[Sorry I haven't been blogging lately - just haven't been feeling it.]

On Friday, Nhung and I went to watch the filming of Hay Chon Gia Dung, which is the Vietnamese version of The Price is Right!  Nhung manages Tim’s business importing nutritional supplements from the U.S., and I work with her a lot on that business.  She is considering advertising our supplements on Hay Chon Gia Dung, and the producer offered us free tickets to check out the show in person.

Here we are on the way to the show:

Here’s Nhung cheesing out with her ticket:

And here I am doing the same:

Here we are in the stands:

Crowd shot (I was the only white person there):

Blurry shot of stage, including the Vietnamese Bob Barker:

Shot from side of stage:

So it was pretty fun – the show is an exact copy of The Price is Right.  Same music; same games; same big spinning wheel for the “Showcase Showdown,” etc.  Nhung says they “license” The Price is Right.  I think it’s more likely that some Vietnamese guy happened to catch an episode of The Price is Right on late-night satellite television and figured “Hell, I can do that.”

The “set” was the inside of a high-school gym.  The backdrops, games, etc., were predictably crappy – a lot of the lights were burned out or flickering, you could tell the backdrops were cut out of plywood, etc.  After they rolled out one of the games, they realized that it didn’t work so they had to roll it back in and brought out a different game to play instead.

Filming also started an hour late, so we weren’t able to stay for the whole time.  But of the six contestants we saw get called down while we were there, two of them shook my hand as they made their way down to the floor.  As the lone white guy, you get a little extra attention.

Actually, when we were entering the building and getting our nametags and numbers, etc., the owner/producer of the show was there at the front desk.  He asked Nhung if I spoke Vietnamese well because he always wanted an American contestant to play.  Alas, Thursday was not his (or my) lucky day, as my Vietnamese is still very bad!  But maybe someday I too can be up on stage speculating on whether a box of Vietnamese kleenex is 13,000 dong or 15,000 dong.