Vietnam’s ‘Fame’ : Hanoi School Gives Talent Top Billing

Down the hall, a chorus of Vietnamese voices ran the scales and a prize-winning accordionist was pumping a mazurka in the adjoining studio, but 7-year-old Dao Thuy Linh was all concentration.

Under the watchful eye of her teacher, Linh’s nimble fingers picked out a traditional Vietnamese tune on a 16-string instrument. Finishing without a flub, she beamed as her classmates, crowded into the doorway, broke into applause.

These are special students in an extraordinary school amid the dreary scene of Vietnamese education. The old French lycee on a tree-shaded street has been transformed into a Hanoi version of the enthusiastic world of Hollywood’s “Fame.”

It’s listed as a vocational school, but entrance is based on nationwide competitions, and each of the 500 students here is a winner. Most of the 50 teachers are accomplished artists, and they care.

In one studio, a well-known cellist sat beside a 15-year-old boy, occasionally gripping his arm as he drew the bow across the strings, talking him through the emotions of the piece.

“Harder here, harder,” she encouraged, tapping the beat with her foot. “Now here, draw it out. That’s it. That’s lovely.”

Held in High Esteem

Thai Thi Sam, the vice principal, a slender, theatrical woman who teaches piano, said Vietnamese ensembles and theater orchestras are regular recruiters at the school. “Musicians are held in high esteem in our country,” she said.

The students range in age from 7 to 23, and those in grades 9 through 12 take their academic classes here as well. The younger children come for lessons after their half-day sessions at regular schools, and the handful of older students take only the artistic classes. The curriculum includes Western instrumental and Vietnamese traditional music, music theory, painting and dance.

“Yes, we have a few break-dancers,” Sam said.

“Some come from artistic families,” she remarked of the student body. “Their parents have steered them here and given them private lessons. Others come from poor families but have the aptitude.”

Scholarships, Rice Rations

As special cases, the students receive small scholarships and rice rations, but like all Vietnamese schools, theirs is in need. They have few electronic instruments for pop music, and their violins and cellos from East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland are sometimes set aside for lack of strings. The artists make do with newsprint and tempera--good oils and watercolors are too expensive.

But some things have no price tag--character, for instance.

“Yes, some show a bit of temperament,” Sam said. “We cannot choose the characteristic.” And her students, she noted, have a fondness for “unusual clothes.”

One, 15-year-old Dang Hong Ngoc, could have been lifted right out of the Miss Teen-Age America pageant. The bouncy daughter of poor parents--her father is a forester--she was nominated for a scholarship by her Communist Party-based Young Pioneer club. Now she is an accomplished pianist and was invited to a competition in Paris in November.

After rolling through a work by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens on the school Yamaha, Ngoc, who has never been out of Hanoi, said she longs to see the Eiffel Tower. Alas, she has the invitation, but no money for the air fare. Her school is an exception in Vietnam, but its financial situation is not.