As Mai Khôi looked out the window of the local coffee shop we had met in, she noticed the snow.
“It’s started to snow. That’s why I feel so cold today,” she remarked.
Indeed, light flakes had begun to descend from the sky that mid-December Saturday morning. Over the whirling of an espresso machine and friends greeting each other for brunch, Mai smiled under a winter hat and told me that she loves the snow.
She told me that she loves Pittsburgh.
Mai, 39, is a resident of City of Asylum, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that houses artists and creators exiled from their countries for controversial writing. She left her home country of Vietnam three years ago to avoid being arrested for speaking out against censorship and the government’s treatment of women.
‘Lady Gaga of Vietnam’
Mai dreamed of becoming a pop star at 6 years old. She studied music from her father and joined his wedding band at 12. She wrote her first song that same year.
“My parents, my family always support me in whatever I want,” Mai said. “They really, really want me to be happy, too, and so they support me the best they can.”
After graduating high school, she moved from her home in Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City to start her career. After performing in different bars and clubs, Mai released her first album, which was followed by a second and a third.
Mai’s musical career took off after winning the Vietnam Television song and album of the year awards in 2010. At the height of her success, Mai was dubbed the “Lady Gaga of Vietnam.”
Yet, the woman sipping from a mug of coffee across from me seemed too humble and too human to have been a pop superstar who’s toured the world and whose discography boasts eight albums.
Looking back on her time in the mainstream spotlight, Mai said she remembers being unhappy with her fame.
“Things came easy, but I was really unhappy because I’d always feel uncomfortable writing songs or performing my songs,” Mai said. “I always had to give my songs to the culture department to have permission from them, and they always censored my lyrics.”
She said the Vietnamese government would even censor the clothes she wore during television performances.
“They always asked me to wear clothes that followed their idea. They have some concerns about how inviting my clothes were,” she laughed.
The catalyst for change
Her distaste for the country’s censorship was just one of the issues for which she felt passionately — she spoke out about LGBTQ rights, sexuality and violence against women. She also felt uncomfortable with things such as the significant gaps between social classes, as well as the government’s secrecy.
“I lived in a country that has so many things wrong with it,” she said. “Every day we have problems happen, but the government never gave us the answer why, and we know there is a big corruption in the government.”
Mai remembered in 2016 when Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, a steel plant located on the coast, dumped toxic waste into the ocean and caused a mass fish poisoning. The waste was later identified as containing phenol, cyanide and iron hydroxide, though the government initially denied any connection between the steel plant and the environmental disaster.
“Our beautiful beaches along the central part of the country, it’s like 400 kilometers long, along the beach had dead fish. All the fish died, and the government just lied to us,” she said. “They said that the water is still safe to swim. They never gave us the answer why they let that company do to the country what they did.”
Mai’s anger manifested in action as she joined others in the streets to protest the government’s lack of transparency. She witnessed police beating protesters on the streets, “and that was the highest level of anger inside me.”
At the same time, Mai nominated herself to the National Assembly of Vietnam. She ran as an independent candidate but was later disqualified by the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, a group aligned with the Communist Party.
“I wanted to let people know about their rights,” she said. “They didn’t know anything about their rights to participate in politics, and I thought I could use my fame to raise awareness about that even though we know it’s very difficult for a person who’s not a Communist Party member to run, to sit in a government — it is impossible. But, I still did it. Just only raising awareness for people is important.”
Mai, along with other Vietnamese activists, met in May 2016 with President Barack Obama in Hanoi, the nation’s capital, to discuss improving human rights.
Following her meeting with Obama, Mai said she experienced an increase in police surveillance and was banned from performing in public. When she did perform, her shows were raided and shut down.
Mai said she was isolated and had to move nearly every month for almost four years, as authorities would pressure different landlords to evict her.
“I don’t know why at that time I was so brave,” Mai said. “I believed that I was still following the law, their rules. I was trying to do the right things, never against the law.”
Mai recounted how she befriended activists, and together they planned multiple movements and environmental campaigns. They even organized secret events in Hanoi where she would perform with her underground band, Mai Khôi and the Dissidents, to raise awareness for politics and human rights.
Seeking asylum
Mai was threatened with arrest in 2019 and decided to flee the country for New York.
“I didn’t feel fear at the time, but now I look back and think it was dangerous,” Mai said. “Before I left Vietnam, many of my friends were arrested. Three of them were independent candidates for the National Assembly election, just like me … and now they arrest environmental activists.”
A documentary about Mai and her rise to political activism was being shown at DocNYC, an annual documentary film festival. The sponsorship allowed her to travel to the Big Apple, where she stayed with SHIM:NYC, a residency program for international musicians who have been displaced.
About a year later, in November 2020, Mai was awarded an Artist Protection Fund fellowship in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh, the City of Asylum and the International Free Expression Project.
She has since become an artist-in-residence at the City of Asylum, located on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Mai said she loves living on the North Side, and she recommended the two of us meet at Buena Vista Street’s Commonplace Coffee location because it’s where her favorite coffee in the city is sold.
“When I first came here to see the city, I just fell in love with the city because it’s beautiful, it has a lot of bridges and is very green,” she said.
Mai said she had been to Pittsburgh once before, in July 2020, on the way to Michigan. Although she was only passing through for a single night, she visited the houses of the City of Asylum on Sampsonia Way. A few months later, she was placed in Pittsburgh on the same street.
“I am so lucky that I was placed here because I’ve been traveling a lot in many cities around the world and I love Pittsburgh the most,” she said. “I decided to just stay here because the Pittsburgh art scene is very interesting.”
Mai said she has met many talented artists during her time in Pittsburgh, all friendly, supportive and eager to work with new artists like herself.
“I feel very supported here, the most,” Mai said. “Local organizations are so wonderful, like City of Asylum and many other organizations.”
Yet, Mai still misses her family in Vietnam, as they do her. She said she still talks to them and that they feel she is safer in America. They warn her against returning to Vietnam.
‘Bad Activist’
After years of development, perhaps Mai’s biggest work, “Bad Activist” premiered Sept. 15 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. It was produced by the International Free Expression Project and Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation.
“Bad Activist” is an autobiographical multimedia piece that combines storytelling with genre-bending music. Mai sums up the thesis of the piece: In “Bad Activist” she tells her own story and sings her own songs.
According to her website, “her new sound is rooted in forgotten Vietnamese musical traditions yet looks to the world, with her most political, yet personal, song lyrics to date. ‘Bad Activist’ explores both the actual historic events of the artist’s life, as well as the subconscious dream worlds that have fueled her work.”
Mai said she began to sow the seeds for “Bad Activist” during her residency in New York, and she later met artists through the University of Pittsburgh with whom she has collaborated to further develop “Bad Activist.”
“It was another luck that I came here,” she said. “They are excellent. They are very, very creative, and easy and open to work with. We’re still working together, and now we 100% understand each other.”
The dissident
Mai continues to make and perform music around Pittsburgh. She and other musicians gather every other Monday for Open Improvisation Lab sessions, a series of improvised performances open to anyone to join, at Telephone, an art gallery in Bloomfield.
“We created that space together to have musicians, artists community who like to do weird shit,” she said. “It’s very nice there.”
Despite having diverged from her initial pop sound and into something closer to folk/jazz, Mai said her message has not changed over the years.
“I think my message still focuses on freedom of expression, that hasn’t changed much,” she said. After participating in Black Lives Matter protests in New York for weeks while she was living there, Mai said she has drawn parallels between Vietnam and America.
“I’ve seen so many things here that are kind of similar to what happened in Vietnam, like the cruelty of the police,” she said, “The message in my piece, ‘Bad Activist’ is focused on freedom of expression. It’s based on issues that happen around the world … and what I experienced.”
For her work in advocating for freedom of expression, Mai was awarded the Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech in April. Previous winners include former South African President Nelson Mandela, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
Even today, Mai cannot believe her name appears on a list next to so many impactful and famous people.
“This is like a big encouragement for me, but I also feel like I wasn’t deserved,” Mai said. “There are many people who fight harder than me who are more deserved to receive that prize. But again, I think I am lucky, I’m just luckier than other people, other activists.”
Keeping the fire alive
In the new year, Mai said she wants to continue to focus on “Bad Activist.” She cited improvements that could be made to the projection design during the show and said another performance of the piece will take place once invited by a host or venue.
Although the original Mai Khôi and the Dissidents group dissolved years ago in Vietnam, Mai has since resurrected the band with Pittsburgh musicians. Her website calls the group “an eclectic jazz-pop quintet that’s as likely to launch into a noisy protest song or collective improvisation as a lullaby or a love ballad.”
Two shows for Mai Khôi and the Dissidents are already scheduled for 2023. Fans can hear new songs from the group on Jan. 14 at The Space Upstairs in Point Breeze and on Feb. 19 at Sprezzatura in Millvale.
Continuing to perform is important to Mai, as “this is the way I keep fighting.”
“I know many people don’t know about the human rights situation in Vietnam, so I’m making this piece to remind people about that,” she said.
Mai said she still talks and organizes with her activist friends in Vietnam “to keep the fire alive.”
Hannah is a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Email her hwyman@unionprogress.com.
