Thanh Ha's Public Dispute

You probably heard the fighting story of famous singer Thanh Hà. There are two sides to this story. One side suggested that Thanh Ha went to the 108 Anh Hung Hao Han shop because the storeowner “Co Lieu” sent sexy pictures to Thanh Ha’s husband. But another side suggested that Thanh Ha went to the shop looking for Co Lieu’s father and ended up taking a stack of 20 CDs without paying and was stopped by the owner. Thanh Ha claimed that Lieu’s father owned her some CDs. Lieu responded that that is between Thanh Ha and her father, and Thanh Ha should not take CDs from her store. Allegedly Thanh Ha said lots of bad things toward Lieu’s parents and the storeowner was shock by the dirty tone and language used by the famous singer. Lieu responded to the singer that she heard lots of bad things about her and including that the singer likes to sleep with many men. Thanh replied by saying so what and that it is not any of Lieu’s business. Co Lieu furthered said that Thanh Ha’s attitude justify the rumors. And Thanh Ha went furious. Co Lieu and Thanh Ha fought back and forth until later on when Thanh Ha supposedly slapped Lieu in the face and continue to assault the storeowner. In the end it was said that a friend of Thanh Ha went and pulled back the singer and told her to let it go and leave. There was one witness to this story, Tran Thanh Hong who was a costumer at the shop. She was there to buy some CDs and stuck around out of curiosity. Hong confirmed that Thanh Ha did indeed go to the shop and took the CDs without paying and was stopped by Co Lieu and the two went on a rampage. The witness said there was lots of foul language coming from the singer’s mouth and she feels uneasy to repeat it. According to Co Lieu she said to the newspapers that she will press charged against the singer.

Many newspapers and people generally found Thanh Ha to be guilty simply because as a singer she should not have done such a rude thing. However we must present another logic, another side to the story that defended the famous singer. As said by Tran Nhat Phong Newspaper, he defended the singer saying there cannot be fire without smoke. He suggested that there must be some issues involving unresolved money that led to the fighting in public. Furthermore everyone in the “business” knows that Thanh Ha is a very straightforward person and has a high temper that can make her easily upset to the point that she looses control and will be involved in inappropriate behavior. Tran Nhat Phong felt that the story seemed to be rigged or in other word planned. He believed that since people know Thanh Ha, they purposely said things to make get upset and therefore ended up attacking in public. Generally the public believes that artists should watch how they behave in public because they are a public figure but pretending to be a certain way is phony he said. Why not express who we are and how we feel, instead of hiding in our emotions because artists generally live by the heart, they go through more emotions ups and downs; they experience happiness, sadness and so forth that often drive them to be creative in their music experience. Tran Nhat Phong ended up saying that although people see Thanh Ha’s actions as coarse, but to him it is a good thing and that there is no need to worry about public’s opinion.

Beside the opinions from the public audiences, some singers and musicians spoke out. But it seems that many singers taken the initiative to stay out of the story by not provide much or any comments to the story. Those who did do not provide any insight on whether they agree or disagree of Thanh Ha’s action or to which side they support. One person in particular is musician Luan Vu who spoke against the singer. He felt that because of Thanh Ha’s public dispute she bought a bad name to all singers and musicians. It is already sad enough that they are given the title “xướng ca vô loài.” (This title originates from the old days and generally given to singers and musicians. The occupation at the time was looked down upon and was not an occupation to be proud of. From what I understand, the phrase means something like originates from no kind, gender, or species, not relating to human. People take singers to not be of the same kind with human like what they do or sing if not part of the human kind. Please correct me if I’m wrong). Also the musician went to discharge any rumors of a relationship between the singer and him saying they are mutual friends from the biz.

My Thoughts:
I hate to come into a conclusion about something that I do not fully know about it. Generally stories like this, we do not get to hear the real story but stories that are fabricated by the media. However, judging from what I read it is a bit of a rush of the singer to assault Lieu, however I also believe that there is a reason to everything and that we cannot simply blamed the singer without knowing the full story. From what Co Lieu said about her calling the singer out for sleeping with many men, I felt that that was unnecessarily and seems fishy. If indeed that did happened I could see a reason why Thanh Ha felt the need to attack. Anyone would probably react to that. The public felt that it is wrong of any singers to do such a thing but yet they do not judge upon themselves and what they have done. Not judging anyone else, but simply the Vietnamese community in California. We all know that there tons of disputes happening between people that started from money, affairs with one’s lovers, or just the he said she said thing. The story of Thanh Ha is nothing compared and is only a small part, but it is blown up big simply because it involved a famous singer and people had taken the opportunity to create stories for their newspapers, magazines, and a “hot” topic to discuss for fun. And others will probably take this chance to profit them in other ways.