Local reporter finds stardom in Hanoi

HANOI, Vietnam — She was just another aspiring television reporter, seemingly destined to try to claw her way to the U.S. networks from a small market in the boonies.

Then Washington native Louisa Huynh Thanh Thuan took a detour to Hanoi — and skyrocketed to stardom.

Saturday night, she emceed a gala dinner attended by U.S. President George W. Bush and other leaders attending the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to have all these leaders in a room," Huynh, 25, said in an interview earlier in the week. "If they let me roam the hall while the leaders are there, I'm definitely going to try to fit in some face time."

Huynh, whose parents were born in Vietnam, has been getting plenty of face time on VTV, the state-owned television network, where she anchors the English-language newscast and hosts a show called "Talk Vietnam."

Her parents came to the United States in the early 1970s. They run a restaurant in Seattle, where Huynh occasionally worked while growing up. She arrived in Hanoi in the summer of 2005.

In an entrepreneurial nation where everyone is determined to learn English — the language of commerce — she's developed quite a following. Her success illustrates the extent to which the country has come to embrace overseas Vietnamese — known here as Viet kieu — most of whom fled the country after the communist North defeated U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975.

Her career really took off when she was invited to emcee a highly publicized event with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in April, because the organizers were impressed with her English. She wound up on the front page of several Vietnamese newspapers.

"It's been a whirlwind experience," said Huynh, a 2003 graduate of New York University's broadcast-journalism program who still seems bewildered by her success.

She got the TV job by chance when she visited Vietnam in 2004 with her uncle, who introduced her to a Hanoi friend who knew the director of VTV.

A career was launched. Autographs were sought.

"People's reactions are hilarious," said Asia Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American friend of Huynh's who also lives in Hanoi. "People give her the usual celebrity-adoration reaction."

Her fans seem to miss the fact that Huynh is American — not Vietnamese — and seem astonished that she speaks English so well.

She spoke some Vietnamese growing up in Seattle, but her first language was English. And she worked hard on her TV delivery at NYU.

Her VTV shows are broadcast via satellite to Vietnamese markets overseas, so her parents can critique her performance. They see her reading the daily news or hosting "Talk Vietnam," where guests discuss everything from APEC to Hanoi's salsa-dancing craze.

"My dad will tell me my shirt was a bit too wrinkled, or I should have worn a different dress," Huynh said.