Budding Magazine Reaches to Viet World

The short history of Vietnamese-language publishing in this country has been controversial and violent.

During the 1980s, three journalists--among them a Garden Grove publisher and a San Francisco youth group leader--were killed and a number of others injured or threatened for advocating normalization with Hanoi or for publishing what were construed as pro-Communist viewpoints.

Today, 19 years after the war that led to the exodus of 1.5-million Vietnamese from their homeland, the winds of change are being felt and, in some circles, resignedly accepted. Violence against moderate or liberal Vietnamese expatriates is rare.

This optimism, coupled with President Clinton’s decision last month to end the trade embargo with Vietnam, has led a group of entrepreneurs to publish the first international Vietnamese-language magazine. They hope it will finally heal and unite their fractured, exiled worldwide communities.

Called Nguoi Viet The Gioi, or Viet & World, the magazine will attempt to unite Vietnamese communities by informing expatriates of international news, features and personalities as they relate to their culture, heritage and homeland.

Its creators hope Viet & World will become the Newsweek or Time for Vietnamese readers living abroad.

The magazine plans to “introduce our people to each other and remind us to never forget our roots,” says Editor-in-Chief Viet Khanh Nguyen, whose pen name, Son Dien, is well-recognized by Vietnamese readers. “And we want as many people as possible to have access to this publication.”

Twenty-thousand copies of the premiere issue are scheduled to hit the stands in Little Saigon on Saturday, and 10,000 in Germany the next week. Thereafter, more will be printed for other Vietnamese communities in California, other states and Europe.

In Orange County, the largest Vietnamese enclave outside Southeast Asia, and elsewhere in the country, dozens of large and small Vietnamese publications come and go. But Nguyen and his partners are optimistic that Viet & World will not only thrive, but become the educational and entertainment magazine that Vietnamese outside their native country will turn to.

“There are many Vietnamese newspapers in the different communities, but there is not one magazine that serves as a voice” for all expatriates, says Ngoan Le, board director of UniMedia Corp., which publishes the magazine. “We want to become that voice.”

A lofty goal, but not impossible given the reputation and experiences of the men and women who have created the colorful, glossy magazine. The seven-member board of UniMedia includes Vietnam’s premiere actress, Kieu Chinh, and a cadre of Vietnamese literati.

One is the 72-year-old Nguyen, also editor of Westminster’s Vietnam Economic News and formerly the managing editor of the Vietnam Press News Agency of the Republic of Vietnam before the country fell to the Communists in 1975. Another is Yen Do, editor of Nguoi Viet Daily, the largest Vietnamese-language daily in the United States.

Given Nguyen’s and Do’s acknowledged partiality to news with an economic slant, board members and staff writers Nha Ca, a novelist, and her husband, poet Da Tu Tran, will lend their literary touch.

Always cognizant of the Vietnamese community’s political atmosphere, Viet & World will intentionally remain neutral on the most debated and divisive issue of the collective Vietnamese community: Should the United States normalize relations with the Vietnam government, the next logical step after resumption of commercial trade between the two former enemies?

That neutrality will separate the magazine from most other Vietnamese publications. Although Viet & World’s directors realize that past moderate voices have been met with violence and demonstrations, they say they will not be deterred in their mission of objectivity.

“Inside those of us who have had personal experiences with the Communists, there will always be a want for revenge,” says Ca, who, along with her husband, languished in the Vietnam government re-education camp for 12 years because of their literary connection during the previous regime. “But we cannot deed our bitterness and hatred onto the younger and new generations. It is too heavy a burden for them.”

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Vietnamese publishing in the United States had its genesis with what has become the country’s largest daily newspaper, the Nguoi Viet Daily. The 12,000-circulation newspaper began in 1978 in Editor Do’s Santa Ana tract home.

Just a few miles away, Viet & World’s launch is similarly unassuming.

Its modest, almost Spartan, newsroom has only three cubbyholes for writers and two austere offices, one with a portable desk, the other with three all-important desktop computers. There is no copier--the solo fax machine does double duty. In all, there are only five on staff, including Editor Nguyen.

The magazine’s immediate goal is to prepare all Vietnamese communities for an upcoming historical epoch--April 30, 1995, the 20th anniversary of the Communist takeover.

The first issue is dedicated to this painful, historic commemoration with articles reflecting an underlining theme: It’s time Vietnamese leave the past.

Viet & World’s long-term aim is to encourage young Vietnamese to learn about or to continue to preserve their Asian traditions and culture, a heritage many in the older generation lament their children and grandchildren have lost in their quest for assimilation. For the younger generation, each issue will have articles on Vietnamese traditions and historic events, as well as profiles on Vietnamese youths contributing to their communities.

For other readers, Viet & World--which also has a smaller English-language section--will have news, business stories and features from the various Vietnamese enclaves. “We want to make sure every issue of the Vietnamese community is discussed, whether in English or in Vietnamese,” said Michael Nally, English section editor.

Most articles in the English version target the younger generation--youths who are not proficient in Vietnamese. Among features in the first issue is Nally’s question-and-answer with a Garden Grove honor student who writes for the student newspaper. Another profiles a Vietnamese boat refugee who is now a youth pastor in Canada.

The premiere issue, and those following it, will feature stories that run the gamut from news on the economy and state of technology, to profiles on the lifestyles of the not-always-so-rich-and-famous fellow Vietnamese expatriates. For example, one article in the first issue discusses the need for a Vietnamese Memorial in Vietnam--akin to the American Vietnam War Memorial in Washington--to recognize those who died fighting for their country.

Says actress Chinh, the magazine board president and a member of the memorial group: “We want to express our gratitude and love to those who have died for a noble cause.”

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How do the seven UniMedia board members think they can launch an international magazine with a paltry $50,000? By pooling their resources, seeking contributions of other Vietnamese business leaders and not getting paid initially, they confidently reply. In addition, many major French and American companies, such as Martell liquor and MCI telecommunications, have committed advertising.

“I know $50,000 seems like a small sum for this kind of venture,” says Chinh, who recently appeared in “The Joy Luck Club.” “But we don’t have to worry about the biggest expense, which is printing.”

That’s because Board Director Ngoan Le, president of Orange-based Annam Printing Inc., has donated his press. Le persuaded the owner of a Vietnamese printing company in Bonn to publish the magazine for expatriates in Europe. A similar agreement is pending in Australia.

To market the magazine to Vietnamese communities, UniMedia has begun advertising in a handful of Vietnamese-language newspapers. But most marketing initially is being done in a very old-fashioned Vietnamese way: word of mouth.

The marketing plan is unconventional, Chinh admits, but business people in Vietnamese districts in San Jose, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Washington D.C., France and Germany already know that Viet & World will hit their newsstands by month’s end.

“It may sound different, funny, even impossible, but that’s how things traditionally work with our people,” says Chinh, who’s also in charge of public relations. “In our case, each of our board members knows people who know other Vietnamese in different communities around the world, and all indications show that Viet & World will be well-received.”

Some magazine industry experts, however, are not so sanguine.

Clay Felker, a longtime magazine editor and educator, criticizes as impractical the very reasons Viet & World’s creators cite in explaining the need for an international magazine. Felker, who launched the now-defunct New West magazine in 1976 after successfully founding New York magazine, believes that the worldwide Vietnamese communities are too geographically distanced to give Viet & World the circulation it needs to survive.

And, he says, once assimilated to their new culture, younger generations tend not to be interested in magazines published in their native language. Viet & World has “a perfectly laudable objective, and publications aimed toward a specific community do help to identify common bonds,” he says. “But traditionally, those publications have not been successful beyond their immediate community.”

Nguyen and his partners acknowledge that they have a long road ahead before Viet & World can become entrenched in the collective Vietnamese community.

“We’re not saying this will immediately become the Vietnamese Time or Newsweek,” Nguyen says. “Those companies have money and a foundation of a well-known reputation already under them. We are a smaller and poorer group, and so we have started much more slowly.”

But he and his lifelong friends and colleagues have dreams and writers. And a couple of computers, an expensive printing press and people willing to give their time and efforts to begin a magazine for the Vietnamese.

Those things and the fact that “no one has tried this before,” he says, “makes this a pretty good start.”