Bụi đời

The Vietnamese term bụi đời ("dust of life") refers to vagrants in the city or, trẻ bụi đời to street children or juvenile gangs. From 1989, following a song in the musical Miss Saigon, "Bui-Doi"[1] came to popularly refer to Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam after the Vietnam War.

For the song Bui Doi, see Miss Saigon.

Rural poor coming to the towns
1957 film poster Dust of Life.

The term bụi đời ("dust of life") originally referred to the starving people of the countryside taking refuge in towns, in the 1930s.[2] The term trẻ bụi đời "young vagrants," now refers to street children or juvenile gang members. It is intended to bring to mind an image of a child abandoned and moving about without purpose, like dust. In Vietnamese, it has no racial connotation. Vietnamese refer to Amerasians as Mỹ lai (mixed American and Vietnamese), con lai (mixed-race child), or người lai (mixed-race person).

The connection to mixed race parentage given in Western media, from connection with Miss Saigon, is not widely known in Vietnam today. The term bụi đời in Vietnam today refers to any people, but usually young men, who live on the street or live as wanderers. A related verb đi bụi ("go dust") means someone who has left their home, usually due to arguments with their family, to take on the bụi đời wandering or street life.

Miss Saigon and Amerasian orphans

In the West, the term Bui-Doi became widely known from the use in the dialogue, and particularly the song title "Bui-Doi", of the 1989 musical Miss Saigon by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, which opened in 1991 on Broadway, and, until its closing in 2001, was the thirteenth longest running Broadway musical in musical theater history. The song "Bui-Doi" had lyrics written by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. They took the term bụi đời to mean not Vietnamese street children, but the Amerasian offspring of Vietnamese mothers and American soldiers abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War.[3][4][5]

Mixed race children in Vietnam
Main article: Amerasian

The majority of mixed race people after the Vietnam War were Amerasians or children of Vietnamese mothers and military or civilian men from the United States. Amerasians born during the Vietnam War (1964–75) could be the issue of anything from long-term unions to rape. Due to the large sex industry brought on by the military economy, Amerasians were predominantly seen as off-spring of prostitute mothers and G.I. fathers. Life was frequently difficult for such Amerasians; they existed as pariahs in Vietnamese society. Often, they would be persecuted by the communist government and sometimes even sold into prostitution as children.[6] Under the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1988, a Vietnamese Amerasian could obtain a U.S. visa on the basis of appearance alone. Amerasians gained the attention of con artists who claimed to be their relatives in the hope of obtaining visas.[7] About 23,000 Amerasians immigrated to the U.S. under this act.

In the United States, bui doi, or the term "dust of life", again referred to the criminal class, where the youths included newly transplanted Vietnamese and Amerasians.[8] The misuse of the word bui doi also migrated to the United States and was appropriated by the mainstream.

The 1977 made-for-TV movie "Green Eyes" was a fictional movie about an American veteran who makes a trip back to Southeast Asia to search for his son from a liaison with a Vietnamese woman. He encounters a boy with green eyes who insists that he must be half American and thus eligible to go to America.[9]

The 1994 documentary film Bui doi: Life Like Dust uses the term to describe Ricky Phan, a Vietnamese refugee who turned to a life of crime after escaping from Vietnam to California.[10]

The 2004 movie The Beautiful Country depicts the life of a fictional bui doi and his efforts to become reunited with his American father. The prologue to The Beautiful Country opens with a definition: "Bui Doi: 'less than dust' Term used to describe Vietnamese children with American fathers."[11]

The 2014 movie Noble, a true life story of Christina Noble, who overcomes the harsh difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to find her calling by helping the bụi đời on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City.[12]

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See also

References
  1. Theater Yearbook 1990-1991: The Complete Broadway and Off-Broadway ... - Page 26 Otis L. Guernsey, Jeffrey Sweet - 2000 "Nowhere is the dichotomy of good intentions and cheesy realization more blatant then in the song "Bui-Doi," an appeal on behalf of the outcast, half-breed illegitimate offspring Americans left behind in Southeast Asia."
  2. Philippe M. F. Peycam - The Birth of Vietnamese Political Journalism: Saigon, 1916-1930 Page 24 2012 "Often referred to as bụi đời [dust of life], they were described by the communist newspaper of the 1930s, La Lutte, as the "starving people from the countryside taking refuge in towns." 42 Owing to the lack of heavy industry, ...
  3. Matthew Bernstein, Gaylyn Studlar Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film - Page 167 1997 "Here, the character John (an army friend of the male lead) stands facing the audience in front of a lectern on a dimly lit and bare stage. As he sings the number "Bui Doi" (dust of life), a collage of children's images is projected onto ...."
  4. The Theater Mania guide to musical theater recordings - Page 244 Michael Portantiere, TheaterMania.com (Firm) - 2004 "The French-speaking librettist Boublil's collaboration with Richard Maltby, Jr. yielded lyrics that are awkwardly ... Although it's difficult to pick the nadir of the score, a good candidate is "Bui Doi," a shamelessly manipulative plea on behalf of ..."
  5. R. Andrew Lambert Beginning a Prayer Life Page 18 - 2009 "In Vietnam, children like me (Amerasians) were called Bụi Đời "dust of life" and we were hated and ostracized by Vietnamese society. I was left with another Vietnamese family for which my mother was to regularly pay what she could."
  6. Benge, Michael (22 November 2005). "The Living Hell of Amerasians". FrontPage Magazine. Archived from the original on 2013-01-10. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  7. Surviving twice: Amerasian children of the Vietnam War By Trin Yarborough, p. 103.
  8. The bubbling cauldron: race, ethnicity, and the urban crisis By Michael P. Smith, Joe R. Feagin, p. 68.
  9. "IMDb Green Eyes".
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2013-10-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Soil and Culture - Page 92 Edward R. Landa, Christian Feller - 2010 "The prolog to The Beautiful Country (2004) is a definition: "Bui Doi: "less than dust" Term used to describe Vietnamese children with American fathers" The film follows such a Vietnamese young man, Binh, from his escape from Vietnam to ... "
  12. "IMDb Noble". IMDb.
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