Lan Phuong, who plays the pretty vice-president of SBBT fashion house in the sitcom Co Gai Xau Xi (Ugly Girl) on VTV, is a very active woman in personal life. Phuong begins a normal day at 6 a.m. After breakfast she takes a bus to the film studio in District 8 where the sequel to Co gai xau xi is being filmed. She returns at 7 p.m. for private French tuitions until 8:45 p.m. But if she is performing at the Saigon Theater, she leaves a bit earlier. The 25-year-old is playing key roles in two plays now. Since childhood, Phuong has been hyperactive. She was a fixture at the Children’s Cultural House in Vung Tau and almost every local knew her as a familiar face on TV. She was the leader of a children’s charity group called Blue Doves. This four-member group of classmates collected wastepaper and old books from others in their class and sold them to raise funds. They used the money from the sale to buy notebooks and sweets for poor children in town. On special occasions like the Mid-Autumn Festival or International Children’s Day, Blue Doves would hold skits for poor children. Phuong has an interesting story to tell. A day before Mid-Autumn Festival one year, she called the Children’s Cultural House, told the manager she was from the Blue Doves charity group, and asked for a free show to be performed for poor children. Though she had never heard about the group before, the manager thought it was a major group and agreed. On the night of the show, she was surprised to discover that the “Blue Doves charity group” was made up of four children studying in junior high school. But the show was a success and the poor kids left a happy bunch. “At that time, I always did things on impulse,” Phuong says. “Now, whenever I recall the incident, I ask myself, ‘How could I do that?’” Later, she went on to perform many times at the venue. The active little girl was also chosen as a Junior Ambassador to the Asia-Pacific Children’s Convention (APCC) in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1999. She was 16 then. The APCC is a grassroots organization devoted to promoting international exchanges both within the community and throughout the world. Each year children from over 40 Asian-Pacific countries and territories are invited to Fukuoka for two weeks for cultural exchanges.

Peace ambassador

Last year Phuong received an email from an Indonesian friend that the APCC was seeking volunteers for its 20th anniversary. Since Phuong was a junior ambassador, her chances of being accepted were bright. Phuong dashed off her application but had to wait a long time before learning she was chosen. But since then she has been spending all her free time revising her Japanese for the trip on July 9th. The peace ambassadors, as Phuong and the others are called, will be taking care of the Junior Ambassadors attending the conference. Phuong says: “I’m lucky I’ll be living with the same family I lived with 10 years ago. This time I’ll try to talk to them in Japanese for the first time, not through gesticulations.”

Reported by Thanh Van

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