HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is having a Paris Hilton moment.
An online sex video featuring a popular celebrity has riveted the nation for more than a week now, much as Hilton’s clip seized the attention of Americans when it hit the Internet several years ago.
But unlike Hilton, the 19-year-old woman at the center of Vietnam’s sex scandal won’t be able to capitalize on her newfound notoriety.
Hoang Thuy Linh’s show has been canceled and the actress has made a tearful farewell on national television.
”I made a mistake, a terrible mistake,” said the doe-faced teen, who had cultivated a good-girl image. ”I apologize to you, my parents, my teachers and my friends.”
Her fall from grace has highlighted the generational fault-lines in Vietnam, a sexually conservative culture within which women have been taught for centuries to remain chaste until marriage and stay true to one man — no matter how many times he cheats on them. …
Sex Scandal Snares Young Vietnamese Star – New York Times
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This has been the big thing in Vietnam over the last couple of weeks. The day it hit, everyone was watching it. The odd thing is that as much as people say it’s conservative over here, it still doesn’t stop people from talking about it or watching it. A bit hypocritical if you ask me. Friends were telling me that people would watch it at work, even, I guess there’s no such thing as NSFW (not safe for work) in Vietnam office culture. I do agree with the article/people in the article when they say Thuy Linh’s career is over, though. While I don’t think anything with her would fail (like people would ban a movie with her), no one would take her on, especially since the government has so much power over the media. Who would want to risk offending one of the ministries?
Hoang Thuy Linh lives in Hanoi too, a coworker of mine knows her.
Another American-type scandalous subject is that they film school fights here too. Saw someone watching Vietnamese school girl fights, same type of “fight! fight! fight!” mentality.
Drama drama everywhere.
Edit (05/17/2008): Even 7 months later after this post, this post gets the most page views of all my posts every week, by far. 5 times more than any other post all time on this site. Added some more pics of her for those who are looking for that, but if you want the video, well, try a torrent.
Pics:
she is so cute, too bad for her that her career is probably almost non existent. Now if she were here, boy would she blow up! You know how it is, you don’t become famous until you have released a private sex tape.lol
Time for my sex tape then
lol thats hilarious, knock yourself out buddy, hey thats a good gimmick, you tell some girl over there you have a way to make her famous over here. She say how anh? You say we make a sextape,,,, ohhhh vay ha? Thats my boy BIG MIKE!!!!!
Unfortunately, in this culture, it would never work. In the US, however there are plenty of websites dedicated to that kind of scam.
In Vietnam this whole incident is long forgotten now. I am glad that she was able to move forward.
I wouldn’t say long forgotten. I think everyone knows and thinks of her name with the scandal. She’s off singing, but she’s not a star by any means.