Vietnamese Ballads are Baby's Favorite Music

Recently DJ B and I made our first visit to the remodeled main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. It was gorgeous, with a huge children's area and an enviable Audio-Visual room. When Miss B and I entered the AV Room to search for CDs it was like entering a musical mecca. It was a huge room, with CDs on shelves and in record store-like bins. It made the random nature of our CD selection process a bit more challenging, as the sections were divided by genre. Luckily, I didn't realize that until after I had steered Miss B down one particular row; so she selected something out of the first row that we hit. We'll have to go back and explore some more, because after picking one CD, DJ B transitioned into full-on meltdown mode.


So, what did she pick? Tuan Ngoc's "Nhung Tinh Khuc Yeu Cau" release from the Vietnamese section of the library. The first few times that I tried to play this at home, DJ B stopped the CD immediately. Today, however, I placed it in the CD player while she was happily making music with one of her instruments. As the music started, she continued to jump and dance around. She then began some dramatic slow dancing, with leg extensions, twirls, fancy footwork, and grand emotional sways with her eyes closed. The album, full of slow Vietnamese ballads with male vocals inspired her to do slow, measured dance moves.


As she listened, she grabbed her baby doll and rocked her in her arms before dancing while holding the baby. By the third song, DJ B said, "This is baby's favorite music," as she continued to dance. She'd stop occasionally to feed her baby milk. Then she said, "It's your turn to dance, mommy. I need to write about it." As I took my place on the "dance floor," Miss B sat down and asked for a piece of paper so that she could write notes. As she jotted down her observations, she asked, "What are these dances from? I think they're from New York." She then started to play with brightly colored tissue paper, placing it on the floor and then dancing while waving 2 hot pink pieces. Suddenly she stopped the CD, saying "no music" and removed it from the player. She handed the CD to me and said, "I didn't like it." She could have fooled me. Miss B then got on the floor, saying, "I have to snuggle in my little patch" and curled up on top of her tissue paper nest.

Despite what she said, I think DJ B dug this CD. How can you really go wrong with this suave Vietnamese superstar? I can hardly wait to return to the main branch of the library to find more Asian pop gems.