The Return of Vietnamese 80’s New Wave

GO TO THIS BLOG: Amoeba Music’s “Keep on Music New Wave and 80s Reunion Party – The Vietnamese New Wave Revival

Were you ready for that? All those PICTURES and VIDEOS of the height of the 80’s Vietnamese New Wave experience! Well, its coming back apparently. My first thought is, “did it ever really leave?”, cause just looking at my aunts and uncles nowadays, you wouldn’t have known it died and resurrected as this new kitschy, so ironic let’s put it on an Amoeba blog post phenomenon. My second thought is, I can’t believe people outside of Westminster and San Jose’s Viet community might actually recognize this subset of the New Wave pop culture of the 80’s (or this subset of the Vietnamese American immigrant experience, depending on your lens). The fact that this generation of Vietnamese Americans came over to the States and immediately and wholeheartedly adopted this genre of music and lifestyle still amazes me today, decades after sharing a room with my older cousin with the largest OMD and Depeche Mode posters I have ever seen in my life. Maybe its all the excess hairspray I swallowed as her roommate, but if this is coming back, and the girls look like this, sign me up for them marbled jackets and fishnet gloves.