, Bachelor of Arts, major in drama theater studies. I was like, yes, 20 years old. And so Steve McPhail was my drama teacher at the age of 20, I had pressure from my mom to go do my dip and be a teacher, like have a salary job. But I had dinner, had pho with Steve McPhail and I said, say what should I do? And he said, "You know what, just give the acting a go and when it fails, go into teaching and then at least you could have some skills and say to the kids, I tried. " Instead of going, I'm a drama teacher. I I slogged it out, did a lot of free theater and then I got a bit part roles. I was an underbelly for 10 seconds. I was upper middle Bogan for 10, 10 seconds. Oh, I was on Jack Irish, lots of bit parts, lot of Asian bit parts. 

Jay Ooi

Yeah. Right. So as, as an Asian actor in Australia, it's, it's very difficult to play, I guess meaningful roles is that you're saying?

Diana Nguyen

Yeah. And is it the reason is because we don't have many Asian writers, so I encourage people to sure, be an actor, but start writing a story. Stop relying on the industry to give you work.

Jay Ooi

Start writing a story. This is what Diana did. Frustrated with the lack of stories that represented her and her culture, she started writing with her long time friend and drama partner Fiona. I asked her where this spark began.

Diana Nguyen

And in 2010, I saw Felicity Ward's show and I just thought she had a full house there she had funny stories, just three stories share that and people laughed.

And I thought, "Wow, comedy is that simple." And it wasn't a stand up show. It was a story telling show. I was like, "Oh, we could do this." So I went home, I said, Phiona we are registering for 2011 comedy festival, let’s write a show. And I produced it. And we performed it at 2011 and basically it was material about our moms.

Jay Ooi

And thus began ‘Phi and Me’, a humorous storytelling show about a vietnamese mum and child.

Diana Nguyen

It was very easy. And Phiona talked about it. We didn't have to search far and our moms are still so present in our lives, we don't even need to go far for material.

It wasn't like a thousand person theater, but we had a hundred people lining up the streets. And friends today who were on before our show, so I've never seen lines like that with Asian people. And that was really exciting. Yeah. For us.

Jay Ooi

Why did you choose, I guess, comedy as a way to talk about this?

Diana Nguyen

Naturally I'm from comedy and I think comedians, comic actors, we have a lot of pain. So why share pain? When we can find something else, we can dig deep and find some laughter through it. So as articulated, I did have a traumatic childhood and I think I was the class clown in primary school. Always knew how to make people laugh, always know how to take attention off me and make other people feel better than myself. So it was very natural. And when I think about it, and why Phi and Me is so important to the Vietnam story and Post Vietnam War story, is because, it's being documented about the Vietnam War. It was like killings and people dying and women being raped and agent orange and we're still suffering from that war.

But when you go to Vietnam, you don't see that. You see really happy, beautiful people who want you to come to the country. And we don't see that on TV. And unfortunately the way the industry works is that all Asian people are grouped in to one. And so, you know, we, where we were forgotten. And it was very important to show people our two mums who are these funny, hilarious women who have had hard times and to show their light.

Jay Ooi

Using comedy to tackle these really tough experiences. Yes i’s an easier way for us to consume it, but it’s also showing a different side of the refugee experience. Instead of focussing on all the terrible things, there is humour and beauty that comes out of it.

Diana Nguyen

Because the Vietnam, because when is this most first generation refugees have come to a new country and Vietnamese mentality was like, "All right , we did the boat thing. No one needs to know about it. Everyone just keep working. Let’s sew for 15 hours of work in a factory, let's get our kids to school. Let's forget about that journey." I studied a bachelor of arts and did a history major and did Vietnam war as the subject. And I'm all about storytelling. So this is when I was 20 years old, I went to our university library.

And they were like, "Oh, there was one book probably that has the testimonies of the refugee experience." 

And I was like, we've shut down this beautiful, courageous, brave story and forgotten it. And that's why I think it was so important for Phi and Me to tell that we will never forget what you did.

Jay Ooi

This might be slightly off topic, but why do you think it's difficult for your parents and other refugees who did come to Australia to talk about that?

Diana Nguyen

Because it would take a really long time to understand it. A lot of healing needs to be done, but I don't think in 1975 anyone who came here post 1975, I don't think psychologists or counseling was part of the government system. And Vietnamese people, we work hard and that was out therapy. I will work hard. I was sew until my hands hurt 10 cents a pants. That was their therapy. And fortunately because of that process, we've gotten the other therapy of the angsty the expectation, the stress as the second generation.

Jay Ooi

Diana continued doing more stand up shows, but she wanted a way for Phi and Me to reach more people, without having to do stage shows all the time. So she decided to turn it into a web series, one that anyone can watch at any time.

Yeah, So ‘Phi and Me' it was a stage show. It's doing well. How did you translate that to a web series?

Diana Nguyen

It was so fucking hard. And I say that fucking because that's no joke. I've been an actor on screen. People give me a script, right? I do theater. I write my show, I'd put on a show, I can do that. But when you have to transpose a theater show to a web series was hell with Phiona. And I'm so grateful that we got through that because, Phiona doesn't do any of the arts anymore. She has her full time job and I had to drag her back to write it. So I took two years to write it and I needed her. I couldn’t write on my own, like that would have dishonoured what 'Phi and Me' is. So I was very patient and so that was one step.

I can't believe I walked through and we did it. But it was really hard. And that's me creatively switching brains. But I'm so grateful for the team that did work on this because I don't know how we could have done it. 

But it was yeah. I'm so grateful for the people who said Yes to this project.

we do really believe that this story is not just about Vietnamese people, but it is about a mother's love for her child and it's just reminding ourselves, go to your mum and dad and just say, "Hey, thanks. Thanks for doing what you do."

Jay Ooi

Tell me about when your mom first saw the stage show and then also the web series.

Diana Nguyen

I think I can remember mom being upset because I was based on her and Asian culture, family business, you keep it in the house. Don't tell people our business. So I had a bit of anxiety having mom in the audience that night, but mum sat in the back row and there was a scene where I am in the audience but in the dark.

And I glanced over and saw my mom laughing, but she was laughing with the 'Phi and Me' flyer. But not so that people couldn't see her and like, it was inhibited laughing and that was, that was the greatest joy to see my mom see herself and see our community laugh at this woman at this mom character. Um, it was very endearing and um, yeah, I'm very grateful for that.

Jay Ooi

And what does your mom think about your career now?

Diana Nguyen

She's, she's still concerned but yeah, we surprisingly last two months ago we did an SBS Vietnamese radio interview and it was all in Vietnamese and I can understand Vietnamese but I can't articulate. So that were interviewing my mum and they said, "Oh, are you proud of Diana?" And my mom said, "I'm so proud of her because now she's stuck it through." Through that visit my mom challenging me, but just said, "I'm so proud of her because she's kept this story going. So that we can see ourselves and look I know it's going to be tough with money and everything, but I'll always have a house for her and my house is always there for her." And that was the kind of the first time I'd heard my mum say that. And my mom's still provides me a room in a house and she's actually very happy that I'm home.

Jay Ooi

Oh, tell me about your relationship with your mom now.

Diana Nguyen

It's so... so I was telling you like when I was 25 I heard about a refugee experience and it really blew me away about hearing her going to save my grandma that night to fill out with a boat and saying, "I'll see you later." But not good bye so my grandma didn't know. And then my mom got on the boat and to hear my mom have that pain and heartbreak with her mom.

And for me right now, I've got to keep my mother's legacy alive.

So I'm working on a project really soon and documented my mom's story. So knowing every single detail because I don't want my mother's great grandchildren to forget what she did for us.

Jay Ooi

You can watch the full webseries at Phi and Me    at phiandme.tv

This episode of Shoes Off was written, produced, and edited by me Jay Oo.

Special thanks to Diana for the wonderful chat and String for putting us in touch. 

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Diana Nguyen

I'm a Vietnamese wedding MC. So I've done so many and I get invited for these wedding because I look, I am Vietnamese and you don't want another person to MC wedding wise, very abnormal. So I now understand why Vietnamese weddings are so big. Why you have 300 people, 400 people is because our parents want to show what they've created since they came here. So this is the big posts. Refugee Party. So I'm always privileged to be invited to all these refugee post weddings.

Guests

Diana Nguyen

Resources

Phi and Me: https://phiandme.tv/

Diana Nguyen: http://www.diananguyen.com.au/