My thoughts about Ngoc Lan

Like some of you I grew up in the U.S. and things that are related to the “arts” of Vietnam really, sadly, are remote to me. Somehow those aspects of VN do not “speak to” me, on an intellectual level.
I was thrilled when I discovered, in the late 1980’s, Ngoc Lan with the Golden Voice, through a cassette tape that I much later learned to be Ngoc Lan- Tinh Gan (note: those of you who haven’t gottten it: it is a must-have; every single song serves as a model for Ngoc Lan’s accomplishments). I listened to this tape again and again and again, until the tape broke and I tried to fix it with clear tape. I wasn’t cheap, but I lived in taiwan then.
That tape, my friends, was my comfort, my strength, and it brought me that much closer to my homeland while living in Taiwan.
I didn’t know what Ngoc Lan looked like or anything, so it was her magnetizing voice that had me hooked, completely, night after night…
I came back to the U.S. in mid 1990’s, bought some more of Ngoc Lan’s CDs. Still, since I wasn’t following Vietnamese music news, I only belatedly discovered, much to my dismay and sadness, that Ngoc Lan was gone forever!
The year was 2002. I had missed knowing some very vital information about the only Vietnamese artist I love by one year! Shame on me!!!
Here I am again away from home, in Honduras, breathing clean air and surrounded by breathtaking beauty every day, I still have the urge to get to the internet cafe (with great difficulty, since I live up in the mountain), finding my way here to this website. I am not, as I cannot be, a regular visitor, but I love Ngoc Lan no less.
I miss Ngoc Lan with the Golden Voice, and I just wanted to share these thoughts with you all. I know, as you do, that Ngoc Lan will never be forgotten, and I would like to convey to her family that this “family” will grow stronger everyday through love of her music, her life, and what she represented: human goodness.

Tu Uyen McGowan