Cultural Commerce Expected to Blossom : Exchange: An unrestricted flow of media between the U.S. and Vietnam could strengthen ethnic roots and maybe even hasten democracy, an observer says.

In building a community in a new country, Vietnamese Americans also had to rebuild a cultural life from scratch, one that evolved and flourished in virtual isolation from the land that is its source.

So says Co Pham, president of the Westminster-based Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and a longtime (and often embattled) proponent of lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam, an action President Clinton took Thursday. Reopening cultural channels, Pham believes, will foster understanding between the two countries and will help young Vietnamese Americans “know who and where we come from.”

An unrestricted flow of Vietnamese films, music, books and other materials will increase “understanding about the Vietnamese culture and its history” here in the United States, Pham said. And, he believes, an exposure to U.S.-produced art and entertainment may even speed the democratization process in Vietnam as residents there are exposed to Western ideas.

Such general theories aside, however, the specific ways in which the embargo’s end will affect cultural exchange remain difficult to predict, although numerous local businesses and institutions are examining the question with interest.

Orange County, for instance, is home to a burgeoning number of recording and production studios that supply a steady stream of music CDs, videos and laser discs featuring local singers of Vietnamese-language pop music. Lifting trade barriers expands the potential market from about 1 million (the approximate number of Vietnamese Americans) to some 70 million (the population of Vietnam).

Questions remain, however, about weak Vietnamese copyright laws, about the aggressiveness of government censors in Vietnam, and about how new trade regulations will be worded, according to Yen Do, editor of Westminster-based Nguoi Viet Daily News. Local singers, however, might do quite well with concert tours in Vietnam, where interest in U.S.-produced pop music is high, Do said.

One local singer, Tai Thai, said he is excited about the prospects of playing in Vietnam eventually, but added that he still hasn’t thought through the political ramifications. “I would like to go back there and perform,” he said, adding, “right now is really a confusing time.”

On the national level, the U.S. film industry could find a potentially large new overseas market in Vietnam. The first step, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based American Film Export Assn., is assuring adequate copyright protection in whatever agreements the United States draws up.

If that is achieved, Vietnam “will be a potential new market just as Eastern Europe has become since the fall of the Soviet Union,” William Shields, chairman of the trade group, said.

Meanwhile, local arts organizations expressed interest in bringing Vietnamese artworks and performers to the United States. “We’re very interested in any opportunity that may arise from the lifting of the sanctions,” said Brian Langston, spokesman for the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana.

As Do pointed out, exchange of cultural material has already been going on to a small but increasing extent, particularly since the lifting of the ban on organized U.S. travel to Vietnam in December, 1991, and subsequent decisions to ease restrictions on humanitarian aid and educational exchange.

Pirated copies of popular U.S. music and videos, particularly Vietnamese-language product from Orange County, are already sold on the underground market in Vietnam. Conversely, Do estimated that about 300 Vietnamese video film titles are widely available in Little Saigon, reproduced from copies brought back by returning tourists.

On a larger level, a French-Vietnamese co-production, “The Scent of Green Papaya,” is now playing at art cinemas across the United States (including the Port Theatre in Corona del Mar) and is Vietnam’s first official entry for a best foreign language film Oscar.

“I think it’s pretty well known that the embargo’s been coming down piecemeal,” said Douglas Pike, a Vietnam expert from the Indochinese studies program at UC Berkeley. Much of it has been a matter of loose interpretation of the ban, he said. When he was recently in Vietnam, he saw many English-language novels and nonfiction books shipped there under an agreement designed to allow the sale of textbooks.

There are questions of how easily local Vietnamese Americans will accept products from Vietnam. Many of the films produced there under the restrictions of an authoritarian regime are “heavy-handed,” Pike said. Do said many Vietnamese books and magazines have circulated recently in Orange County, but have raised little interest because of their “poor quality.”

Then there is the political factor. Many local Vietnamese Americans have been opposed to the lifting of trade sanctions and remain fervently anti-Communist. When a popular Vietnamese singer and actress, Thanh Lan, came to California last month to promote a new film, her visit sparked protests and sharply worded editorials branding her a Communist tool.

Pike said if history is a lesson, much of that politically based resistance will fade with the lifting of the embargo. That’s what happened with China, he said. The embargo was hotly debated politically, but “once it takes place, it becomes almost instantly depoliticized.”